The State of Texas v. Mason LeBlanc

In The
Court of Appeals
Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo
No. 07-22-00201-CR
THE STATE OF TEXAS, APPELLANT
V.
MASON LEBLANC, APPELLEE
On Appeal from the County Court at Law
Comal County, Texas
Trial Court No. 2021CR0785, Honorable Randy C. Gray, Presiding
August 22, 2023
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before QUINN, C.J., and DOSS and YARBROUGH, JJ.
The State of Texas appeals1 from the trial court’s order granting Appellee Mason
LeBlanc’s pretrial motion to suppress evidence in the underlying prosecution for the
offense of driving while intoxicated (DWI).2 The State contends the trial court erred by
1 See TEX. CODE OF CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 44.01(a)(5) (authorizing State’s appeal from order
granting motion to suppress).
2 This appeal was originally filed in the Third Court of Appeals and was transferred to this Court by
a docket-equalization order of the Supreme Court of Texas. See TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 73.001. In the
event of any conflict, we apply the transferor court’s case law. TEX. R. APP. P. 41.3.
granting the motion to suppress because there was probable cause to arrest LeBlanc for
DWI and probable cause for the magistrate to issue a blood search warrant. Alternatively,
the State asks that we abate and remand the case for preparation of unspecified
additional findings of fact and conclusions of law. For the foregoing reasons, we reverse
the order of the trial court and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Background
Near midnight on Friday, August 29, 2020, Officer David Clish of the Bulverde
Police Department was dispatched to the scene of a one-vehicle rollover accident. Upon
arrival at the scene, he found a Ford pickup resting on the driver’s side, and LeBlanc
trapped inside the cab, standing on the driver’s side door. An unidentified person at the
scene told Clish that LeBlanc seemed intoxicated.
After emergency personnel arrived, the pickup windshield was removed; LeBlanc
exited the cab. He refused transportation to a hospital by EMS. LeBlanc told Clish his
head hurt. Just before Clish proceeded with administration of a horizontal gaze
nystagmus test (HGN), commonly used to assist in detecting intoxication, LeBlanc sat
down in the grass on the shoulder of the road. He did not stand up and said he “needed
a second.” Clish performed the HGN test while LeBlanc was seated.
After completing the test, Clish told a fellow officer assisting with scene security,
Corporal Brian Harshman, that he detected six of six clues on the HGN test. Corporal
Harshman testified that when LeBlanc was getting up from the seated position on the side
2
of the road, the officer smelled metabolized alcohol emitting from Appellee.3 Harshman
also observed that LeBlanc had “slowed speech.” Following completion of the field
sobriety tests, Clish placed LeBlanc under arrest for DWI. LeBlanc refused to provide a
breath or blood specimen, so Clish obtained a search warrant for a blood draw. Clish’s
search-warrant affidavit states, among other things, that Clish did not detect or observe
the odor of alcohol, but did detect or observe LeBlanc had bloodshot eyes, slowed
speech, a cooperative attitude, and slow reaction balance.
LeBlanc filed a pretrial motion to suppress the HGN test results and the blood test
and asked the court to find no probable cause existed to arrest LeBlanc “based on the
totality of the circumstances.” During the evidentiary hearing, the trial court observed, in
part:
There is nothing articulated by [Officer Clish] even today saying I smelled
alcohol. The fact that the other officer [Harshman] smelled alcohol and
didn’t pass that information on is a problem because if you had something
else to hang your hat on, then it would work, but you don’t . . . . But nothing
indicated from the report, from the testimony says that there was any
substance at all involved here. All we got is a crash and somebody who’s
confused after a rollover accident.
(Emphasis added, alteration added). The court granted LeBlanc’s motion to suppress in
full. The court issued findings of fact and conclusions of law on June 23, 2022.4 Many of
Harshman testified he “was unaware that Officer Clish did not smell the alcohol himself.”
3
Harshman did not communicate his observation to Clish while on-the-scene.
4 On the same day as the trial court’s issuance of findings and conclusions, the Third Court of
Appeals issued its opinion in State v. Hartley, No. 03-21-00230-CR, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 4289, at *20
(Tex. App.—Austin June 23, 2022, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication), applying the
“collective knowledge doctrine” to hold the County Court at Law #1 of Comal County erred in granting a
DWI arrestee’s motion to suppress on grounds that a singular officer lacked reasonable suspicion to initiate
the traffic stop. The State filed a “Motion for Reconsideration Supplemental: Third Court Reverses Hartley
Suppression,” in the trial court on the same day, though the record is unclear whether the findings of fact
and conclusions of law had already been signed.
3
the court’s findings of facts were specific to describing Clish’s conduct and testimony,
including a statement that “Officer Clish’s testimony regarding his observations of Mr.
Leblanc (sic) regarding any indicators of intoxication was not credible.” On the other
hand, the court’s conclusions of law included the following statement:
Officer Harshman’s testimony was found not to be relevant since he did not
make the decision to arrest and did not communicate his observations to
Officer Clish who made the decision to arrest.
Analysis
Through its first issue the State argues the trial court abused its discretion in
granting LeBlanc’s motion to suppress because the totality of the circumstances
demonstrate that Officer Clish had probable cause to arrest LeBlanc.
Because this case is transferred to us from the Third Court of Appeals, we are
guided by its precedent, and that of the Court of Criminal Appeals, on all relevant issues.
See TEX. R. APP. P. 41.3; Kennedy v. State, 385 S.W.3d 729, 730 n.1 (Tex. App.—
Amarillo 2012, pet. ref’d). When we review a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress,
we utilize a bifurcated approach. Martin v. State, 620 S.W.3d 749, 759 (Tex. Crim. App.
