State v. Michael Lance Wood , 575 S.W.3d 929 ( 2019 )

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN
NO. 03-18-00839-CR
The State of Texas, Appellant
v.
Michael Lance Wood, Appellee
FROM THE 27TH DISTRICT COURT OF BELL COUNTY
NO. 78725, THE HONORABLE JOHN GAUNTT, JUDGE PRESIDING
OPINION
Following a traffic stop, Michael Lance Wood was charged with driving while
intoxicated. See Tex. Penal Code § 49.04. The indictment alleged that Wood had previously
been convicted of driving while intoxicated on three prior occasions. See id. § 49.09(b)(2). After
his arrest, Wood filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized during the traffic stop. The
district court conducted a hearing regarding the motion to suppress and later granted the motion.
The State appeals the district court’s order granting the motion to suppress. See Tex. Code Crim.
Proc. art. 44.01(a)(5). We will reverse the district court’s order and remand for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
BACKGROUND
As set out above, Wood was charged with driving while intoxicated and filed a
motion to suppress evidence obtained during a traffic stop, and the district court held a hearing
regarding the motion. In his motion, Wood argued that Officer Matthew Hicks did not have
reasonable suspicion to believe that an offense occurred before he initiated the traffic stop that
ultimately resulted in Wood’s arrest. During the suppression hearing, Officer Hicks was the only
witness to testify.
Officer Hicks testified that he observed “a lit cigarette come out of the driver[’s]
window” of the vehicle that Wood was driving and then “fall to the street.” Officer Hicks also
related that the cigarette did not cause a fire when it hit the ground. Further, Officer Hicks
testified that after seeing the cigarette land on the road, he initiated a traffic stop. In addition,
Officer Hicks stated that he ultimately arrested Wood for driving while intoxicated after asking
Wood to perform various field-sobriety tests. During Officer Hicks’s testimony, a video recording
from his dashboard camera was admitted into evidence and played for the district court. The
video shows what appears to be a cigarette being tossed from Wood’s car and landing on the
road in front of Officer Hicks’s patrol car.1
After the hearing, the district court issued an order granting Wood’s motion to
suppress and also issued the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:
Findings of Fact
...
3. While following the vehicle, [Officer Hicks] observed a lit cigarette come out
of the driver’s window and fall into the street in front of his patrol unit.
4. No fire was started by the cigarette.
5. [Officer Hicks] conducted a traffic stop for littering.
...
1
On the recording, Wood admits to Officer Hicks during the traffic stop that he did toss a
cigarette out of his window.
2
Conclusions of Law
11. The littering statute, Health & Safety Code Sec. 365.012 was amended . . . to
add (a-1) which made disposing of lighted litter, including a cigarette[,] an
offense only if a fire is ignited as a result of the conduct.
...
13. The arrest was warrantless and made without probable cause.2
The State appeals the district court’s order granting Wood’s motion to suppress.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
Appellate courts review a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress for an abuse
of discretion. Arguellez v. State, 409 S.W.3d 657, 662 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). Under that
standard, the record is “viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court’s determination,
and the judgment will be reversed only if it is arbitrary, unreasonable, or ‘outside the zone
of reasonable disagreement.’” State v. Story, 445 S.W.3d 729, 732 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014)
(quoting State v. Dixon, 206 S.W.3d 587, 590 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006)). In general, appellate
courts apply “a bifurcated standard, giving almost total deference to the historical facts found by
the trial court and analyzing de novo the trial court’s application of the law.” See State v. Cuong
Phu Le, 463 S.W.3d 872, 876 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015); see also Arguellez, 409 S.W.3d at 662
(explaining that appellate courts afford “almost complete deference . . . to [a trial court’s]
determination of historical facts, especially if those are based on an assessment of credibility
and demeanor”). “The same deference is afforded the trial court with respect to its rulings on
2
During his testimony, Officer Hicks also discussed other potential traffic violations that
Wood may have committed before Officer Hicks activated his emergency lights, but the district
court determined that Officer Hicks did not observe any of those offenses before initiating the
stop. In light of our resolution of the State’s appellate argument regarding section 365.012, we
need not address the other traffic violations.
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application of the law to questions of fact and to mixed questions of law and fact, if resolution
of those questions depends on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor.” Crain v. State,
315 S.W.3d 43, 48 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). “However, for mixed questions of law and fact that
do not fall within that category, a reviewing court may conduct a de novo review.” Id.
“Routine traffic stops are analogous to investigative detentions.” Martinez v.
