Badgett v. State

79 S.W.3d 581, 2001 Tex. App. LEXIS 6456, 2001 WL 1103660
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedSeptember 20, 2001
DocketNo. 14-97-01404-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 79 S.W.3d 581 (Badgett v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Badgett v. State, 79 S.W.3d 581, 2001 Tex. App. LEXIS 6456, 2001 WL 1103660 (Tex. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinions

OPINION ON REMAND

MAURICE E. AMIDEI, Justice.

Thomas Wyman Badgett appeals a misdemeanor conviction for driving while intoxicated (“DWI”) on the grounds that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence. We reverse.

Background

Appellant was involved in an automobile collision in May of 1997. He was standing beside his vehicle when Officer Kerr arrived at the scene of the accident. Sergeant Traylor, the officer already working the accident, handed Kerr appellant’s license and told Kerr that appellant was one of the drivers in the accident, that he might be intoxicated, and that Kerr might want to perform a field sobriety test. After performing several field sobriety tests, Kerr believed that appellant might be intoxicated and placed him under arrest. Kerr testified that based on his experience, he also believed at the time of appellant’s arrest that appellant could have been at fault for the accident because appellant was intoxicated. At the time Kerr left the scene with appellant, the accident reconstruction team had not yet determined that appellant was not at fault.

Appellant was taken to the Baytown Police Station, where he was video-taped but declined to give a blood sample. Kerr then took appellant to a local hospital, where a sample of appellant’s blood was drawn over his objection. After appellant was charged with DWI, he filed a motion to suppress any and all evidence obtained as a result of alleged illegal detention, arrest, and search. The trial court denied the motion to suppress, and appellant entered a negotiated no-contest plea.

[584]*584On appeal, appellant challenged the denial of his motion to suppress on the grounds that the evidence was obtained as a result of an illegal and warrantless arrest and in violation of the Transportation Code provisions governing the taking of a blood sample without consent. Our prior opinion overruled each of these challenges and affirmed appellant’s conviction. Appellant successfully sought discretionary review of that opinion on the Transportation Code issue, and the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed our decision on that issue without mention of appellant’s other challenges. We thus interpret its remand to be confined to the Transportation Code issue.

Motion to Suppress

When a plea bargain has been entered into and the accused is appealing from denial of a pretrial motion to suppress evidence, the appellate court must apply a two-step inquiry before reaching the merits of an issue claiming error in the denial of the pre-trial motion to suppress. Gonzales v. State, 966 S.W.2d 521, 524 (Tex.Crim.App.1998). The two-step analysis requires that the appellate court to (1) identify the “fruits” which the trial court did not suppress, and (2) determine whether such fruits have been “used” by the State in securing the accused’s plea-bargained conviction. Id. In identifying the “fruits” of which complaint is made, a defendant is not required to have the evidence which was sought to be suppressed admitted into evidence at a suppression hearing in order for the appellate court to address the merits of the appeal. However, it must be clear from the appellate record what “fruits” are complained of. Id. Otherwise, the merits of the claimed error in failing to suppress evidence need not be addressed. Id. McGlynn v. State, 704 S.W.2d 18, 21 (Tex.Crim.App.1982). Evidence has been “used” in securing the conviction and the merits of the appeal should be entertained so long as it may be concluded that the particular evidence the accused maintains should have been suppressed would have in any measure inculpated the accused. Gonzales, 966 S.W.2d at 523; Kraft v. State, 762 S.W.2d 612, 615 (Tex.Crim.App.1988).

In this case, the testimony and exhibits in the reporter’s record of the suppression hearing do not explicitly identify which item(s) of evidence appellant sought to suppress. Nor do they expressly indicate whether appellant’s blood sample was tested, the results of any such testing or what, if anything, was done with appellant’s blood sample. The only indication our record contains that any blood test result even exists is a statement in the affidavit of a police officer contained in the complaint filed with the information stating that “[t]he blood results of the blood sample proved Defendant’s blood alcohol level was .13.” Neither this complaint nor any other evidence of the blood test results was admitted into evidence at the suppression hearing. Nevertheless, “a defendant is not required to have the evidence which he sought to suppress admitted in order for [a] court of appeals to address the merits of an appeal challenging the denial of a pretrial motion to suppress.” See id. at 524. Accordingly, based on the police affidavit containing appellant’s blood alcohol results, we find it to be reasonably clear that “the fruits” resulting from the State’s seizure of appellant’s blood were the test results demonstrating his .13 blood alcohol level.

Having satisfied the first element of Gonzales, we now turn to its second and determine whether these fruits, i.e., appellant’s blood alcohol test results, have “somehow been used by the State.” Id. [585]*585Under this element, the Gonzales Court observed that:

by contesting the defendant’s motion to suppress and obtaining a ruling that the evidence was admissible, “the State preserved the option to ‘use’ appellant’s statement as part or all of its evidence going to establish the [elements of the offense] in a full-blown trial. This ruling undoubtedly contributed to the State’s leverage in the plea bargaining process.... Thus we may presume that at least to some extent the State has ‘used’ the contested evidence to obtain appellant’s plea.”

Id. at 523 (citing Kraft v. State, 762 S.W.2d 612, 615 (Tex.Crim.App.1988)). Similar to the facts of Kraft, the State successfully contested appellant’s motion to suppress and thereby preserved its option to “use” his blood alcohol test results as evidence in the event of a trial. Because the court’s denial of appellant’s motion to suppress “undoubtedly contributed to the State’s leverage” in appellant’s decision to enter into a plea agreement, we presume that the State has used appellant’s blood alcohol test results to obtain his plea. Id.

We next turn to the merits of appellant’s issue for review. Here appellant contends that the trial court erred in denying his Motion To Suppress Blood Test Results because his blood was taken by police in violation of Texas Transportation Code section 724.013. We agree.

We review the trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress according to the standard set out in Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85 (Tex.Crim.App.1997). We afford almost total deference to the trial court’s determination of the historical facts that are supported by the record, especially when the trial court’s fact findings are based on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor. Id. at 89.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
79 S.W.3d 581, 2001 Tex. App. LEXIS 6456, 2001 WL 1103660, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/badgett-v-state-texapp-2001.