2021). “We afford almost complete deference to the trial court’s determination of
historical facts, especially when based on ‘an assessment of credibility and demeanor,’
but conduct a de novo review of mixed questions of law and fact that do not hinge on
credibility or demeanor determinations.” Furr v. State, 499 S.W.3d 872, 886 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2016). A trial court’s error failing to consider the collective knowledge doctrine
constitutes an error of law that can be remedied on appeal. See Hartley, 2022 Tex. App.
LEXIS 4289, at *11; State v. Teran-Cortes, No. 09-18-00315-CR, 2019 Tex. App. LEXIS
4
4198, at *11 (Tex. App.—Beaumont May 22, 2019, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for
publication).
Probable cause for officers to arrest LeBlanc without a warrant exists under TEX.
CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 14.01(b) “if, when the arrest is made, the facts, circumstances,
and reasonably trustworthy information known to the arresting officer, are sufficient for a
prudent person to conclude that an individual committed or was committing a criminal
offense.” State v. Espinosa, 666 S.W.3d 659, 667 (Tex. Crim. App. 2023). We examine
probable cause from the totality of the circumstances. Id. The record shows without
dispute that LeBlanc was operating the vehicle on a public roadway at the time of the
August 29, 2020 rollover accident. TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 49.04(a) (defining DWI
offense). Therefore, the relevant question is whether LeBlanc was intoxicated at the time.
Id.
On appeal, the State argues that even though Clish was the arresting officer, the
information cumulatively held with Corporal Harshman may be considered in assessing
reasonable suspicion or probable cause. We agree. See State v. Martinez, 569 S.W.3d
621, 626 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019) (agreeing with argument that “under this ‘collective
knowledge’ doctrine, when several officers are cooperating, their cumulative information
may be considered in assessing reasonable suspicion or probable cause.” (citing State
v. Duran, 396 S.W.3d 563, 569 n.12 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013); Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U.S.
765, 771–72 n.5, 103 S. Ct. 3319, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1003 (1983) (“where law enforcement
authorities are cooperating in an investigation, . . . the knowledge of one is presumed
shared by all”)); Hartley, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 4289 at *13.
5
As with the Court of Criminal Appeals’ holding in Martinez and the Third Court’s
holding in Hartley, the evidence here shows officers Clish and Harshman were
responding to the same call, were present at the scene, had some degree of
communication with LeBlanc, and all were present at the time of the arrest. To adapt the
rationale described in Martinez; “Therefore, it is apparent that [Officer Clish] was
cooperating with [Corporal Harshman], and all of the officers present were working as a
team responding to the call.” 569 S.W.3d at 627. Harshman’s knowledge that LeBlanc
smelled of alcohol should have been considered in the totality of circumstances analysis
of whether probable cause existed to arrest LeBlanc. See id. at 629 (evidence that officer
could smell alcohol on defendant served as some evidence of intoxication); Stroud v.
State, No. 03-19-00097-CR, 2020 Tex. App. LEXIS 1457, at *35 (Tex. App.—Austin Feb.
21, 2020, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (defendant’s smell of alcohol
and displaying clues of HGN test among factors supporting probable cause to arrest
defendant for driving while intoxicated). When the trial court refused to consider
Harshman’s observations as irrelevant to the analysis, it committed error.
Courts examine probable cause from the totality of the circumstances, and we note
the trial court did not consider whether probable cause to arrest LeBlanc existed given
the facts, circumstances, and reasonably trustworthy information known to Clish and
Harshman, cumulatively, at the time of the arrest. We accordingly reverse5 the order of
5 Generally we must not reverse a judgment if the trial court can correct its action or failure to act.
See TEX. R. APP. P. 44.4(a)(2). We see no benefit in applying this rule in the present instance, however,
because we have previously abated and remanded this cause affording the trial court, among other things,
the opportunity to make any additional findings and conclusions it deemed necessary to support its
suppression order. State v. LeBlanc, No. 07-22-00201-CR, 2022 Tex. App. LEXIS 7670, at *4–5 (Tex.
App.—Amarillo Oct. 17, 2022) (per curiam order, not designated for publication) (“If the trial court believes
that additional findings of fact or conclusions of law are essential in light of this order, it shall make such
findings and conclusions . . . .”). Nevertheless, no additional findings and conclusions were filed.
6
the trial court and remand the cause to the trial court for reconsideration of its suppression
order.6
Conclusion
We reverse the order of the district court and remand for further proceedings
consistent with this opinion.
Lawrence M. Doss
Justice
Do not publish.
Yarbrough, J., dissenting.
6 By its second issue, the State argues the trial court abused its discretion in suppressing the blood
draw results because it failed to afford deference to the magistrate’s probable cause determination. Here
Clish’s search-warrant affidavit states that LeBlanc “refused breath/blood consent.” A magistrate who is a
licensed attorney in Texas may issue a search warrant under Code of Criminal Procedure article
18.02(a)(10) to collect a blood specimen from a person who: (1) is arrested for inter alia DWI; and (2)
refuses to submit to a breath or blood alcohol test. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 18.01(j). Without
sufficient findings to assess the trial court’s probable-cause-to-arrest determination, it is not possible to
assess the trial court’s blood-draw determination.
By its third issue, the State alternatively requests we abate and remand the case for additional
findings of fact and conclusions of law. In light of our disposition of the State’s first issue, the request for
an abatement and remand is moot. We also deny an earlier request by the State for the same relief which
we have carried with the case.
7