Jose Espinoza, Jr. v. State ( 2007 )

IN THE

TENTH COURT OF APPEALS

 

No. 10-06-00282-CR

Jose Espinoza, Jr.,

                                                                                    Appellant

 v.

The State of Texas,

                                                                                    Appellee

From the 66th District Court

Hill County, Texas

Trial Court No. 34,443

MEMORANDUM  Opinion

After the trial court denied Jose Espinoza’s motion to suppress, he pled guilty to driving while intoxicated with a child passenger.  The trial court permitted Espinoza to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress.  We will affirm.

Background

On March 4, 2006, at approximately 1:00 a.m., Deputy Wesley Collins was patrolling in Hill County when he noticed Espinoza’s car on the property known as Gator Exxon Truck Stop.  Deputy Collins first observed Espinoza’s headlights shining from the rear of the service station, which he found unusual because the business was no longer open due to a significant road construction project taking place along Interstate 35 directly across the access road.  The parking lot had also been enclosed by barricades placed far enough apart that a car could go through them at a slow speed. 

After Espinoza’s car left the truck stop, Deputy Collins stopped Espinoza to ascertain why he was at the station.  In his sole issue, Espinoza asserts that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained as a result of the stop, because the officer lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop.

Standard of Review

We review a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress under a bifurcated standard of review.  Carmouche v. State, 10 S.W.3d 323, 327-28 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000); Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89-90 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997).  A trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress is reviewed for abuse of discretion.  Oles v. State, 993 S.W.2d 103, 106 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999).

The trial court’s findings of fact are given “almost total deference,” and in the absence of explicit findings, the appellate court assumes the trial court made whatever appropriate implicit findings are supported by the record.  Carmouche, 10 S.W.3d at 327-28; Guzman, 955 S.W.2d at 89-90.  However, the application of the relevant law to the facts, including Fourth Amendment search and seizure law, is reviewed de novo. Carmouche, 10 S.W.3d at 327.  Also, when the facts are undisputed and we are presented with a pure question of law, de novo review is proper.  Oles, 993 S.W.2d at 106.  Thus, when the issue to be determined on appeal is whether an officer had reasonable suspicion, “the trial judge is not in an appreciably better position than the reviewing court to make that determination.”  Guzman, 955 S.W.2d at 87.  Therefore, although due weight should be given to the inferences drawn by trial judges and law enforcement officers, determinations of matters such as reasonable suspicion and probable cause should be reviewed de novo on appeal.  Id.  (citing Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S. Ct. 1657, 1663, 134 L. Ed. 2d 911 (1996)).

Traffic Stop

A traffic stop is a “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, even though the purpose of the stop is limited and the resulting detention is quite brief.  Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 653, 99 S. Ct. 1391, 1396, 59 L. Ed. 2d 660 (1979); see United States v. Brigham, 382 F.3d 500, 506 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc); Francis v. State, 922 S.W.2d 176, 178 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996).  Therefore, a traffic stop must be reasonable under the United States and Texas Constitutions.  See U.S. Const. amend. IV; Tex. Const. art. I, § 9.

A police officer is generally justified in briefly detaining an individual on less than probable cause for the purposes of investigating possible criminal behavior where the officer can point to specific and articulable facts, which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the intrusion.  Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968); Carmouche, 10 S.W.3d at 328.  However, the officer must have reasonable suspicion that the individual is connected to criminal activity.  State v. Larue, 28 S.W.3d 549, 553 n.8 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000).

The reasonableness of a traffic stop must be examined in terms of the totality of the circumstances.  Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d 33, 37 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997).  When used by trained law enforcement officers, objective facts, meaningless to the untrained, can be combined with permissible deductions from such facts to form a legitimate basis for suspicion of a particular person.  Id. at 37-38.

