Fourth Court of Appeals San Antonio, Texas MEMORANDUM OPINION Nos. 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-0533-CR
Jason Christopher MIEARS, Appellant
v.
The STATE of Texas, Appellee
From the 379th Judicial District Court, Bexar County, Texas Trial Court Nos. 2009-CR-6566, 2009-CR-6567 & 2009-CR-6568 Honorable Ron Rangel, 1 Judge Presiding
Opinion by: Luz Elena D. Chapa, Justice
Sitting: Karen Angelini, Justice Patricia O. Alvarez, Justice Luz Elena D. Chapa, Justice
Delivered and Filed: May 15, 2013
AFFIRMED
Jason Miears pleaded guilty to charges of murder and aggravated robbery, and the trial
court sentenced him to fifty years in prison and to pay a fine of $2,500. Miears appeals the
judgments based on matters heard and ruled on before his plea. His first two issues concern
alleged errors at his competency trial: first, the trial court failed to exclude unreliable expert
testimony, and second, the jury’s verdict was contrary to the evidence. In his final issue, Miears
1 This case was assigned to the 379th Judicial District Court of Bexar County, Texas, in which the Honorable Ron Rangel is the presiding judge. Judge Rangel ruled on Miears’s motion to suppress and presided over the plea hearing. However, the competency trial was conducted by the Honorable Andrew W. Carruthers, Criminal Magistrate Judge. 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
complains the trial court wrongly denied his motion to suppress evidence found in his car. We
affirm.
THE COMPETENCY TRIAL
Miears contends that the testimony of the State’s expert witness was unreliable and
therefore inadmissible, and that the jury’s verdict was against the great weight and
preponderance of the evidence.
As a defendant, Miears is presumed competent to stand trial, and he had the burden of
proving otherwise by the preponderance of the evidence. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art.
46B.003(b) (West 2006). Incompetency is shown if a defendant lacks (1) the sufficient present
ability to consult with the defendant’s attorneys with a reasonable degree of rational
understanding; or (2) a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings against the
defendant. Id. art. 46B.003(a) (West 2006).
The Evidence
The defense’s expert, Dr. Randall Sellers, interviewed Miears three times and assessed
his competency with a clinical interview and two structured or semi-structured interviews. Dr.
Sellers also spoke with Miears’s mother, a psychiatrist, to determine whether some of Miears’s
abnormal behaviors had existed since childhood. Dr. Sellers testified Miears was very intelligent
and knowledgeable about criminal law and the charges pending against him. He also testified
Miears suffered from or had elements of four mental illnesses: obsessive compulsive disorder, a
mood disorder, pervasive development disorder, and obsessive compulsive personality disorder.
In Dr. Sellers’s opinion, Miears’s illnesses would keep him from rationally coordinating
his defense with his lawyer despite his intelligence. He testified that Miears, because of his
intelligence, would fixate on a particular legal strategy or theory; it would then be impossible for
anyone to convince him that it was incorrect or that another one was better. -2- 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
Dr. Sellers also administered two tests to see if Miears was malingering—exaggerating
symptoms or behaviors to achieve some secondary gain. He found signs of malingering in one
test, but not in the other.
On cross-examination, Dr. Sellers clarified he thought Miears was incompetent to be tried
only because Miears lacked the sufficient present ability to consult with his attorneys with a
reasonable degree of rational understanding. He explained that, although sometimes defendants
make bad choices and do not properly consult with their attorneys, in his opinion the mental
illnesses he saw in Miears would impair him from rationally consulting with his attorneys. He
further testified Miears’s lack of cooperation with the State’s expert could stem from defensive
rigidity arising from his mental illnesses, or that it could be an example of Miears trying to
manipulate the State’s expert witness, Dr. Brian Skop.
Dr. Skop did not offer an ultimate opinion about Miears’s competency, but he did testify
Miears was malingering and displayed elements of competency. Dr. Skop attempted five
interviews with Miears; three of the interviews were unsuccessful because Miears absolutely
refused to cooperate. During the first of the two interviews Miears participated in, he appeared
to be psychotic, had delusions or hallucinations, and became so threatening and agitated—
including using profanity and offering to perform sex acts on Dr. Skop—that Dr. Skop ended the
interview after forty-five minutes. He began to suspect Miears was malingering because he
knew Miears was in a mental unit meant for relatively functional inmates, and the behavior he
had observed in the interview strongly conflicted with that designation. During the second
interview, which lasted seventy-five minutes, Dr. Skop administered a test for malingering, the
results of which were “positive off the charts.” Because he suspected Miears was malingering,
Dr. Skop began to investigate other evidence.
