Cody Wade Presley v. the State of Texas

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 20, 2025
Docket13-24-00337-CR
StatusPublished

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Cody Wade Presley v. the State of Texas, (Tex. Ct. App. 2025).

Opinion

NUMBER 13-24-00337-CR

COURT OF APPEALS

THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS

CORPUS CHRISTI – EDINBURG

CODY WADE PRESLEY, Appellant,

v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.

ON APPEAL FROM THE 24TH DISTRICT COURT OF JACKSON COUNTY, TEXAS

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Before Chief Justice Tijerina and Justices West and Fonseca Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Tijerina

Appellant Cody Wayne Presley appeals his conviction of manufacture or delivery

of a controlled substance in penalty group 1, to-wit methamphetamine, in the amount of

four grams or more but less than 200 grams, a first-degree felony. See TEX. HEALTH &

SAFETY CODE ANN. § 481.112(d). Appellant was sentenced to seventy-five years’ confinement.1 By what we construe and renumber as two issues, appellant contends

that the trial court should have granted his motion to suppress and that his sentence

“amounts to cruel and unusual punishment”. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND2

On March 2, 2022, Jackson County Sheriff’s Deputy Bryan Martin noticed that

appellant had an expired registration sticker, which Deputy Martin confirmed on his

computer. Deputy Martin turned on his overhead lights and pursued appellant to initiate

a traffic stop. Deputy Martin testified that he recognized appellant and knew that he was

a convicted felon. Deputy Martin had previously been informed that appellant was

involved in other crimes, including drug use and that the officers “kept . . . a watchful

eye . . . [on appellant, and he s]tarted investigating it.” Deputy Martin elaborated that there

had been “lots of complaints from the public” including “Facebook posts about him on a

Community Bulletin Board” and that “[a] neighbor had come to us and told us about his

behavior.”

Deputy Martin stated that as he followed appellant’s vehicle, appellant weaved in

and out of his lane. At the motion to suppress hearing, a video from Deputy Martin’s

dashcam was played as Deputy Martin pointed out the instances appellant weaved.

Based on his experience, Deputy Martin believed appellant’s weaving suggested that he

was reaching down and hiding something. Deputy Martin explained that reaching down

1 Appellant’s punishment range was enhanced pursuant to the repeat felony offender statute. See

TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 12.42(c)(1). 2 Videos of the traffic stop were admitted into evidence. We describe the facts based on testimony

from the suppression hearing and the videos of the traffic stop.

2 “[c]auses them to go off the road because they’re not looking. They’re trying to stash

something.” According to Deputy Martin, appellant passed several parking lots that he

could have pulled into before stopping his vehicle. The State asked, “Is that playing [on]

your . . . [s]uspicion that he may have been trying to conceal something . . . [b]ecause it

took a little longer to pull over?” Deputy Martin said, “Yes.” Deputy Martin observed that

appellant was nervous and shaking, and appellant asked Deputy Martin to let him go a

couple of times, which Deputy Martin described as “[s]trange behavior.” Deputy Martin

thought that appellant was “worried” that Deputy Martin would “uncover[] something else”

and appellant “want[ed] to get out of there as fast as he [could].” Based on his

observations of appellant’s behavior, Deputy Martin believed appellant was worried about

something other than a traffic violation. Shortly after the traffic stop, appellant exited the

vehicle and followed Deputy Martin to the rear of his vehicle. 3 Another officer soon

arrived. 4 During his investigation, Deputy Martin learned that the vehicle was not

registered to appellant, and there was no insurance.

After Deputy Martin asked if appellant had “anything illegal in the vehicle,”

appellant responded, “not that I know of.” Deputy Martin said, “I know exactly what’s in

my vehicle . . . at any given time you can ask me and I can say no, there’s nothing in my

vehicle.” Deputy Martin stated that “on several traffic stops throughout the years, whether

if I inquire about it, the ones that have said that have usually had some kind of contraband

in their vehicle.” Appellant then told Deputy Martin that a friend named “Waco” had

3 The video admitted into evidence showing the men move to the back of appellant’s vehicle does

not have sound. Thus, it is not clear exactly when in the conversation the two men proceeded to the rear. 4 The other officer did not testify at the suppression hearing.

3 “dropped something in his vehicle . . . . some type of narcotic and . . . [appellant] was

worried about it.”

Appellant wanted permission to reenter his vehicle, which caused Deputy Martin

to become suspicious that appellant wanted “to make sure something [was] concealed”

in his vehicle. Deputy Martin testified that he could not allow appellant to reenter his

vehicle at this point for officer safety, and appellant seemed concerned when Deputy

Martin offered to turn off the vehicle for appellant. The other responding officer walked by

the passenger side and noticed that a gun was in the backseat. The officers opened the

back passenger door and inspected the gun, which they discovered was a BB gun.

Deputy Martin requested consent to search appellant’s vehicle, which appellant

refused. Deputy Martin then requested a K-9 to search the vehicle, and they waited for

approximately fifty minutes for the K-9 unit to arrive. Deputy Martin explained that at the

time of the traffic stop, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office did not have a K-9 unit, so he

had to wait for a K-9 unit from Victoria County. Deputy Martin said that the K-9 unit was

delayed because “[t]here was something happening . . . on the way headed to my

location . . . [and] Victoria PD ended up getting into a pursuit.” A video admitted into

evidence shows the K-9 officer arrive at the scene, walk around the vehicle without the

dog, and discover the drugs when he looked in the vehicle’s driver’s side window. 5

Appellant was arrested.6

5 At trial, the K-9 officer testified that he walked around the vehicle to make sure that there was

nothing around the vehicle that could harm his dog. He also looked in the windows for anything in plain sight. When he peered into the driver’s side window, he saw the methamphetamine in the vehicle’s floorboard near the pedals. Therefore, he did not use his dog in this case. 6 The K-9 officer did not testify at the suppression hearing.

4 Appellant testified that he does not trust the officers of the Jackson County Sheriff’s

Office because they had been dishonest in the past. Appellant acknowledged that he told

Deputy Martin that “Waco had dropped something” in his vehicle a “few days prior to” the

traffic stop, which he “thought . . . was a little bit of weed.” Appellant said, “I mean we’re

talking about like crumbs.” On cross-examination, appellant admitted that he told Deputy

Martin that he did not know what type of substance Waco dropped in his vehicle, but he

did not mean to imply it was anything other than a minuscule amount of “weed.”

The trial court denied appellant’s motion to suppress, and he was convicted after

a jury trial. This appeal followed.

II. MOTION TO SUPPRESS

A. Standard of Review & Applicable Law

We review a ruling on a motion to suppress under a bifurcated standard by giving

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