Court Opinion

ID: 9769824
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:02:50.996905+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:08.349307
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, Judge,
dissenting.
The rule of collateral estoppel has now been well accepted as “part of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against double jeopardy.” Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 441, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1193, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970). The question in this case, then, is whether, after the municipal court decided that no probable cause existed to arrest appellee, the State can constitutionally compel him before the county court in order to re-litigate this issue. Id at 445, 90 S.Ct. at 1195. No doubt, and as the majority notes, it makes no difference to our analysis that the hearing in municipal court was administrative, so long as the “administrative agency [was] acting in a judicial capacity and [had] resolved disputed issues of fact properly before it.” United States v. Utah Construction and Mining Co., 384 U.S. 394, 419, 86 S.Ct. 1545, 1559, 16 L.Ed.2d 642 (1966). This Court held in Ex parte Tarver, 725 S.W.2d 195,198 (Tex.Crim. App.1986), however, that an administrative agency does not act in a judicial capacity when it merely makes fact findings, but rather, when it makes those findings “after a full hearing on the issue at which both the State and an accused are represented by counsel.”
The demands of our double jeopardy jurisprudence, however, are not quite so rigorous. No doubt, double jeopardy requires a full judicial hearing. But the majority, understandably, takes our holding in Tarver to demand, for purposes of finding that an administrative agency acted in a judicial capacity, much more, including an extensive and formal hearing, with live witnesses, at which both sides are represented by counsel. To the extent that Tarver says as much, we ought to take the opportunity to clarify and qualify it here. This, because a full judicial hearing requires only the resolution of a dispute between parties, each of whom has had the opportunity to be heard. United States v. Utah Construction and Mining Co., 384 U.S. 394, 419, 86 S.Ct. 1545, 1559, 16 L.Ed.2d 642 (1966). In other words, a hearing is no less full or judicial because, as in this case, the State, having had the opportunity to present witnesses and submit documents on all pertinent issues, failed to do so. To hold otherwise would mean, for example, that if a pro-se defendant was acquitted on murder charges after a brief trial at which the State failed to show up, the State would not be constitutionally barred from attempting to re-litigate that case. This, of course, would be absurd and no less so if the hearing happened to be administrative and not criminal in nature.
That said, I would refer the majority to Tex. Civ. Stat. art. 6701Z-5, § 2, which requires a hearing if any driver who has been stopped upon the suspicion that he is intoxicated refuses a chemical test of his breath. The State must prove both that probable cause to arrest the accused for driving while intoxicated existed and that, after being placed under arrest and upon the arresting police officer’s request, the driver refused to submit to a chemical breath test. At this hearing, the State may call witnesses and submit documents in order to sustain its burden. Tex. Civ. Stat. 6687b, § 22(a). In this case, however, the State failed to do so. *262Thus, having nothing before it to suggest that probable cause existed for the arrest of appellee, the municipal court concluded that there was a “lack of probable cause.” Nothing in the record indicates that the State was hindered, in any way, from introducing witnesses and documents so it could meet its burden. Although not extensive, then, the hearing in this case was undoubtedly full in that both parties had an opportunity to present evidence bearing on all the relevant issues after which the court ruled on those issues. Double jeopardy, and, thus, collateral estoppel demands no more.
I would, therefore, reverse the court of appeals and sustain the trial court’s finding that the State lacked probable cause to stop appellee’s automobile. Because the majority does not, I respectfully dissent.