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Dr. Skop reviewed the reports of Dr. Maria Ruiz-Sweeney, who was one of Miears’s
doctors while in jail. She initially diagnosed him as incompetent in her May 2009 report.
However, after a period of time he was on medication, Dr. Ruiz-Sweeney ultimately concluded
in her October 2009 report, Miears was malingering and he was competent to stand trial. Dr.
Skop found her assessment matched his own independent diagnosis. Dr. Skop listened to
recorded phone calls between Miears and his father, who is a criminal defense attorney. Miears
asked his father to research certain cases for him and bragged he had “pulled one over” on Dr.
Sweeny. Dr. Skop also reviewed the initial police interview and found evidence that showed
Miears was interacting very rationally and coherently with the officer. Dr. Skop thought
Miears’s behavior in that interview and on the phone displayed a rational and coherent
understanding of how to interact in a cooperative way. Dr. Skop also examined Miears’s
academic history, spoke with detention officers supervising Miears, reviewed police reports, and
looked at motions Miears had filed. The motions were often filled with nonsense—“saying that
his attorney is not an attorney, that everybody has AIDS”—which, when contrasted with his
cooperative and functional behavior with other people, formed part of the basis for Dr. Skop’s
diagnosis of malingering.
The State called the custodian of records for the University of Texas at San Antonio to
introduce Miears’s academic transcript into evidence. The transcript shows Miears earned his
Bachelor of Arts degree in political science cum laude, graduated with a final GPA of 3.52, and
received the distinction of being variously placed on the Honor Roll, Dean’s List, and President’s
List in several semesters. At the time of his arrest, he was a graduate student at UTSA.
The first lay witness was David Martinez, a detention officer with the Bexar County
Sheriff’s Office. Martinez regularly oversaw Miears for a period of five or six months, but had
only seen him twice in the ten months immediately before the competency hearing. He testified -4- 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
that Miears was kept in a mental unit for inmates who needed medication but were otherwise
well enough to be housed together with other inmates. Miears interacted well with him, and he
observed Miears interacting normally and calmly with the other inmates while he worked in the
law library. He observed Miears reading USA Today, listening to the radio, and making
telephone calls without difficulty or outbursts.
Keith Hottle, the Clerk of this Court, was the last witness. He testified the Clerk’s office
had instituted a special procedure to handle Miears’s voluminous filings. Instead of assigning a
case number to each filing, the filings were collected at the end of each week and assigned a joint
case number. At the time of his testimony, Miears had filed 119 original proceedings that were
divided among twenty-nine case numbers. Twenty-seven of the group filings had been denied,
and two were pending. Hottle did not offer an opinion regarding the merits of any of the filings,
but simply testified that the petitions were properly filed.
Admissibility of Dr. Skop’s Testimony
Miears challenges the trial court’s admission of Dr. Skop’s testimony. He contends Dr.
Skop had insufficient facts or data with which to form his opinion and the opinion was therefore
unreliable. We review the trial court’s evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion. Acevedo v.
State, 255 S.W.3d 162, 166 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2008, pet. ref’d).
Texas Rule of Evidence 705(c) governs the reliability of underlying facts or data upon
which an expert bases his opinion or testimony. Vela v. State, 209 S.W.3d 128, 133 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2006); see TEX. R. EVID. 705(c) (“If the court determines that the underlying facts or data
do not provide a sufficient basis for the expert’s opinion under Rule 702 or 703, the opinion is
inadmissible.”). The reliability inquiry is flexible, at times focusing on the reliability of
scientific knowledge, at other times on the expert’s personal knowledge and experience. Vela,
209 S.W.3d at 134. -5- 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
Our decision in Acevedo illustrates when expert testimony should be excluded because
the expert lacked a basis for his opinion. See 255 S.W.3d at 168-70. Acevedo was charged with
murdering an acquaintance while high on methamphetamine. Id. at 166. At trial, the State’s
expert witness answered hypothetical questions about the potential effects of methamphetamine
in certain scenarios; yet he also admitted that the effects vary from person to person and that he
had been given none of the relevant facts about Acevedo’s suspected use. Id. We held the
witness’s use of hypotheticals unrelated to the relevant facts of the case negated the probative
value of his testimony, and we concluded the testimony was speculative, unreliable, and
irrelevant. Id. at 169. It was therefore an abuse of discretion to admit his testimony. Id.
Dr. Skop’s testimony bears no resemblance to the expert’s testimony in Acevedo. Dr.
