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Date: 04-26-2017

Case Style:

The State of Texas v. Matthew Wilson

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN

Case Number: 03-17-00013-CR

Judge: David Puryear

Court: TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN

Plaintiff's Attorney:

Ms. Giselle Horton
The Honorable Stacey M. Soule

Defendant's Attorney:



p


Mr. Christopher M. Perri




Randy T. Leavitt



Description: The facts forming the basis for this appeal are not in dispute, and both parties
agree that Officer Anthony Martin turned left at a red light before ultimately initiating a traffic stop
of Wilson late one night. In the hearing on the motion to suppress, Officer Martin testified that
there was no emergency when he made the turn, that he was not pursuing anyone when he made
the left turn, that he had not observed Wilson commit any traffic violation before making the turn,
and that although he had previously arrested Wilson for driving while intoxicated, he did not
recognize Wilson or Wilson’s truck before he made the turn. In his testimony, Officer Martin
explained that after he made the turn, he observed Wilson drift within his lane and switch lanes
without “signal[ing] intent to do so,” and Officer Martin recalled that he decided to initiate a traffic
stop after observing the failure-to-signal traffic violation. See Tex. Transp. Code § 545.104(a)
(requiring driver to use signal “to indicate an intention to . . . change lanes”). During the traffic stop,
Officer Martin asked Wilson to perform various field-sobriety tests and eventually arrested Wilson
for driving while intoxicated.
After Officer Martin finished testifying during the suppression hearing, Wilson argued
in his closing that the evidence and statements obtained during Officer Martin’s investigation should
be suppressed under the Texas exclusionary rule. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.23(a). Once
the parties finished presenting their arguments, the trial court granted the motion to suppress. When
discussing the ruling, the trial court explained that it “found Officer Martin to be credible” and
that it did not believe that Officer Martin recognized Wilson’s vehicle before making the turn but
also stated that Officer Martin “ran the red light to do the very thing that the State argued he did and
that was not to pursue any one individual in particular, but in an attempt to be in a position to more
quickly make investigations of” individuals in general. Further, the court reasoned that its “ruling
on this issue would be different if Officer Martin had any small reason even to stop a particular
2
person. In other words, if he ran the red light in an effort to follow up on an investigation based
on something that looked askew to him, something that raised his attention, I think my ruling
would be different.”
Following the trial court’s ruling, the State appealed the trial court’s order granting
the 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)). Moreover, 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.” State v. Cuong Phu Le, 463 S.W.3d 872,
876 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015); see 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”). “When the trial court does not
file findings of fact concerning its ruling on a motion to suppress, we assume that the court made
implicit findings that support its ruling, provided that those implied findings are supported by the
record.” Ex parte Moore, 395 S.W.3d 152, 158 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013).
3
DISCUSSION
In its sole issue on appeal, the State contends that the district court abused its
discretion by “suppressing the fruits of the detention because they were not ‘obtained in violation
of the law’” as prohibited by the Texas exclusionary rule found in article 38.23 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure. In his appellee’s brief, Wilson urges that “the State waived its right to complain
about the trial court’s ruling on appeal” because the State did not contest his “argument regarding
the applicability of the Texas exclusionary rule at the pretrial hearing.” Alternatively, Wilson asserts
that “the Texas exclusionary rule applies to this case” “[b]ecause a but-for connection exists between
Officer Martin’s illegal conduct and his observation of [Wilson]’s traffic infraction.”
Waiver
In his appellee’s brief, Wilson contends that he argued to the trial court that evidence
pertaining to the traffic violation should be suppressed under the exclusionary rule because Officer
Martin was only able to observe the traffic violation after making an illegal left turn. See Tex. Code
Crim. Proc. art. 38.23(a). Further, Wilson asserts that the State “completely failed to address” his
argument regarding the exclusionary rule and did not attack the applicability “of traffic statutes to
