Court Opinion

ID: 9635106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:36:54.870723+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:18.433241
License: Public Domain

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting.
The trial court granted Woodard’s motion to suppress. The State is the appellant. Our mandate is clear:
If the trial court’s ruling regarding a motion to suppress is reasonably supported by the record and is correct under any theory of law applicable to the case, the reviewing court must affirm.1
Consequently, in this case we may reverse the trial court only if we replace the trial judge’s determinations of credibility with our own or if, deferring to his determinations of credibility and viewing all the evidence only in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, we conclude that there is no theory of law supported by the record as viewed by the trial court that could support the trial court’s ruling.
Certain well established rules govern our appellate review:
In a motion to suppress hearing, the trial court is the sole trier of fact and judge of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony. Accordingly, the judge may believe or disbelieve all or any part of a witness’s testimony, even if that testimony is not controverted. This is so because it is the trial court that observes first hand the demeanor and appearance of a witness, as opposed to an appellate court which can only read an impersonal record.2
The trial court filed written findings of fact and conclusions of law, clearly setting out the trial court’s determinations of credibility. Again, the law is well established: “In reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, appellate courts must view all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling.”3 When, as here,
[i]n a motion to suppress hearing where the only evidence presented is the testimony of the arresting officer (which, if believed, adds up to probable cause) ... [t]he trial court may have disbelieved the officer on at least one material fact, or the trial court may be in a situation in which it does not know what exactly the facts are, but it does know (on the basis of demeanor, appearance, and credibility) that they are not as the witness describes. In this situation, the appellate court does not necessarily have a set of historical facts to which it may apply the law. The determination of probable cause rests entirely on the credibility of the lone witness. This scenario is a mixed question of law and fact, the resolution of which turns on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor. The *100proper standard of review is therefore the second category of Guzman, “almost total deference” to the trial ruling.4
Even if the trial court does not make explicit findings of fact,
the appellate court infers the necessary factual findings that support the trial court’s ruling if the record evidence (viewed in the light most favorable to the ruling) supports these implied fact findings. Thus, we afford almost total deference to a trial judge’s determination of the historical facts that the record supports, especially when his implicit factfinding is based on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor. This same highly deferential standard applies regardless of whether the trial court has granted or denied a motion to suppress evidence. Thus, the party that prevailed in the trial court is afforded the strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from that evidence.5
Although “whether a given set of historical facts amounts to a consensual police-citizen encounter or a detention under the Fourth Amendment is subject to de novo review because that is an issue of law-the application of legal principles to a specific set of facts,”6 we do not re-write the facts in order to legitimate the police-citizen contact under the guise of employing a presumption of correct police activity. A presumption of correct police activity is not a presumption that any witness is telling the truth. A presumption of correct police activity is not a mandate that the trial judge must automatically believe witnesses who testify to justify police activity. We cannot and must not substitute our determination of the facts and the credibility of the witnesses in order to achieve the result that we believe the trial court should have reached.
We do know that the trial court believed Officer Warner when he testified that Woodard was not so intoxicated that he constituted a threat to himself or to others. We also know that the trial court believed Officer Warner when he testified that Woodard was walking without staggering or otherwise indicating that he was intoxicated.
This case is controlled in part by article 14.01 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and the reasoning of State v. Steelman.7 Article 14.01 provides,
(a) A peace officer or any other person, may, without a warrant, arrest an offender when the offense is committed in his presence or within his view, if the offense is one classed as a felony or as an offense against the public peace.
(b) A peace officer may arrest an offender without a warrant for any offense committed in his presence or within his view.8