Skop interviewed Miears twice, and although Miears was very uncooperative, his aberrant and
aggressive behavior factored into Dr. Skop’s diagnosis. Miears’s own expert described the
malingering test given by Dr. Skop as the “gold standard.” In addition, Dr. Skop collected
information from numerous collateral sources and explained how each additional piece of
evidence fit into his assessment of Miears’s malingering and possible incompetency. And he
frankly admitted that he could not opine on the ultimate issue of Miears’s competency; instead,
he limited his opinion to diagnosing Miears as malingering and displaying some elements of
competency. Because Dr. Skop adequately demonstrated the basis for his testimony and
refrained from offering an opinion he could not professionally justify, we hold the trial court did
not abuse its discretion in admitting his testimony.
Factual Sufficiency
To prevail on a factual sufficiency complaint challenging the verdict in his competency
trial, Miears must demonstrate the jury’s verdict was so against the great weight and
preponderance of the evidence as to be manifestly unjust. Meraz v. State, 785 S.W.2d 146, 154- -6- 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
55 (Tex. Crim. App. 1990); see Matlock v. State, 392 S.W.3d 662, 667 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013)
(holding Brooks v. State did not change the traditional legal and factual standards of review for
affirmative defenses proved by a preponderance of the evidence). We review all the relevant
evidence in a neutral light, but defer to the jury’s weight and credibility choices. Matlock, 392
S.W.3d at 671.
Miears’s case for incompetency was based on his expert’s diagnosis that Miears suffered
from multiple mental illnesses. Miears offered no evidence showing those illnesses—if the jury
even believed they existed—prevented him from having a rational understanding of the
proceedings against him. Not only did Dr. Sellers—his own expert—testify Miears had
excellent knowledge and factual understanding of the justice system, he also specified on cross-
examination that he thought Miears was incompetent only on the ground that he lacked the
sufficient present ability to consult with his attorneys with a reasonable degree of rational
understanding. Dr. Skop testified that Miears displayed a twisted knowledge of the justice
system—e.g., a plea bargain is paying the prosecutor to drop the case—but that this skewed
perspective was consistent with a malingering defendant. He supported his conclusion by
reviewing how Miears acted in his initial police interview and by listening to Miears talk with his
father about aspects of his case. Miears’s own voluminous and correctly filed original
proceedings in this court also display knowledge of the court system. The jury was clearly
justified in finding Miears did not carry his burden of proof under article 46B.003(a)(2). See
TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 46B.003(a)(2).
Miears also claimed his illnesses produced a rigidity of thinking keeping him from
consulting his attorneys with a rational degree of understanding. But the jury heard evidence that
Miears changed his behavior and degree of cooperation with others based on what he needed or
expected from them. With Dr. Sellers, Miears was accommodating and helpful, yet with Dr. -7- 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
Skop, he was rude, lewd, and threatening. The jury had at least two reasonable interpretations of
the evidence to justify finding Miears was able to rationally consult with his attorneys. The jury
could have found Miears did not have any mental illness and that he was faking. See Clark v.
State, 47 S.W.3d 211, 215-16 (Tex. App.—Beaumont 2001, no pet.). Or it could have weighed
the conflicting evidence and found that any mental illness Miears may have had did not impede
him from rationally consulting with his attorneys. See Williams v. State, 191 S.W.3d 242, 248-
51 (Tex. App.—Austin 2006, no pet.). As both expert witnesses testified, rational and irrational
defendants alike can make poor choices in communicating with counsel.
We hold the verdict of competency was not so against the great weight and
preponderance of the evidence as to be manifestly unjust.
THE SUPPRESSION HEARING
Following a bank robbery and after receiving a description of the male suspect and his
vehicle, the police stopped Miears and conducted a warrantless search of his car. In his car, the
police found evidence connecting him not only to the bank robbery, but also to a homicide
investigation and an apartment robbery. After the hearing, the trial court overruled his motion to
suppress. No findings of fact or conclusions of law were filed or requested. On appeal, Miears
concedes he was lawfully stopped and only contests the legality of the search, contending it was
not justified as a search incident to arrest, by exigent circumstances, or by the plain-view
doctrine. The State replies that the search was justified under the automobile exception to the
warrant requirement or under the protective-sweep doctrine.
At the suppression hearing, the only witnesses called were four police officers who
responded to the bank robbery. Following his interview with two bank tellers, Matthew Porter,
the initial responding police officer, broadcasted a description of the suspect who had fled with -8- 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
money and was potentially armed with a gun. The broadcast placed officers on alert for a white
male, about six-feet tall and in his late twenties, who was wearing dark pants, a dark jacket, and
possibly a dark bandana.