State, 236 S.W.3d 361, 369 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2007, pet. ref’d, untimely filed); see also
State v. Woodard, 341 S.W.3d 404, 411 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011) (describing types of interactions
between citizens and law-enforcement personnel). Investigative detentions are less intrusive
than arrests, Derichsweiler v. State, 348 S.W.3d 906, 916 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011), and an officer
may initiate a traffic stop if he has reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to be committed or
has been committed, see Guerra v. State, 432 S.W.3d 905, 911 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014). For
reasonable suspicion to exist, an actual violation does not need to have occurred; rather, it is only
necessary that the officer “had a reasonable suspicion” that a violation occurred. See Jaganathan
v. State, 479 S.W.3d 244, 247 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015); see Carmouche v. State, 10 S.W.3d 323,
328 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000) (noting that officer may briefly detain person for investigative
purposes on less than probable cause where specific and articulable facts along with inferences
from those facts reasonably warrant detention). “In assessing whether the intrusion was
reasonable, an objective standard is utilized: would the facts available to the officer at the
moment of the seizure or search warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that the action
taken was appropriate.” Davis v. State, 947 S.W.2d 240, 243 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997); see also
Garcia v. State, 43 S.W.3d 527, 530 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001) (explaining that “[t]his standard is
an objective one: there need only be an objective basis for the stop; the subjective intent of the
officer conducting the stop is irrelevant”). Moreover, the assessment is made in light of the
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totality of the circumstances. Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d 33, 38 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997).
Provided that the traffic stop is based on reasonable suspicion, the detention “does not violate
Texas law.” Guerra, 432 S.W.3d at 911. Appellate courts “review de novo whether the totality
of circumstances is sufficient to support an officer’s reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.”
Crain, 315 S.W.3d at 48-49.
DISCUSSION
On appeal, the State asserts that the district court abused its discretion when it
granted Wood’s motion to suppress. In particular, the State contends that Officer Hicks had
reasonable suspicion to believe that Wood committed the offense of littering as set out in
subsection 365.012(a) of the Health and Safety Code when Officer Hicks saw a lit cigarette
being tossed from the window of Wood’s vehicle and landing on the roadway. See Tex. Health
& Safety Code § 365.012(a). That subsection provides in relevant part as follows:
A person commits an offense if the person disposes or allows or permits the
disposal of litter or other solid waste at a place that is not an approved solid waste
site, including a place on or within 300 feet of a public highway, on a right-of-way,
on other public or private property, or into inland or coastal water of the state.
Id. Moreover, section 365.011 of the Health and Safety Code defines the term “‘[p]ublic
highway,’” in part, as meaning “the entire width between property lines of a road, street, way,
thoroughfare, bridge, public beach, or park in this state, not privately owned or controlled, if any
part of the road, street, way, thoroughfare, bridge, public beach, or park . . . is opened to the
public for vehicular traffic . . . .” Id. § 365.011(8).
As set out earlier, the district court determined that it is not an offense under
section 365.012 of the Health and Safety Code to discard a lit cigarette on a roadway because an
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amendment to section 365.012—subsection 365.012(a-1)—provides that it is only an offense to
dispose of a lit cigarette if disposing of the cigarette causes a fire. That provision reads as
follows:
A person commits an offense if . . . (1) the person discards lighted litter, including
a match, cigarette, or cigar, onto open-space land, a private road or the right-of-
way of a private road, a public highway or other public road or the right-of-way of
a public highway or other public road, or a railroad right-of-way; and (2) a fire is
ignited as a result of the conduct described by Subdivision (1).
Id. § 365.012(a-1); see also Act of May 23, 2011, 82d Leg., R.S., ch. 430, § 2, sec. 365.012(a-1),
2011 Tex. Gen. Laws 1101, 1101 (enacting subsection 365.012(a-1)).
When arguing that the district court correctly construed section 365.012 and that
the district court’s order should be upheld, Wood concedes on appeal that “[t]here is no question
a lighted cigarette was observed coming out of [his] window and fall[ing] to the street in front
of” Officer Hicks’s patrol car and agrees that subsection 365.012(a) generally prohibits an
individual from disposing of litter on a roadway. However, Wood notes that subsection
365.012(a-1) was enacted more recently than subsection 365.012(a) and contends that subsection
365.012(a-1) is more specific and “controls over the general” language found in subsection
365.012(a), that subsection 365.012(a-1) covers the act of discarding a lit cigarette on a road, and
accordingly, that it is no longer an offense under subsection 365.012(a) to toss a lit cigarette onto
a roadway. See Sims v. State, 506 S.W.3d 634, 642 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019) (explaining that
“[t]he ‘general versus the specific’ canon of statutory construction stands for the proposition that
‘[i]f there is a conflict between a general provision and a specific provision, the specific
provision prevails . . .’ as an exception to the general provision” (quoting Antonin Scalia &
Bryan Garner, Reading Law at 183 (2012))). Building on that premise, Wood also argues that
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subsection 365.012(a-1) clarifies that it is only an offense to discard a lit cigarette on a road
when the discarded cigarette starts a fire. Further, Wood asserts that the requirements of
subsection 365.012(a-1) were not met in this case because the undisputed testimony from Officer
Hicks established that no fire was ignited when the cigarette landed on the ground. For all of
these reasons, Wood urges that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it determined
that Officer Hicks did not have reasonable suspicion to believe that an offense had occurred
under section 365.012 of the Health and Safety Code before he initiated the traffic stop.