In upholding the trial court’s suppression of evidence, the Steelman court held that the arresting officers did not have probable cause to believe that Steelman had committed an offense in their presence, even though they had received a tip that someone at his residence was dealing drugs and officers personally smelled the odor of marijuana in the air when Steel-man opened the front door.9 The officers had no personal knowledge regarding who *101was smoking or possessing marijuana.10 Consequently, the officers had no authority to make a warrantless arrest.11 Nor could the State justify the officers’ actions based on a theory not relied on in the trial court.12
In the case now before this court, no officer observed Woodard commit any offense. Information about the car in the ditch came from a person who “did not provide any contact information (name, address, telephone number, date of birth, etc.) to the dispatcher so that the tipster could be located at a later date.” The anonymous tip did not satisfy the requirement that the officers personally view the commission of the misdemeanor in order to justify the warrantless misdemeanor arrest.13
The majority, in setting aside the trial court’s finding of facts and determinations of credibility, relies on two cases in which the arresting officer did not see the defendant commit the misdemeanor DWI offense for which he arrested the defendant.14 Because the officer in each case testified that he observed the offense of public intoxication, the cases hold that an officer who sees a person commit the offense of public intoxication may properly arrest that person for public intoxication even though the officer believes he is arresting for DWI; assigning the wrong name to the offense does not invalidate the arrest.15
.But there are two problems with the majority’s relying on this line of cases in reversing the trial court’s determinations of credibility of facts and of law. First, the State did not argue to the trial court that Officer Warner observed Woodard commit the offense of public intoxication, and the State did not argue that Officer Warner could have arrested Woodard for public intoxication. The State is the appellant. This court cannot reverse the trial court’s ruling on a ground not raised by the appealing party below.16
The second problem with the majority’s attempt to set aside the trial court’s determinations of credibility of facts and of the law is that there is no evidence that Officer Warner observed Woodard commit the offense of public intoxication, but there is affirmative evidence that Officer Warner did not observe Woodard commit the offense of public intoxication. A person commits the offense of public intoxication only when “the person appears in a public place while intoxicated to the degree that the person may endanger the person or another.”17
Officer Warner testified,
Q. And there was nothing about the way that Mr. Woodard was walking that was illegal, correct?
A. No, sir, nothing illegal.
Q. All right. In other words, he wasn’t walking in the street in a manner which was dangerous to other people?
*102A. No, sir. As a matter of fact, I believe he was walking on a sidewalk, a public sidewalk.
[[Image here]]
Q. So he certainly wasn’t endangering anyone?
A. No, sir, he was not.
Q. He wasn’t endangering himself?
A. No, sir, he was not.
Q. So you didn’t think he was committing the offense of public intoxication at that time, correct?
A. No, sir, I did not.18
Officer Warner specifically denied that he personally observed Woodard commit the offense of public intoxication. The State, therefore, did not rely in the trial court on the theory that Officer Warner personally observed Woodard commit the offense of public intoxication. The trial court believed that Officer Warner was telling the truth.
Again, our mandate is
to uphold the trial court’s ruling on appellant’s motion to suppress if that ruling was supported by the record and was correct under any theory of law applicable to the case. That rule holds true even if the trial court gave the wrong reason for its ruling. Our task, then, is to determine whether the trial court could have reasonably denied appellant’s motion to suppress given the record evidence and given the applicable federal and state law.19
The same mandate applies when the trial court grants a motion to suppress.20 ‘We must affirm the granting of the motion to suppress if it is correct under any theory of law applicable to the case, even if not raised by appellee in the trial court.”21 We must do so, in part, because
[i]n a motion to suppress hearing, the trial court is the sole trier of fact and judge of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony. Accordingly, the judge may believe or disbelieve all or any part of a witness’s testimony, even if that testimony is not controverted. This is so because it is the trial court that observes firsthand the demeanor and appearance of a witness, as opposed to an appellate court which can only read an impersonal record.22
The trial court entered findings of fact and conclusions of law that clearly indicated that no officers observed Woodard commit a misdemeanor offense in their presence. At no time has the State claimed, and there is no evidence that there was any suspicion, reasonable or otherwise, that Woodard committed a felony.
Additionally, there is neither a videotape nor an audio recording of Woodard’s detention or his purported admissions, and the record contains no indication that Officer Warner complied with article 2.133 or article 2.135 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.23