Another on-scene officer, Keith Floyd, interviewed a witness, a homeowner who lives on
the next street over from the bank. The witness’s property adjoins the backside of the bank, and
the bank is about 150 feet away. The witness observed an unknown man park outside his house
and then walk around the house to get to the road where the bank is located. The witness thought
the man’s actions were suspicious so he took a picture of the man’s car. The witness told Officer
Floyd that he made eye contact with the unknown man when he returned to his car and that he
looked “concerned.” The witness’s description of the man matched the suspect’s description,
which Officer Floyd received from Officer Porter. Officer Floyd examined the picture of the car
the witness took and identified the car as a red Pontiac Firebird. He then broadcasted that
detailed information to the other officers.
Officer Javier Arguello received the initial and follow-up broadcasts about the robbery
and proceeded to the bank area to assist in looking for the suspect. Based on his instincts, he
turned into a large subdivision, where he soon came across a red Pontiac Firebird. Officer
Arguello began to follow the car and saw the driver was a white male. The car turned into a cul-
de-sac, turned around in a driveway, and then proceeded back down the street in the opposite
direction passing Officer Arguello. As they passed each other, Officer Arguello further observed
the driver looked like he was in his twenties and matched the description of the suspect; the
driver also looked very nervous. Officer Arguello broadcasted he was trailing a person who
matched the suspect’s description and vehicle, and began to follow the vehicle. He noticed the
suspect was driving slowly, about twenty or twenty-five miles per hour, braking far more
frequently and irregularly than would a normal driver, and making reaching and lunging -9- 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
movements inside the car. Officer Arguello testified he believed those actions indicated the
suspect was getting a weapon ready or hiding evidence.
As soon as a backup officer arrived to the area, Officer Arguello initiated the stop. The
driver complied, and Officer Arguello quickly moved to the driver-side door to secure the driver
in case he was armed and saw a black jacket lying on the passenger-side floorboard. At that
point, Officer Arguello was certain the driver and the bank-robbery suspect were the same
person because the driver was a white male, matching the description of the bank-robbery
suspect, driving a red Pontiac Firebird in the bank’s vicinity, with a dark jacket in his car, and
acting very nervously around the police officers. He ordered the driver out of the car, patted him
down, handcuffed him, informed him he was being detained on suspicion of robbery, and placed
him in the back of his patrol car. Officer Arguello stayed close to his patrol car to watch over the
suspect and did not conduct any other search of the driver or his car. Officer Arguello stayed on
scene until a one-on-one identification was completed and until the driver was officially arrested.
Officer Henry, who assisted Officer Arguello in detaining the suspect and conducted a
search of the car, was the last witness to take the stand. He testified only twenty or thirty
minutes passed from the time he heard the initial broadcast about the robbery, until he arrived to
help detain Officer Arguello’s suspect. Officer Henry saw a black jacket in the Firebird and saw
the driver who matched the broadcasted descriptions of the suspect—a white male in his twenties
or thirties, driving a red Pontiac Firebird, wearing dark pants or jeans, and having a black jacket.
Officer Henry had “a pretty good feeling” he would find stolen property in the suspect’s vehicle.
Officer Henry testified Firebirds do not have traditional trunks but instead have passenger
compartments extending back to the rear of the cars. He, therefore, opened the Firebird’s
“hatchback” to ensure the officers’ safety. Inside the “hatchback” were a black bandana, a black
backpack, and a computer bag, among other bags and blankets. Officer Henry could see money - 10 - 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
in a partially opened bag. At that point, he felt he had secured the car and stopped the search
until evidence technicians arrived. He was later told that a revolver had also been found in the
car.
Officer Henry stayed at the scene and helped conduct a one-on-one identification of the
suspect by a witness to the bank robbery. He testified the entire episode, from the first report of
the bank robbery until the one-on-one identification, probably happened within an hour’s time.
All four officers identified the driver of the Firebird as Miears in court.
The Standard of Review & the Automobile Exception
When reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, we give the trial court’s
determination of historical facts almost total deference and review its application of the law de
novo. Tollefson v. State, 352 S.W.3d 816, 819 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2011, pet. ref’d). If
findings of fact were neither requested nor issued, we imply findings that support the trial court’s
ruling if the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the ruling, supports those findings.
Id. We may uphold the trial court’s ruling on any theory of law applicable to the case. Id.
Police officers may conduct a warrantless search of a vehicle if they have probable cause
to believe evidence of a crime may be found. Powell v. State, 898 S.W.2d 821, 827 (Tex. Crim.