As an initial matter, we note that for reasonable suspicion to have existed, it
was not necessary for an offense to have actually occurred; on the contrary, it was only necessary
for Officer Hicks to have reasonably believed that an offense occurred. See Jaganathan,
479 S.W.3d at 247; see also Joubert v. State, 129 S.W.3d 686, 689 (Tex. App.—Waco 2004, no
pet.) (determining that reasonable suspicion to support traffic stop was present when police
officer testified that he observed defendant leaving driveway and entering roadway without
stopping and that reasonable suspicion existed even if police officer was mistaken about whether
offense actually occurred). Although Wood contends that section 365.012 no longer criminalizes
the tossing of a lit cigarette unless the action results in a fire being produced, section 365.012
unquestionably criminalizes the “disposal of litter or other solid waste” on a roadway used by the
public for travel. See Tex. Health & Safety Code §§ 365.011(8), .012(a). As set out above, the
district court made a finding of fact that Officer Hicks observed Wood discard a lit cigarette from
his car window and saw the cigarette land on the road on which Wood and Officer Hicks were
driving.
Based on his observation of an object being discarded, Officer Hicks had
reasonable suspicion to believe that an offense had occurred even if, as suggested by Wood,
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Officer Hicks was ultimately wrong about whether the discarded item in this case fell within the
purview of section 365.012. See McAnally v. State, No. 02-08-00342-CR, 2009 WL 3956749, at
*3 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Nov. 19, 2009, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication)
(determining that officer had reasonable suspicion to believe that defendant had committed
offense of littering even if police officer was unsure of whether item or items he saw discarded
were ashes, which are specifically excluded from definition of litter, or cigarette because State
was not required to prove that defendant “actually had committed the offense of littering”); see
also Derichsweiler, 348 S.W.3d at 916 (explaining that “it is not a sine qua non of reasonable
suspicion that a detaining officer be able to pinpoint a particular penal infraction”).
Even assuming that Wood is correct that the resolution of the issue on appeal
turns on the interplay between various provisions of the Health and Safety Code, we respectfully
disagree with the district court’s construction of those statutes. Statutory construction is a
question of law that appellate courts review de novo. Harris v. State, 359 S.W.3d 625, 629 (Tex.
Crim. App. 2011). “The overarching rule of statutory construction is that we construe a statute
in accordance with the plain meaning of its text unless the text is ambiguous or the plain
meaning leads to absurd results that the legislature could not possibly have intended.” Ex parte
Vela, 460 S.W.3d 610, 612 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). “In ascertaining the plain meaning of a
word, we read words and phrases in context and construe them according to the rules of grammar
and usage.” Lopez v. State, 253 S.W.3d 680, 685 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008); see Tex. Gov’t Code
§ 311.011 (addressing common and technical usage of words in construing statutes). Appellate
courts also interpret statutes “together and harmonized, if possible,” to give effect to all of the
statutory provisions. See Ex parte Gill, 413 S.W.3d 425, 430 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). Appellate
courts “presume that every word has been used for a purpose and that each word, phrase, clause,
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and sentence should be given effect if reasonably possible.” O’Brien v. State, 544 S.W.3d 376,
384 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). “If the plain language is clear and unambiguous,” the “analysis
ends because ‘the Legislature must be understood to mean what it has expressed, and it is not for
the courts to add or subtract from such a statute.’” Id. (quoting Nguyen v. State, 359 S.W.3d 636,
642 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012)).
As discussed earlier, the offense of littering is set out in subsection 365.012(a) of
the Health and Safety Code, which prohibits an individual from disposing of litter in locations
that are not designated for that purpose and specifically prohibits littering on a “public highway”
as that term is broadly defined by the Code. See Tex. Health & Safety Code §§ 365.011(8),
.012(a). Moreover, section 365.011 defines “‘[l]itter’” as including “nondecayable solid waste,
except ashes, that consists of . . . combustible waste material, including paper, rags, cartons,
wood, excelsior, furniture, rubber, plastics, yard trimmings, leaves, or similar materials.” Id.
§ 365.011(6)(B)(i). Consistent with the definition of litter, a cigarette is defined as “a slender
roll of cut tobacco enclosed in paper and meant to be smoked.” See Merriam-Webster Collegiate
Dictionary 206 (10th ed. 2000) (emphasis added). At least one of our sister courts of appeals
has indicated that a lit cigarette fell within the definition of “litter” prior to the enactment of
subsection 365.012(a-1), see McAnally, 2009 WL 3956749, at *3.