The majority states that Woodard did not disprove Officer Warner’s representa*103tion that the encounter was consensual. The majority, however, improperly places the burden of proof on the citizen detained rather than on the State. The law is well established that while the person seized originally bears the burden of proof at the suppression hearing, once the defendant establishes the fact that his arrest was warrantless, the “burden then shift[s] to the State to establish that the seizure was conducted pursuant to a warrant or was reasonable.”24 This burden is a burden of persuasion.
It is uncontested that Woodard was detained and then arrested without a warrant. Contrary to the majority’s statement, there is no presumption of proper police conduct to justify the warrantless detention. There was no such presumption for Woodard to overcome. The burden was on the State to justify the war-rantless detention and arrest. The State attempted to do this by persuading the trial court that the probable cause to arrest was lawfully obtained as the result of a consensual encounter that included voluntary responses to the officer’s questions after the officer stopped Woodard, who was walking down the sidewalk. The officer admitted that he stopped Woodard and questioned him, but the officer claimed that the answers were volunteered.25 He also admitted that he required Woodard to perform field sobriety tests after Woodard responded to his questions.
Because the State is appealing, reversal is required only if the trial court abused its discretion by failing to uphold the detention and arrest on a ground proved and argued by the State in the trial court. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has explained this well established rule:
Ordinary notions of procedural default should apply equally to the defendant and the State. Therefore we hold that in cases in which the State is the party appealing, the basic principle of appellate jurisprudence that points not argued at trial are deemed to be waived applies equally to the State and the defense. In the instant case, once Appel-lee established standing in the premises to be searched and that the search was conducted without a warrant, he satisfied his burden of establishing his Fourth Amendment claim and the burden shifted to the State to establish an exception to the warrant requirement. The only theory argued by the State and presented by the facts was that the search was a proper inventory. The trial court’s ruling was specifically limited to the facts and legal arguments presented to it. Thus the trial court cannot be held to have abused its discretion in ruling on the only theory of law presented to it.26
The burden was not on Woodard to prove that his detention and arrest were not reasonable. It is uncontested that he was arrested and prosecuted for misdemeanor DWI. The trial court so found. No officer observed Woodard commit any misdemeanor offense. The trial court so found.
Although courts speak of a person’s being free to leave when a police officer approaches him, courts also hold fairly regularly that walking or running away when an officer approaches provides reasonable suspicion for the officer to detain the person. It is, indeed, a lose, lose situation for any person a police officer *104wants to speak to. He is free to leave, unless he leaves. When the officer approached Neal in Neal v. State, Neal ran when the officer asked him for identification.27 Running was a suspicious circumstance.28 In Clarke v. State, this court held that the officer lawfully detained the defendant because he matched the description of a white male with large thighs and buttocks wearing dark shorts and a white t-shirt, and “Clarke’s activity was not as consistent with innocent activity as with criminal activity when he ran away from the officer.”29 In Guzman v. State, a drug dealer pointed out a person who, he reported to the police officer, had some heroin.30 As the officer approached him, Guzman walked away and appeared to swallow. These actions created both reasonable suspicion and an exigent circumstance justifying the officer’s seizing Guzman.31
In Johnson v. State,32 the defendant ran when the police appeared. Although they saw no offense and had no report of any offense, the officers chased him and yelled for him to stop. Because he did not yield to their show of authority, there was no seizure, although they chased him down until they actually caught him.33 By the time they tackled him, they had reasonable suspicion to detain him for questioning because they saw him carrying something purple and thought he might have a gun, and he had acted suspiciously by running. The Johnson courts followed the mandate of California v. Hodari, D.34 Perhaps, a person is free to walk slowly away from a consensual encounter, but not to run or to walk quickly away. Running or walking too fast creates reasonable suspicion.
But in the case now before this court, Woodard did not walk away. The State therefore did not and could not rely on a “walking away” justification.
The trial court’s factual determinations are supported by the record, and we may not disturb them. Nor may this court substitute its determinations of credibility for those of the trial court. And this court is bound to consider only the grounds for affirming the detention that the State relied on in the trial court. We cannot go out and find a ground for reversing the trial court that the State did not present to the trial court. The law and the facts require that we affirm the trial court’s granting of the motion to suppress. Because the majority does not, I must respectfully dissent from the majority’s thorough and carefully written opinion.

