Burdick v. State

474 S.W.3d 17, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 8233, 2015 WL 4898713
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 6, 2015
DocketNO. 14-14-00573-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 474 S.W.3d 17 (Burdick 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
Burdick v. State, 474 S.W.3d 17, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 8233, 2015 WL 4898713 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION

Tracy Christopher, Justice

In this appeal from a conviction for driving while intoxicated, we consider five issues, each arising out of the State’s failure — and in one instance, its refusal — to turn over evidence that appellant requested during discovery. Finding no reversible error, we overrule each issue and affirm the trial court’s'judgment. ■

BACKGROUND

Appellant was pulled over late at- night after an officer observed him swerve without warning and narrowly miss a parked car. When the officer asked for appellant’s license and proof of insurance, appellant gave an unusual-response, saying that he, as an individual-,’ did not have an expiration date. Appellant fumbled through his documents, dropping some of them on [21]*21his floorboard. According to the officer, appellant was slurring his speech, and he had “extremely watery bloodshot eyes and droopy eyelids.” The officer also detected “a strong odor of alcohol coming .out of the vehicle.”

The officer administered three field sobriety tests, which were all recorded on a dash cam video. The officer identified six out of six possible clues of intoxication on the horizontal gaze nystagmus test. When the officer asked for appellant to perform the walk and turn test, appellant claimed that he suffered from bad knees, but that-he was still capable of performing the test. Appellant stumbled through the test, displaying seven out of eight clues. Appellant performed poorly on the one-legged stand test as well, displaying four out of four clues. . Based on all of the signs of intoxication, the officer arrested appellant and transferred' him to the county jail for processing.

. The date of arrest was January 16, 2013. Two weeks later, on January 30, appellant sent a letter to the district attorney’s office, requesting the preservation of all recordings that depicted him on the date of the alleged offense. In addition' to the dash cam video, appellant specifically requested the booking and intake videos at the county jail. The State turned over the dash cam video, but no other recordings.

Appellant moved for additional discovery, and in October of 2013, the trial court granted his motion and ordered the State to turn over all “sally port videos; booking videos, and jail videos” that depicted appellant in this case. Still, no other record-' ings were ever produced.

Appellant moved to dismiss the case, claiming that the State’s failure to produce the other videos was prejudicial and in violation of Brady v. Maryland. During a pretrial hearing on that motion, appellant testified that he walked normally into the booking and intake area on the night of his arrest, without ever stumbling and without the assistance of another person. ■ Appellant asserted that if the other videos had been produced, they would show that he had not lost the normal use of his mental and physical faculties.

The State called á representative from the'jail, who testified that the jail has two video systems in the booking and intake area. One of the systems stores videos for four days,' whereas the other system stores videos for seventeen days. At the end of those time periods, the videos are taped over.

The representative explained .that the' jail does not . have an official policy for keeping. the videos in the booking and intake area. Instead, the retention period is determined., by -presets in the video equipment. The representative testified that the, video from the seventeen-day system could have been preserved by the time appellant hád made his request. However, appellant sent his request to the district attorney’s office, rather than the jail, and the representative claimed that he never received timely notice of a request. Consequently, the videos from both systems were lost. The trial court denied the motion to dismiss.

Shortly before trial; the State sent appellant a “File Memo / Brady Notice,” claiming that it had obtained the arresting officer’s'personnel file from another'police department where the officer had previously been employed. The State asserted in this nbtice that the officer’s employment with that other department had been terminated following an administrative investigation. The State did not apprise appellant of the- reasons for that investigation. However, the State advised appellant that, upon request, it would- supply the officer’s personnel file to the trial court for an in [22]*22camera inspection to determine whether the file qualified as either Brady or Giglio material.

Both sides agreed to an in camera inspection. In a written order, the court answered that it “has reviewed the provided material and has determined that none of the material constitutes Brady or Giglio material in the instant case.” The State, accordingly refused to turn over the personnel file. Appellant moved for a continuance to independently investigate the officer, but the trial court denied that motion.

During the trial on the merits, the officer was the State’s only witness. The officer published his dash cam video for the benefit of the jury, and he opined that appellant was intoxicated bn the night of the traffic stop. No evidence was ever presented regarding the alcohol concentration in appellant’s blood, breath, 'or urine.

Testifying in his own defense, appellant admitted that he had consumed' three beers on the night in question,' but he insisted that he was not intoxicated. Appellant explained that his coordination, or lack thereof, was the product of fatigue and previous bodily injury. Appellant testified that he was tired during his interaction with the officer because he had beeri awake for many hours. He also testified that he performed poorly during the field sobriety tests because doctors had.operated on his knees three times in the past, and those surgeries affected his balance. Appellant also stated that the cold, January weather was another factor that negatively impacted his knees. The jury rejected these explanations and • convicted-appellant as charged.

After the verdict, but before the trial-court’s plenary power had expired, appellant received the officer’s personnel file from his previous employer. • Appellant filed a motion for new trial, claiming that he had reason to believe that this file contained more documents than what the State had submitted to the trial court for an in camera inspection. Appellant attached a sample of the documents to his motion, and the attachments revealed, among other things, that the officer had been terminated because he used his authority to harass a young woman, with whom he apparently had a prior romantic relationship. Appellant argued that this newly available evidence was material and would have been used to impeach the officer. By written order, the trial court denied appellant’s motion for new trial, without ever having conducted a hearing.

MOTION FOR NEW TRIAL

. We consider appellant’s first and second issues together, because they are interrelated. In his first issue, appellant argues that the’trial court, abused its discretion by disposing of his motion for new trial without the benefit of a hearing. In his second issue, he argues that the trial court abused it's discretion by denying the motion itself. We address these points in reverse order.

I. Denial of the Motion

A trial court’s ruling' on a motion for new trial -is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. See Colyer v. State, 428 S.W.3d 117, 122 (Tex.Crim.App.2014).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
474 S.W.3d 17, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 8233, 2015 WL 4898713, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/burdick-v-state-texapp-2015.