the exclusionary rule.” On the contrary, Wilson urges that the State effectively conceded the
applicability of the exclusionary rule and “failed to present the trial court with any . . . possible
legal bases to defeat” his exclusionary-rule argument, including lack of a causal connection or
“attenuation of taint.” Accordingly, Wilson contends that the State has waived its sole issue on
appeal. See Martinez v. State, 91 S.W.3d 331, 335-37 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002) (noting that “the
party complaining on appeal (whether it be the State or the defendant) about a trial court’s . . .
4
suppression of evidence ‘must, at the earliest opportunity, have done everything necessary to bring
to the judge’s attention the evidence rule [or statute] in question and its precise and proper
application to the evidence in question,’” that appellate courts “usually may not reverse a trial
court’s ruling on any theory or basis that might have been applicable to the case[] but was not
raised,” that “forfeiture rule applies equally to . . . State and defendant,” and that “[t]he State
forthrightly acknowledges that it never brought the inapplicability of” statute “to the trial court’s
attention” and concluding that State “may not argue for first time on appeal that” statute “did not
apply” (quoting 1 Stephen Goode, et al., Texas Practice: Guide to the Texas Rules of Evidence: Civil
and Criminal, § 103.2, at 14 (2d ed.1993)); see also Tex. R. App. P. 33.1 (stating that to preserve
error for appeal, record must show that complaint was made to trial court and that trial court ruled
on request or refused to rule and that “complaining party objected to the refusal”).
As an initial matter, we note that Wilson did not present his arguments regarding the
exclusionary rule in either of his two suppression motions. In the first, Wilson generally requested
the trial court “to suppress all oral statements obtained from the defendant, in violation of his rights
as secured by the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, Article
1, Section 10 of the Texas Constitution, and Articles 38.22 and 38.23 of the Texas Code of Criminal
Procedure,” but he did not explain how or why the exclusionary rule applied in this case. In the
second motion, Wilson requested the trial court to suppress “tangible evidence seized by law
enforcement officers,” “written and oral statements made by [Wilson] to any law enforcement
officers,” and “[t]estimony of law enforcement officers” regarding statements that he made or
evidence that was seized. Further, Wilson alleged that his arrest and detention violated various
5
constitutional and statutory provisions, that “[a]ny tangible evidence” seized and [a]ny statements
. . . of [Wilson] were obtained in violation” of several constitutional and statutory provisions, and
that [a]ny testimony concerning the actions of Wilson while under arrest or detention” would
similarly violate several constitutional and statutory provisions, but Wilson never specifically
referred to or cited the exclusionary rule. Moreover, no mention of the exclusionary rule was made
until closing arguments at the suppression hearing.
Prior to making his closing arguments, Wilson asked Officer Martin about whether
he made the left turn at issue, about whether police officers are required to obey traffic laws, about
whether there was an emergency at the time Officer Martin made the turn, and about whether
Officer Martin had seen Wilson commit a traffic violation before Officer Martin made the turn, and
Officer Martin admitted that there was no emergency, that he had not seen any traffic violation
before turning left, and that police officers are required to obey traffic laws. But the focus of
Wilson’s questioning was on the alleged traffic violation that Officer Martin observed Wilson
perform, on Wilson’s field-sobriety testing, on when Officer Martin gave Wilson his Miranda
warnings, on whether Officer Martin had recognized Wilson or Wilson’s truck from a previous
traffic stop before initiating the stop at issue in this case, and on the circumstances of that prior stop.
Cf. State v. Copeland, 501 S.W.3d 610, 613, 614 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016) (explaining that “argument
is forfeited” only “[i]f the appellant fails to argue a ‘theory of law’ applicable to the case on appeal,”
that “the appellant has no obligation to preserve that argument for appeal” “if a legal argument was
not a theory of law applicable to the case,” and that “[a] ‘theory of law’ is applicable to the case if
the theory was presented at trial in such a manner that the appellant was fairly called upon to present
6
evidence on the issue”; determining that unreasonable-detention theory was law applicable to case,
in part, because defendant argued theory “in her motion to suppress”; and concluding that State
“procedurally defaulted its length-of-detention argument” by failing “to advance that argument”).