. Young v. State, 283 S.W.3d 854, 873 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 130 S.Ct. 1015, - L.Ed.2d - (2009) (citing Romero v. State, 800 S.W.2d 539, 543-44 (Tex.Crim.App.1990)).

. State v. Ross, 32 S.W.3d 853, 855 (Tex.Crim.App.2000) (citing Garcia v. State, 15 S.W.3d 533, 535 (Tex.Crim.App.2000); State v. Ballard, 987 S.W.2d 889, 891 (Tex.Crim.App.1999); Allridge v. State, 850 S.W.2d 471, 492 (Tex.Crim.App.1991), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 831, 114 S.Ct. 101, 126 L.Ed.2d 68 (1993); Meek v. State, 790 S.W.2d 618, 620 (Tex.Crim.App.1990); Mattias v. State, 731 S.W.2d 936, 940 (Tex.Crim.App.1987); State v. Fecci, 9 S.W.3d 212, 221 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 1999, no pet.)).

.State v. Garcia-Cantu, 253 S.W.3d 236, 241 (Tex.Crim.App.2008).

. Ross, 32 S.W.3d at 856.

. Garcia-Cantu, 253 S.W.3d at 241.

. Id.

. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 14.01 (Vernon 2005); State v. Steelman, 93 S.W.3d 102 (Tex.Crim.App.2002).

. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 14.01.

. Steelman, 93 S.W.3d at 108.

. Id.

. Id.

. Id. at 107.

. See Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 14.01.

. Reynolds v. State, 902 S.W.2d 558 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1995, pet. ref'd); Kelley v. State, No. 02-06-339-CR, 2008 WL 110517 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2008, pet. ref'd) (mem. op., not designated for publication).

. Reynolds, 902 S.W.2d at 560 & n. 3; Kelley, 2008 WL 110517, at *2.

. State v. Mercado, 972 S.W.2d 75, 78 (Tex.Crim.App.1998).

. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 49.02(a) (Vernon Supp.2009).

. I R.R. at 37-38.

. Armendariz v. State, 123 S.W.3d 401, 404 (Tex.Crim.App.2003) (citations omitted), cert. denied, 541 U.S. 974, 124 S.Ct. 1883, 158 L.Ed.2d 469 (2004).

. Ross, 32 S.W.3d at 855.

. State v. Stevens, 187 S.W.3d 565, 567 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Disl.] 2006), rev'd on other grounds, 235 S.W.3d 736 (Tex.Crim.App.2007).

. Ross, 32 S.W.3d at 855.

. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. arts. 2.133, 2.135 (Vernon Supp.2009).

.Bishop v. State, 85 S.W.3d 819, 822 (Tex. Crim.App.2002); see Sieffert v. State, 290 S.W.3d 478, 484 & n. 8 (Tex.App.-Amarillo 2009, no pet.) (quoting Bishop).

. I.R.R. at 24.

. Mercado, 972 S.W.2d at 78.

. 256 S.W.3d 264, 281 (Tex.Crim.App.2008), cert. denied, - U.S. -, 129 S.Ct. 1037, 173 L.Ed.2d 471 (2009).

. Id.

. 785 S.W.2d 860, 868-69 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 1990), aff’d, 811 S.W.2d 99 (Tex.Crim. App.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 946, 112 S.Ct. 390, 116 L.Ed.2d 340 (1991).

. 955 S.W.2d 85 (Tex.Crim.App.1997).

. Id. at 91-92.

. 864 S.W.2d 708, 715-16 (Tex.App.-Dallas 1993) (Johnson I), aff’d, 912 S.W.2d 227 (Tex.Crim.App. 1995) (Johnson II).

. Johnson II, 912 S.W.2d at 235; Johnson I, 864 S.W.2d at 715-16.

. 499 U.S. 621, 626-28, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 1551, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991).