Briggs v. State

560 S.W.3d 176
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedOctober 3, 2018
DocketNO. PD-1359-17
StatusPublished
Cited by31 cases

This text of 560 S.W.3d 176 (Briggs v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Briggs v. State, 560 S.W.3d 176 (Tex. 2018).

Opinion

Richardson, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Appellant, Sandra Coy Briggs, pled no contest on January 12, 2012, to the offense of intoxication manslaughter of a peace *178officer.1 She claimed in a motion for new trial2 that her plea was involuntary because case law decided after she pled would have changed her mind, and she would have exercised her right to a jury trial. The trial court denied Briggs's motion for new trial, but the Thirteenth Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's decision, finding that, "having the benefit of [the 2013 Missouri v. ] McNeely [opinion] and its progeny," Briggs's attorney, in 2012, "misrepresented the law to Briggs as it relates to the admissibility of her blood-draw evidence."3

We hold that the court of appeals erred. When a defendant waives the right to have a jury determine guilt or innocence and admits or does not contest guilt, the defendant does so under the law existing at the time of the plea. The fact that Briggs's attorney did not anticipate subsequent changes in the law does not impugn the truth or reliability of Briggs's plea.4 We reverse the decision of the court of appeals and affirm the judgment of the trial court.

BACKGROUND

Sergio Antillon was an officer with the San Antonio Police Department. On October 14, 2010, at approximately 2:00 a.m., as he was driving his personal vehicle home after his shift, Sergio stopped on the right shoulder of the highway to assist a driver whose pickup truck had just collided with the guard rail. Both men were standing on the shoulder when Briggs's vehicle, traveling southbound, hit the rear corner of the pickup truck. The pickup truck then struck the two men standing. The pickup truck driver was thrown onto the grassy hill alongside the highway, and Officer Antillon was thrown up into the air and landed on the guardrail. Officer Antillon died from his injuries.

At the scene, responding officers detected on Briggs the odor of alcohol and slurred speech. When Briggs did not perform well on the field sobriety tests, she was placed under arrest for DWI. Briggs refused to give a breath or blood sample. She was taken to the police station for processing and advised that she would have to give a mandatory blood sample due to the fact that she was involved in an accident involving injury and/or death.5 At that time, approximately two hours had passed since the accident. Briggs signed the refusal form and was taken to the police station infirmary. Although no warrant had been obtained, a nurse drew a sample of Briggs's blood at 5:15 a.m. on October 14, 2010. Her blood alcohol content was 0.14 g/dL.

On January 12, 2012, Briggs's jury trial began. After consulting with her attorney, Briggs entered a plea of no contest before the jury to the charge of intoxication manslaughter of a peace officer. She elected to *179have the jury decide punishment.6 After the punishment phase of the trial concluded, the jury found her guilty of intoxication manslaughter of a peace officer (as instructed by the trial court), assessed a forty-five year prison sentence, and made an affirmative finding that her vehicle was a deadly weapon.7

Briggs's Motion for New Trial

Represented by new counsel, Briggs filed a motion for new trial alleging (1) that her plea of no contest violated due process and was not made knowingly, intelligently, or voluntarily; and (2) a new trial should be granted in the interest of justice. In support of her motion for new trial, Briggs argued that the results of her blood draw were a determining factor in her decision to plead no contest to the intoxication manslaughter charge instead of exercising her right to a jury trial on guilt/innocence. Briggs claimed that in the year following her sentence, because "significant appellate opinions from the United States Supreme Court and Texas courts were issued concerning the constitutionality of warrantless blood draws," her plea has been rendered involuntary.8 It was Briggs's position that the admissibility of her blood draw results, as governed by current case law, was misrepresented to her by her attorney at the time of her plea, causing her to waive her right to have a jury determine her guilt/innocence, and thus causing her to involuntarily and unknowingly enter her plea of no contest.

On February 18, 2015, the trial court conducted a hearing on the motion for new trial. Briggs's trial attorney testified at the hearing that, at the time of Briggs's plea in January of 2012, he had researched the mandatory blood draw provisions in Transportation Code sections 724.011, 724.012, and 724.013 and the case law interpreting them. As he understood the mandatory blood draw provisions at the time of Briggs's plea, because this accident involved serious bodily injury or death, Briggs had given "implied consent" that allowed the police to take a specimen of Briggs's blood without a warrant.9 Trial counsel researched other ways of challenging the reliability and admissibility of the blood test results, but he ultimately concluded that the results would be admissible and damaging to Briggs's case, which is why he did not bother filing a motion to suppress. Thus, at the time of Briggs's plea, trial counsel believed that he "properly advised" Briggs of her rights under the law that existed at that time. Her *180attorney also confirmed that Briggs was admonished by the trial court before she entered her plea of no contest.

When it was time for Briggs to testify at the motion for new trial hearing, the prosecutor elicited the following testimony from her on cross examination:

Q. Now, when you entered into your plea, your attorney advised you what the consequences would be for entering into that plea, correct?
A. Oh, do you mean - Yes, yes, he did.
Q. So when you chose not to fight the guilt/innocence phase of the trial, you're not telling the court today that you weren't aware of what you were doing when you chose not to fight that stage of the trial, correct?
A. Yes, I knew what I was doing.
Q. And isn't it true that part of the reason you chose to plead guilty during the guilt/innocence phase of the trial was for the purpose of trial strategy?
A. I don't understand, sir. Could you please repeat that?
Q. Didn't you discuss with your attorney the fact that by pleading guilty to the jury, you were taking some responsibility for what you did, and it might affect the jury assessing less punishment for you? Are you telling the court that you did not discuss that with your prior attorney?
A. Yes, sir, I did.
Q. And that's part of the reason that you chose to plead guilty; isn't that correct?
A. Well, now, you mean - Uh, yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Q. That's part of - I want to make sure we're clear on this point. That is part of the reason you chose to plead guilty, correct?

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
560 S.W.3d 176, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/briggs-v-state-texcrimapp-2018.