Ruiz, Jose ( 2017 )

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
OF TEXAS
NO. PD-1362-15
THE STATE OF TEXAS
v.
JOSE RUIZ, Appellee
ON STATE’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
FROM THE THIRTEENTH COURT OF APPEALS
GONZALES COUNTY
Per Curiam. YEARY , J., did not participate.
OPINION
Police arrested appellee for DWI and, while he was unconscious, performed a warrantless
blood draw on him. Appellee moved to suppress the blood-alcohol evidence. Finding that no
exigent circumstances existed to justify a warrantless search, the trial court granted the motion. The
State appealed the trial court’s ruling and argued that a warrant was unnecessary due to either exigent
circumstances or the implied-consent scheme under the Texas Transportation Code. See TEX .
TRANSP . CODE §§ 724.011– 0.14. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling and rejected
both of the State’s arguments. See State v. Ruiz, __S.W.3d__, 2015 WL 5626252 (Tex.
App.—Corpus Christi Aug. 27, 2015).
Ruiz - 2
The State filed a petition for discretionary review. In its first ground, the State challenges
the court of appeals’ holding that police may not rely on the statutorily implied consent when a DWI
arrestee is unconscious to excuse seeking a warrant. In its second ground, the State challenges the
court of appeals’ determination that exigent circumstances were not present in this case.
We remand to the court of appeals the State’s second ground presented in its petition for
discretionary review. Since the time of the court of appeals’ decision, we have decided two cases
analyzing the issue of exigent circumstances in this context. See Cole v. State, 490 S.W.3d 918
(Tex. Crim. App. 2016); Weems v. State, 493 S.W.3d 574 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). Given the
existence of intervening precedent from this Court that might affect the court of appeals’ analysis
of this case, we vacate the judgment of the court of appeals and remand this case to that court for it
to consider whether, under the totality of the circumstances known to the police officer at the time,
exigent circumstances existed in light of this Court’s intervening decisions in Cole and Weems. See
id.
In light of our decision to remand this case to the court of appeals, we dismiss without
prejudice the State’s first ground in its petition as improvidently granted at this juncture. Because
a finding that a search was proper due to exigent circumstances would obviate the need to address
whether a search was proper under implied consent, any discussion of implied consent is premature
at this point. We, therefore, dismiss the State’s first ground.
Delivered: February 1, 2017
DO NOT PUBLISH