Brown v. State

725 S.W.2d 801, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 6662
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided February 18, 1987·No. 3-85-255-CR·Published·Cited by 20 cases

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

Appellant was convicted of the offense of injury to a child. Tex.Pen. Code Ann. § 22.04(a)(1) (Supp.1987). The jury assessed punishment at imprisonment for sixty-five years. We will affirm the judgment of conviction.

I.

In his first point of error, appellant contends the trial court erred in admitting into evidence three incriminating recordings (one audiotape and two videotapes) of questioning sessions he underwent before his formal arrest. Appellant argues specifically that he was in custody without a warrant and without probable cause at the times of the questioning, and that the recordings are therefore “tainted” and inadmissible. See Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.S. 687, 102 S.Ct. 2664, 73 L.Ed.2d 314 (1982); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975); Self v. State, 709 S.W.2d 662 (Tex.Cr.App.1986); 3 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 11.4(b) (1987).

In response to appellant’s motion to suppress the three recordings, the trial court conducted a pretrial hearing to determine whether appellant was in custody unlawfully at the times the recordings were made. See Tex.Code C.P.Ann. art. 28.01, § 1(6) (Supp.1987). Appellant and police officers Howard K. Hall and Bruce Boardman testified at the hearing. Appellant testified that he took the victim, the 21-month-old daughter of his girlfriend, in his pickup truck to a minor-emergency clinic in Austin at approximately 11:15 a.m., Wednesday, April 10, 1985; that shortly after his arrival, several uniformed police officers arrived in three marked police vehicles; and that two of the officers asked him to accompany them alone to a back room of the clinic where he was questioned briefly regarding the child’s injuries. His testimony continued:

Q Let me ask you this, from the minor-emergency clinic, where did you go? Where did you go next?
A We went to the hospital. 1
Q How did you get there?
A I rode in the front seat of one of the police cars with an officer.
Q Why did you go to the hospital with the police officer?
A I felt that — first off, they asked me if I would go ahead and go with them.
Q What did you say?
A I said, Well, sir, my vehicle’s — I brought the child to the clinic in my vehicle and I’d much rather — or is there any reason why I can’t drive my own vehicle down there, and they said, No, we need you to go and come with us, and I went ahead and explained that I didn’t feel comfortable *803 leaving my truck on the outside of the building there.
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Q Did you express to the officer that you would like to drive your own pickup truck?
A I did.
Q Did they permit you to do so?
A No.
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Q Okay. Now, did the uniformed officer that brought you to the hospital stay with you the whole time that you were at the hospital?
A He did.
Q Did there come a time when you asked to go to the men’s room? A Yes, sir.
Q Okay, how did that work?
A It was like 15 minutes after we’d got there, I’d asked the officer if it would be all right if I could use the restroom and he said, Yes, it’s right outside the door there, and I got up and he followed me over to the door and I went in and he waited there until I got through.
Q When you came out of the restroom, was he there waiting for you?
A He was.

Appellant related further that after he finished in the hospital’s restroom, he was questioned by several police officers in a small, back room and that this questioning was audiotaped. 2 His testimony continued:

Q Now, from the hospital, you went where?
A They had asked me about taking them back to [my residence] to show them what happened.
Q And how did you get from the hospital to [your residence]?
A In an unmarked car.
Q Okay. Was it a police car?
A Yes, sir.
Q Were you taken there by a policeman?
A Yes, sir.
Q Now, after the events that occurred at [your residence] with the police officers ..., where did you go from there?
A Okay. They had asked me — I believe I had told them that I wanted to go back to the hospital and they had informed me that I needed to go to the station with them.
Q “They” being who?
A For sure it was Officer Boardman.
Q Officer Boardman told you that you needed to go to the station with him; is that correct?
A Uh-huh. I was asking him more or less what was the next step and what else they wanted me to do, and he told me that I probably needed to talk to Sergeant Hall one more time and sign a statement.
Q And did you have any conversation with Sergeant Boardman at that time before returning to the police station or before going to the police station for the first time, I should say, about your pickup truck?
A Yes, sir.
Q What did you tell Sergeant Board-man about your pickup truck?
A I told him that I was still worried about my pickup truck because I'd asked an officer earlier whether I could go ahead and use it to do all this running around in because I was worried about it being towed off at the minor emergency clinic and he told me, No, not to worry about it, and I needed to come with them until they were through.
Q Had any of these officers ever handcuffed you?
A No.
Q Did they ever tell you that you were under arrest?
A No.
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Q And you were never told that you were not free to leave?
A No.

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Brown v. State, 725 S.W.2d 801, 1987 Tex. App. LEXIS 6662 (Tex. Ct. App. 1987).

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