In any event, with those circumstances in mind, we cannot agree with Wilson’s
assertion that the State failed to preserve the applicability challenge it presents on appeal. In his
closing arguments, Wilson asserted that the evidence and statements obtained during Officer
Martin’s investigation should be suppressed under the Texas exclusionary rule because Officer
Martin “broke the law to get in a position to follow” Wilson, because Officer Martin “violated the
law without an emergency,” because “there’s a causal connection between the violation of the law”
and Wilson’s arrest, because Officer Martin elected to break the law and turn left after recognizing
Wilson’s truck from a previous encounter where Officer Martin arrested Wilson for driving while
intoxicated, and because Officer Martin’s observation of the alleged traffic violation occurred
shortly after Officer Martin completed the left turn.
During its closing arguments, the State primarily focused on the propriety of the stop
and the bases supporting Wilson’s arrest for driving while intoxicated; however, the State also
discussed how Officer Martin ran the red light but urged that Wilson’s “Constitutional Rights”
were not violated, that Officer Martin’s actions “didn’t make [Wilson] violate a law,” and that
Officer Martin’s actions were not analogous to a situation in which suppression would be warranted
because an officer illegally “jump[ed] a fence” in order to go into a defendant’s “backyard” to obtain
evidence of wrongdoing. As will be more thoroughly discussed in the next issue, these arguments
7
resemble the State’s arguments on appeal that the exclusionary rule does not apply to statutory
violations that are unrelated to the purpose of the exclusionary rule.
For all of these reasons, we disagree with Wilson’s assertion that the State has
waived its issue on appeal.
Exclusionary Rule
As set out above, the State contends that the exclusionary rule did not apply to this
case. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.23. In responding to the State’s arguments, Wilson asserts
that the exclusionary rule applied in this case because “there exists [a] causal connection between
the illegal conduct and the acquisition of evidence.” See Wehrenberg v. State, 416 S.W.3d 458, 468
(Tex. Crim. App. 2013) (explaining that “evidence is ‘obtained’ in violation of the law only if there
is some causal connection between the illegal conduct and the acquisition of evidence” and that
“[t]he existence of a but-for causal connection between the illegality and the obtainment of evidence
is thus a prerequisite to application of the statutory exclusionary rule”). Specifically, Wilson argues
that Officer Martin observed Wilson make the alleged traffic violation a short time after Officer
Martin made the improper left turn and that by running the red light, Officer Martin placed “himself
in a better position to observe the vehicles that had passed through the intersection seconds earlier”
in order to look for potential signs of driving while intoxicated. Moreover, Wilson contends that a
ruling removing from the scope of the exclusionary rule evidence obtained by police officers as a
result of violating traffic laws would “incentivize[] police officers to violate numerous laws when
they acquire evidence.”
8
Article 38.23 provides, in relevant part, as follows: “No evidence obtained by
an officer or other person in violation of any provisions of the Constitution or laws of the State
of Texas, or of the Constitution or laws of the United States of America, shall be admitted in
evidence against the accused on the trial of any criminal case.” Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.23(a).
“The underlying purpose” of article 38.23 is “to protect a suspect’s privacy, property, and liberty
rights against overzealous law enforcement.” Wilson v. State, 311 S.W.3d 452, 458-59 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2010). In other words, “[t]he primary purpose of article 38.23(a) is to deter unlawful actions
which violate the rights of criminal suspects in the acquisition of evidence for prosecution.” Id. at
459. Accordingly, even though “the plain language of article 38.23(a) would suggest that evidence
obtained in violation of any law must be suppressed,” the provision “may not be invoked for
statutory violations unrelated to the purpose of the exclusionary rule or to the prevention of the
illegal procurement of evidence of crime.” Id.
As set out above, there does not appear to be any dispute that the officer’s decision
to turn left at the red light violated the Transportation Code. Specifically, section 544.007 of the
Transportation Code states that “[a]n operator of a vehicle facing only a steady red signal shall
stop” and may turn left only “if the intersecting streets are both one-way streets and a left turn is
permissible.” Tex. Transp. Code § 544.007(d). The apparent purpose of the provision is to ensure 1
