Court Opinion

ID: 9773804
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:59:35.322527+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:58.027726
License: Public Domain

WALKER, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
This case was remanded to this Court by our Court of Criminal Appeals, State v. Carter, 915 S.W.2d 501 (Tex. Crim App.1996), bearing rather strong language, to wit: ‘We cannot condone this obstruction of the institutional role of the trial court in our criminal justice system.”
Having written the majority opinion, State v. Carter, 882 S.W.2d 940 (Tex.App. — Beau*412mont 1994), silence may be mistakenly viewed as an admission to such obstruction, therefore I write again — for obstruction was not my quest nor has it ever been.
We now have a new majority which, in effect, holds the trial court did not abuse its discretion in suppressing the evidence. In our original opinion, Justice Burgess dissented determining there was no showing of exigent circumstances to excuse obtaining a warrant.
While the institutional role of the trial court should be somewhat free from obstruction, I disagree that such freedom should be “carte blanche” for disregarding the evidence before it, considering matters not in evidence, and then premising its ruling upon such ex parte consideration.
Foregoing a restatement of the facts, I point out the only live witness testifying at the suppression hearing was Detective Alton James Baise. Officer Baise testified unequivocally his informant was reliable and had been so on six occasions, four resulting in arrest. From the brief Statement of Facts one thing is glaringly apparent — the trial court simply disregarded Officer Baise’s testimony. Rather, the trial judge relied on the report of Officer Levy, deceased. To make this even more disconcerting, the trial judge relied upon deceased Officer Levy’s report following the denial of appellant’s request to have the report produced, as the following colloquy illustrates:
MR. KIMLER: Your Honor, I ask that both Officer Levy’s report and this officer’s report be produced.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Your Honor, he hasn’t testified that he used' Officer Levy’s report in preparation for testimony. He only stated that he may have read it in connection with filing the case. In fact, he specifically stated he did not read Officer Levy’s report before testifying today.
THE COURT: How long a report could there be on something like this, three or four lines?
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Officer Levy’s report, Your Honor, as is typical for Detective Levy, a long page, single-spaced, Your Honor.
THE COURT: Okay. If he used it for recollection, under the rules, you can use it. If he didn’t refresh his memory with it today, then ... I’ll deny the request.
(By Mr. Kimler)
Q. Does Detective Levy’s report form a basis of your testimony today?
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Q. So, nothing in Detective Levy’s report that you’re not already aware of is not going to be put in your testimony; is that right?
A. All I can testify to is that Detective Levy informed me where he located the cocaine at on the defendant. That’s all I can do.
At the conclusion of Officer Baise’s testimony, counsel for appellant called appellant to testify. The following occurred:
MR. KIMLER: Your Honor, I’d call Mr. Carter to the stand.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: I have nothing further, Your Honor.
THE COURT: That’s okay. That won’t be necessary. I’m going to go ahead and grant the motion to suppress.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: I’ll need the Court to make specific findings. I’m sure you realize this is a test case because of the deceased officer, and I need a ruling. And for that specific purpose, Your Honor, I’ve got several cases like this that I need to get a ruling from the Ninth Court on.
MR. KIMLER: Your Honor, I have no objection to that; but I would state that I’m not attempting to test this because of the deceased status of the officer. Even if he had been alive, in my opinion, this would have been an invalid search; and I would have done the same thing.
THE COURT: Yeah. And I ordered Detective Levy’s report turned over mainly because it does contain exculpatory information and that is that it appears to be, on this type case, it is as complete of a report as you usually get, and there’s absolutely no mention of an attempt to obtain consent to search either of these persons. And the fact that there are written consent forms and those forms can certainly be *413changed to accommodate a person, house, ear, whatever you want to do, if they had one, they probably had another one they could have used if they had wanted. There’s no suspicious activity. This doesn’t even rise to the Terry situation where people are in suspicious places doing suspicious things.
So, I just find that there was no probable cause at all to walk up and begin searching.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: If I may, Your Honor, just to establish the parameters fully, is the Court, then, finding that the evidence is insufficient to show that the confidential informant was a reliable confidential informant?
THE COURT: The confidential informant is irrelevant really. And it doesn’t rise to the necessity of needing a warrant because, you know, they can go out there and observe people. And if it was a consent search ...
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Is the Court finding that there are no exigent circumstances to cover the lack of a search warrant?
MR. KIMLER: Even if there were—
THE COURT: (Interrupting) Even if there were, it doesn’t matter.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: I understand that, Your Honor; but I do have to have all the parameters established firmly as to what the findings of the Court are.
THE COURT: I will find that there definitely were no warrants and that sort of thing. But there’s no need for one either. I think the officer exceeded— there was no reasonable suspicion that they were doing anything.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: Even taking into account the information from the confidential informant.
THE COURT: Yes, sir.
MR. RODRIGUEZ: And there were no exigent circumstances.
THE COURT: Right.
I feel the present majority is dangerous precedent. The trial court simply disbelieved Officer Baise and accepted the content of Officer Levy’s report, which was not properly before the Court for its consideration. In my opinion, the present majority renders meaningless Tex.Code CRiM. Peoc. Ann. § 44.01(a)(5) (Vernon Supp.1994), regarding the State’s ability to appeal an order suppressing evidence. If an appellate court has the authority to simply presume a trial court disbelieved the uncontradicted testimony of an arresting officer when reviewing the trial court’s decision to suppress, the State would never prevail upon appeal.
I view the institutional role of trial courts as very important, not sacred or infallible. Likewise, deference to trial court decisions on motions to suppress is also very important, though not holy or omniscient. Deference, however, does not end at the intermediate appellate level. See Arcila v. State, 834 S.W.2d 357, 360 (Tex.Crim.App.1992).