Kelly Elaine Courvelle v. State ( 2020 )

Fourth Court of Appeals
San Antonio, Texas
MEMORANDUM OPINION
No. 04-19-00386-CR
Kelly Elaine COURVELLE,
Appellant
v.
The STATE of Texas,
Appellee
From the 451st Judicial District Court, Kendall County, Texas
Trial Court No. 6404
Honorable Kirsten Cohoon, Judge Presiding
Opinion by: Sandee Bryan Marion, Chief Justice
Sitting: Sandee Bryan Marion, Chief Justice
Rebeca C. Martinez, Justice
Irene Rios, Justice
Delivered and Filed: April 15, 2020
AFFIRMED
Kelly Elaine Courvelle pled guilty to the offense of possession of a controlled substance
after her pretrial motion to suppress was denied. On appeal, Courvelle contends the trial court
erred in denying her motion to suppress. We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
BACKGROUND
Courvelle does not dispute that she was lawfully arrested based on an outstanding arrest
warrant. The trial court found that Courvelle had a backpack in her possession at the time of her
arrest. In fact, during the hearing on Courvelle’s motion to suppress, she admitted the backpack
04-19-00386-CR
belonged to her, her personal belonging were inside the backpack, and she dropped the backpack
from her shoulders when the officers approached and arrested her. After Courvelle was handcuffed
and placed in the back of a patrol car, an officer at the scene searched her backpack and found a
controlled substance.
After hearing the evidence, the trial court denied Courvelle’s motion to suppress. In its
findings of fact and conclusions of law, the trial court concluded the backpack was lawfully
searched incident to Courvelle’s arrest.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
“We review a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress under a bifurcated standard of
review; fact findings are reviewed for an abuse of discretion, and applications of law are reviewed
de novo.” State v. Ruiz, 581 S.W.3d 782, 785 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019). “We will sustain the trial
court’s application of the law if it is correct on any applicable theory of law, and the record
reasonably supports the ruling.” Id. “The trial court’s findings in this case are undisputed, and we
are presented only with a legal issue.” Id.
DISCUSSION
“Pursuant to the Fourth Amendment, a warrantless search of either a person or property is
considered per se unreasonable subject to a few specifically defined and well established
exceptions.” McGee v. State, 105 S.W.3d 609, 615 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (internal quotation
marks omitted). A search incident to arrest is among those exceptions. Id. A search is incident
to arrest “if it is ‘substantially contemporaneous’ with the arrest and is confined to the area within
the immediate control of the arrestee.” State v. Granville, 423 S.W.3d 399, 410 (Tex. Crim. App.
2014). The area within the immediate control of the arrestee includes the area from within which
the arrestee “might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” Arizona v. Gant, 556
U.S. 332, 339 (2009).
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Courvelle contends the search was not incident to her arrest because she “was handcuffed
in the back seat of a police vehicle when law enforcement searched her backpack on the hood of
the police vehicle.” Accordingly Courvelle argues “[t]he backpack was not within [her]
‘wingspan.’”
However, “an officer, incident to a lawful arrest, may search the arrestee’s person, any
items or containers in their possession, and any items or containers that were ‘located within the
arrestee’s reaching distance at the time of the arrest.’” Gabriel v. State, No. 04-15-00759, 2017
WL 685772, at *6 (Tex. App.—San Antonio Feb. 22, 2017, no pet.) (not designated for
publication) (quoting United States v. Curtis, 635 F.3d 704, 711-12 (5th Cir. 2011)) (emphasis in
original). “And a search is still incident to an arrest for ‘as long as the administrative process
incident to the arrest and custody have not been completed.’” Id. (quoting Curtis, 635 F.3d at
712). Accordingly, the fact that Courvelle was handcuffed in the back of the patrol car did not
preclude the search from being incident to her arrest. See id. at *6 (rejecting argument that “no
search can be justified as search incident to arrest once an arrestee is handcuffed or otherwise
removed from the area in which the seized item is found”). Furthermore, the fact that officers
“placed [the backpack] on the hood of the patrol car before searching it did not preclude them from
searching the bag incident to arrest.” Stephens v. State, No. 03-17-00117-CR, 2018 WL 3235322,
at *3 (Tex. App.—Austin July 3, 2018, no pet.) (not designated for publication); see also Nugent
v. State, No. 01-12-00234-CR, 2014 WL 458998, at *5 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Feb. 4,
2014, pet. ref’d) (not designated for publication) (holding search of backpack incident to arrest
was lawful where officer searched backpack “within moments of arresting and placing appellant
in the patrol car”). Therefore, the trial court did not err in concluding Courvelle’s backpack was
lawfully searched incident to her arrest.
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CONCLUSION
The trial court’s judgment is affirmed.
Sandee Bryan Marion, Chief Justice
DO NOT PUBLISH
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