the safety of Texas drivers by explicitly setting out what actions are permissible under the particular
colors of a traffic-control signal. See id. § 544.007. “This is a purpose wholly unrelated to the
A video from Officer Martin’s dashboard camera was admitted as an exhibit and played for1 the trial court. The video shows that the road Officer Martin was driving on before making the turn was a two-lane road and also shows Officer Martin turn left at the red light. 9
purpose of the exclusionary rule,” and the Transportation Code provision “does not appear to have
been intended to confer rights or benefits on persons who are the subject of criminal investigations
or on the public at large.” See State v. Molegraaf, 86 S.W.3d 311, 313 (Tex. App.—Austin 2002,
no pet.); see also Jackson v. State, 968 S.W.2d 495, 499 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 1998, pet. ref’d)
(noting that laws that invoke exclusionary rule are “those that protect rights and interests of citizens
from infringement by the State”); Lane v. State, 951 S.W.2d 242, 243 (Tex. App.—Austin 1997,
no pet.) (explaining that “[a]rticle 38.23(a) may not be invoked for statutory violations unrelated
to the purpose of the exclusionary rule”).2
For these reasons, we must conclude that the trial court abused its discretion when it
determined that Officer Martin’s violation of section 544.007 required the suppression of evidence
and statements pertaining to the driving-while-intoxicated investigation. See Molegraaf, 86 S.W.3d
In his appellee’s brief, Wilson contends that State v. Molegraaf, 86 S.W.3d 311 (Tex.2 App.—Austin 2002, no pet.), and Lane v. State, 951 S.W.2d 242 (Tex. App.—Austin 1997, no pet.), do not contradict the trial court’s ruling because in those cases “there was no causal connection between the alleged illegality and the acquisition of evidence.” In Lane, the defendant argued that the results of his breath test should have been suppressed because the police officer failed to “fully comply with the requirements of Transportation Code section 724.015” by failing to give the defendant a copy of the required statutory warnings before asking the defendant to submit a breath sample. 951 S.W.2d at 243. When affirming the trial court’s ruling, this Court did state that “there was no evidence that the officer’s failure to timely” provide the defendant with a copy of the statutory warnings “had any impact whatsoever on [his] decision to take the breath test.” Id. at 244. However, the opinion from Molegraaf does not contain any similar language. In Molegraaf, the allegedly illegal action by police officers was their decision to place “temporary barriers . . . to prevent . . . drivers . . . from turning right.” 86 S.W.3d at 312. After the police observed the defendant drive “around the barriers,” the officers initiated a traffic stop and “observed conduct that gave them probable cause to arrest Molegraaf for driving while intoxicated.” Id. Accordingly, there was a causal connection between the allegedly illegal police conduct and the evidence seized. In any event, we believe that the portions of the analyses from both cases explaining that the exclusionary rule may not be invoked for statutory violations that have no bearing on the purpose of the exclusionary rule still compel our ultimate conclusion in this case. 10
at 312, 313 (concluding that decision by law-enforcement officers to initiate traffic stop after observing
Molegraaf drive around traffic barriers that had been placed on street by police in manner that
allegedly violated provision of Transportation Code “did not require suppression of the evidence of
Molegraaf’s intoxication”); Lane, 951 S.W.2d at 244 (determining that alleged statutory violation
of failing to hand defendant “DIC-24 warning form” “was unrelated to the purpose of the
exclusionary rule” where defendant “orally received the information . . . before being asked to
give the breath sample,” where “[t]here was no evidence that appellant did not understand this
information,” and where “there was no evidence that the officer’s failure to timely hand him the
printed DIC-24 warning form had any impact whatsoever on appellant’s decision to take the
breath test”); cf. Miles v. State, 241 S.W.3d 28, 48 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (Price, J., concurring)
(discussing whether traffic violations committed by individual while pursuing suspect would make
evidence subject to exclusion under article 38.23 and concluding that article 38.23 did not apply
because traffic violations “did not impinge upon any of the appellant’s personal privacy or property
rights”). Accordingly, we sustain the State’s issue on appeal.

Outcome:

Having sustained the State’s sole issue on appeal, we reverse the trial court’s order granting Wilson’s motion to suppress and remand for further proceedings.

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