Moreover, when the legislature enacted subsection 365.012(a-1), it also added
other subsections to section 365.012. See Act of May 23, 2011, 82d Leg., R.S., ch. 430, § 2,
sec. 365.012(d-1), (p)-(r), 2011 Tex. Gen. Laws 1101, 1101. One of those new subsections is
subsection 365.012(r), which specifies that conduct constituting “an offense under Subsection
(a-1)” might also qualify as “an offense under Subsection (a)” and then instructs that in those
circumstances, the individuals should be “prosecuted . . . under Subsection (a-1).” Tex. Health
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& Safety Code § 365.012(r). Accordingly, the plain language of the entirety of section 365.012
demonstrates that the legislature recognized that the conduct listed in subsection 365.012(a-1)—
discarding “lighted litter, including a match, cigarette, or cigar”—can also qualify as prohibited
conduct under subsection 365.012(a). See id. Further, the plain language of the statute reveals
that the types of conduct listed in subsection 365.012(a-1) are only punishable under that
provision if discarding the lit items results in a fire being produced. See id. § 365.012(a-1). In
other words, the language of the statute indicates that if an item listed in subsection 365.012(a-1)
is improperly discarded but does not result in a fire being ignited, the act may still be punished
under subsection 365.012(a).
That construction is further supported by the enactment of another subsection to
section 365.012. Specifically, subsection 365.012(d-1) sets out the minimum punishment for an
offense under subsection 365.012(a-1). See id. § 365.012(d-1). Unlike the minimum punishment
authorized for an offense under subsection 365.012(a), which only involves the imposition of “a
fine not to exceed $500,” see id. § 365.012(d) (providing that offense under subsection
365.012(a) is class C misdemeanor if amount of litter involved weighed less or had less volume
than amount listed in statute); Tex. Penal Code § 12.23 (setting out punishment for “[a]n
individual adjudged guilty of a Class C misdemeanor”), the punishment options for an offense
under subsection 365.012(a-1) include “a fine not to exceed $500,” “confinement in jail for a
term not to exceed 30 days,” or “both such fine and confinement,” Tex. Health & Safety Code
§ 365.012(d-1). The different levels of punishment indicate that the legislature was attempting
to address the additional risk imposed by littering when the litter has been set on fire and is,
therefore, consistent with our construction of section 365.012 as allowing the conduct described
in subsection 365.012(a-1) to be punished under subsection 365.012(a) when the discarded items
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do not cause a fire. See id. § 365.012(a-1), (d-1); see also Senate Comm. on Transp. & Homeland
Sec., Bill Analysis, S.B. 1043, 82d Leg., R.S. (2011) (explaining that subsection 365.012(a-1)
was enacted in response to “danger to communities and infrastructure” stemming from wildfires
caused “[w]hen a burning cigarette or match is discarded out of a car window”). Additionally,
construing the statute in the manner suggested by Wood would lead to the absurd result that
tossing a lit cigarette from a car window onto a roadway that does not result in a fire being
produced is not an offense of any kind even though tossing an unlit cigarette from a window is
an offense.
Bearing in mind the plain language of section 365.012 and after reading all of the
subsections present in section 365.012 together, we must conclude that the district court erred
when it concluded that disposing of a lit cigarette on a public highway does not constitute an
offense under subsection 365.012(a). See Tex. Health & Safety Code § 365.012(a).
In its findings of fact, the district court found that Officer Hicks observed Wood
toss a lit cigarette onto a road open to the public for vehicular traffic. That finding is supported
by the testimony from Officer Hicks and by the video recording from his dashboard camera, and
accordingly, we defer to that finding. In light of this finding and our construction of section
365.012 outlined above, we must conclude that Officer Hicks had reasonable suspicion to believe
that Wood committed the offense of littering as set out in subsection 365.012(a) before initiating
the traffic stop. See McAnally, 2009 WL 3956749, at *3 (determining that police officer had
reasonable suspicion to believe that defendant committed offense of littering where officer
testified that he saw defendant “‘appear to flick a lit cigarette’ out of the driver’s side window”).
For all of these reasons, we must conclude that the district court abused its
discretion by granting Wood’s motion to suppress and sustain the State’s issue on appeal.
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CONCLUSION
Having sustained the State’s issue on appeal, we reverse the district court’s order
granting Wood’s motion to suppress and remand the case for further proceedings.
__________________________________________
Thomas J. Baker, Justice
Before Justices Goodwin, Baker, and Triana
Reversed and Remanded
Filed: May 23, 2019
Publish
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