App. 1994). Exigent circumstances are not required, Neal v. State, 256 S.W.3d 264, 283 (Tex.
Crim. App. 2008); and the automobile exception is distinct from the search-incident-to-arrest,
plain-view, and protective-sweep doctrines. Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 347 (2009)
(confirming the automobile exception and protective-sweep doctrine were unaffected by the
Court’s narrowing of the search-incident-to-arrest doctrine); Keehn v. State, 279 S.W.3d 330,
335-36 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (upholding search of the defendant’s van based on the
automobile exception and rejecting plain-view rationale).
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Probable cause to search requires a “fair probability” of finding inculpatory evidence at
the location being searched. Neal, 256 S.W.3d at 282. In assessing probable cause, we
necessarily evaluate probabilities, and “probabilities ‘are the factual and practical consideration
of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians, act.’” Weide v.
State, 214 S.W.3d 17, 24 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (quoting Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S.
160, 175 (1949)). When a search or seizure is the result of collaborative efforts between law
enforcement officers, we may impute the knowledge of one officer to the other in determining
whether probable cause existed. Weide, 214 S.W.3d at 27-28 & n.50.
Application
The facts before us are similar to other Texas cases where courts found probable cause to
search. In Esco v. State, police officers near Junction, Texas, stopped a car for a routine traffic
violation and checked the license-plate number with their dispatcher. 668 S.W.2d 358, 359 (Tex.
Crim. App. [Panel Op.] 1982). The dispatcher told them their detained car matched the license
plate and description of a car involved in an Austin robbery committed by two white males. Id.
The officers arrested the two white males in the car and searched the vehicle, finding disguises,
weapons, and currency. Id. The Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the search. Id. at 361.
Although there was no license-plate match for Miears’s Firebird, we think the close physical and
temporal proximity here, not present in Esco, make up for any deficiency caused by the lack of a
license-plate match.
In a more recent Court of Criminal Appeals case, police officers were tracking down a
credit card belonging to a kidnapping victim. Neal v. State, 256 S.W.3d at 281. They knew the
card had been used in a particular area just off the highway by a thin, black man about six feet
tall and a black woman in a white Ford pickup truck. Id. The officers spotted a man and a truck
fitting the description in a parking lot at that location. Id. Upon seeing the officers, the suspect - 12 - 04-11-00531-CR, 04-11-00532-CR & 04-11-00533-CR
appeared very nervous, walked away from the truck with its door open and motor running, and
spoke with a black female. Id. When the officers attempted to get information from the suspect,
he fled. Id. The Court of Criminal Appeals held there was probable cause to believe the truck
would contain evidence of the kidnapping. Id. at 282-83.
In this case, the uncontroverted evidence reflects Officers Arguello and Henry lawfully
detained Miears on reasonable suspicion he was involved with a bank robbery that happened
about a mile away from the detention point and within thirty minutes of the first report of the
robbery. Miears matched the description of the robbery suspect as a white male in his twenties
or thirties wearing dark pants and had a dark jacket in his possession. Furthermore, he was
detained while driving a red Pontiac Firebird—the same kind of car parked suspiciously near the
bank during the robbery. Both officers reasonably believed that they had the bank robber and
there was a fair probability that evidence of the robbery would be found in the Firebird. Based
on these facts, the officers had probable cause to believe evidence of the robbery would be found
in the car. 2 See Esco, 668 S.W.2d at 359-61; Neal, 256 S.W.3d at 281-83; see also Cornejo v.
State, 917 S.W.2d 480 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1996, pet. ref’d) (vehicle search
justified when the shooting victims identified suspects’ car to the police as the suspects were
driving by); Warren v. State, No. 02-11-00052-CR, 2012 WL 858629 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth
March 15, 2012, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (vehicle search justified
when detained suspect made furtive moves to hide plastic baggies the officer knew by training
and experience to be drug packaging); Smith v. State, No. 07-98-0403-CR, 2000 WL 1597786
(Tex. App.—Amarillo Oct. 26, 2000, no pet.) (not designated for publication) (vehicle search
justified where officer was on a stakeout and detained a recent robbery suspect who was wearing
2 Because we find that the warrantless search was justified under the automobile exception, we do not address the State’s alternative argument justifying it under the protective-sweep doctrine of Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032 (1983).
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matching clothes, matched the physical description of the suspect, and identified himself as the
person the officer was looking for). Therefore, we hold the search of Miears’s car was supported
by probable cause and the trial court correctly denied his motion to suppress.
CONCLUSION
We overrule all three of Miears’s issues and affirm the judgments of the trial court.
Luz Elena D. Chapa, Justice
Do Not Publish
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