Discussion 

Espinoza relies on Klare v. State for the proposition that there is not sufficient reasonable suspicion for a traffic stop when an officer is unable to point to any objective manifestation that a defendant was, or was about to be, engaged in criminal activity.  Klare v. State, 76 S.W.3d 68, 70 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2002, pet. ref’d). In Klare, a police officer spotted a white pickup truck parked behind a closed strip shopping center, facing a 24-hour convenience store, at around 2:30 a.m.  There had been burglaries in the area in the past, so the officer turned around to investigate because he found the parked vehicle suspicious. The vehicle was gone by the time the officer arrived at the parking lot, but he soon found the pickup on an adjacent street, pulled the vehicle over, and discovered that the driver was intoxicated.  Id.  Citing a wide variety of cases, the Fourteenth Court of Appeals discussed the relevance of (1) the lateness of the hour, (2) the fact that the businesses were closed, and (3) that there had been burglaries in the area to the determination of reasonable suspicion.  The court held that the mere presence of the pickup truck in the parking lot, without some additional fact that would arouse suspicion of criminal activity, fell short of supporting an objectively reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.  Id. at 77.

Klare is distinguishable because there are additional facts in this case that were lacking in Klare.  Gator Truck Stop was no longer in operation at the time of the stop and had been closed for several months, making it highly unusual for any vehicle to be there.  Not only was it a closed business, it had tire and concrete barricades across the entrance signifying that public entry was unintended. 

Deputy Collins testified that it was 1:00 a.m., and that because the truck stop was located along Interstate 35, it was particularly susceptible to crime.  He believed that a car coming from behind the truck stop was out of the ordinary and connected the activity to either the crime of criminal mischief or burglary.  It is important to note that in Klare, the suspicious vehicle was visible from the street and it was parked near an open business.  Id.  By contrast, Deputy Collins spotted Espinoza's truck as it emerged from a hidden area behind a shutdown business.  Klare has been criticized for focusing on the circumstances of a traffic stop piecemeal, viewing each fact independently from the others, instead of looking at the totality of the circumstances.  See Tanner v. State, 228 S.W.3d 852, 858 (Tex. App.—Austin 2007, no pet.).

In Tanner, Officer Maldonado was patrolling in a dark and secluded area when he saw the defendant and a young woman pushing bicycles out from a dark area behind the Lone Star Bar.  He did not see them commit any traffic violations but became suspicious because they were coming from behind the Lone Star Bar at 3:00 a.m., which he knew typically closed by 2:00 a.m.  Maldonado flashed his patrol car's lights to signal for Tanner and his companion to stop.  Maldonado drove up to Tanner and observed two large knives clipped to the inside of Tanner's pants pockets.  Tanner was searched, and additional weapons and cocaine were found.  On appeal, Tanner argued that Officer Maldonado lacked reasonable suspicion for the detention.  The court disagreed and noted that

Maldonado testified to the articulable factors of time, place and circumstances, and a person "of reasonable caution" could conclude that it was appropriate to briefly detain Tanner to investigate the possibility of a burglary or other criminal activity.  We must rely on "commonsense judgments and inferences about human behavior," Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 125, and remember that we are dealing with "the factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act."  Gates, 462 U.S. at 232 (quoting Brinegar, 338 U.S. at 175).  When we consider the entire circumstances and attendant reasonable inferences, the facts could reasonably give rise to an inference that criminal activity might be afoot.  See Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7.

Tanner, 228 S.W.3d at 857.

It further held that when time of night and location are viewed together and common sense is applied to the totality of these circumstances, it could not conclude that it was error for the trial court to find that the traffic stop was supported by reasonable suspicion.  Id. at 858.

Under the totality of the circumstances, Deputy Collins had reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and the stop was legal. The trial court did not abuse its discretion
by denying Espinoza’s motion to suppress evidence.  We overrule Espinoza’s sole issue and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

BILL VANCE

Justice

Before Chief Justice Gray,

            Justice Vance, and

            Justice Reyna

Affirmed

Opinion delivered and filed December 12, 2007

Do not publish

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