Joubert v. State

129 S.W.3d 686, 2004 Tex. App. LEXIS 699, 2004 WL 103165
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 21, 2004
Docket10-01-237-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 129 S.W.3d 686 (Joubert 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
Joubert v. State, 129 S.W.3d 686, 2004 Tex. App. LEXIS 699, 2004 WL 103165 (Tex. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinions

OPINION

TOM GRAY, Chief Justice.

Danny Joubert pled guilty to the offense of possession of a controlled substance after the trial court denied his motion to suppress. He was sentenced to one year in a state jail facility. Joubert appeals the denial of his motion to suppress. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

Officer Sean Ritter was on patrol one summer night and noticed Joubert’s vehicle in a private driveway off Interstate 45. Ritter’s interest in the vehicle was elevated because it was located in an area known to him to be an area where trash was frequently dumped. When Ritter turned his patrol unit around to investigate, Jou-bert proceeded out of the driveway. It appeared to Ritter that Joubert did not stop before entering the roadway. Ritter believed that, by failing to stop before entering the roadway, Joubert had committed a traffic offense. He stopped Jou-bert’s vehicle. After obtaining consent to search the vehicle, Ritter located drug paraphernalia and a container of crack cocaine.

Joubert asked the trial court to suppress the cocaine evidence because he claimed the stop made was illegal. After hearing testimony from Ritter, the trial court denied Joubert’s motion.

Motion to Suppress

On appeal, Joubert contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress. He cites three reasons to support this contention: (1) his vehicle was not in a suspicious place; (2) he did not commit a traffic offense; and (3) the stop did not encompass the community caretaking function of law enforcement. Because the trial court focused its holding on the second contention, we will begin our review there as well.

A trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Oles v. State, 993 S.W.2d 103, 106 (Tex.Crim.App.1999). The trial court’s findings of fact are given “almost total deference,” and in the absence of explicit findings, the appellate court assumes the trial court made implicit findings which were supported in the record. Carmouche v. State, 10 S.W.3d 323, 327-28 (Tex.Crim.App.2000); Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89-90 (Tex.Crim.App.1997). The application of relevant law, including search and seizure law, is reviewed de novo. Id.

Applicable Law

The Fourth Amendment does not forbid all seizures, just unreasonable seizures. See Rhodes v. State, 945 S.W.2d 115, 117 (Tex.Crim.App.1997). A police officer is generally justified in briefly detaining an individual on less than probable cause for the purposes of investigating possible criminal behavior where the officer can point to specific and articulable facts, which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably [688]*688warrant the intrusion. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Carmouehe, 10 S.W.3d at 328. That is, the officer must show reasonable suspicion that the individual is connected to criminal activity. State v. Larue, 28 S.W.3d 549, 553 n. 8 (Tex.Crim.App.2000). This standard is an objective one: there need only be an objective basis for the stop; the subjective intent of the officer conducting the stop is irrelevant. Garcia v. State, 43 S.W.3d 527, 530 (Tex.Crim.App.2001). The same standards apply whether the person detained is a pedestrian or is the occupant of an automobile. Carmouehe, 10 S.W.3d at 328.

Traffic Stop

The reasonableness of a traffic stop must be examined in terms of the totality of the circumstances. Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d 33, 38 (Tex.Crim.App.1997); Garcia v. State, 967 S.W.2d 902, 904 (Tex.App.-Austin 1998, no pet.). “[W]hen used by trained law enforcement officers, objective facts, meaningless to the untrained, can be combined with permissible deductions from such facts to form a legitimate basis for suspicion of a particular person ...” Woods, 956 S.W.2d at 37-8 (quoting U.S. v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 418, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981)). Proof of the actual commission of a traffic offense is not a prerequisite to the legality of a stop. Drago v. State, 553 S.W.2d 375, 377 (Tex.Crim.App.1977).

The Evidence

At the motion to suppress hearing, Sean Ritter, a former police officer for the City of Rice, Texas, testified that he patrolled the town for the police department on July 7, 2000. At 10 p.m. on that date, he and a reserve officer were traveling south on the southbound service road of Interstate 45. His attention was drawn to a vehicle sitting in a driveway off the northbound service road in which people had been known to conduct activities such as dumping trash and urinating in public. The drive was a small, semi-circular private drive. The drive had been part of a gas station but the building was no longer there. Ritter suspected that the occupant of the vehicle was there to dump trash or urinate or had fallen asleep or had health problems. While Ritter turned around to investigate, the vehicle came out of the drive and proceeded north on the northbound service road. Ritter noticed that the vehicle did not appear to stop before entering the service road. Ritter believed a traffic violation of failing to stop while exiting a private drive had been committed. He caught up with the vehicle and pulled it over to investigate its purpose for being in the drive and for not stopping before exiting the drive.

Section 545.256 of the Transportation Code provides:

An operator emerging from an alley, driveway, or building in a business or residence district shall:
(1) stop the vehicle before moving on a sidewalk or the sidewalk area extending across an alley or driveway;
(2) yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian to avoid collision; and
(3) on entering the roadway, yield the right of way to an approaching vehicle.

Tex. TRANS. Code Ann. § 545.256 (Vernon 1999). Ritter acknowledged on cross-examination that the driveway did not cross a sidewalk. He further testified that although the business establishment was no longer there, a business named “Plantation Farms” was further off the road and the surrounding property was owned by Plantation Farms. He acknowledged that there were no buildings on the frontage road except for a residence a half mile away. Ritter stated that he had no idea [689]*689whether the area with the driveway was a business or residential district. He stated, however, that he believed the area was in a business district because of Plantation Farms.

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Joubert v. State
129 S.W.3d 686 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2004)

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Bluebook (online)
129 S.W.3d 686, 2004 Tex. App. LEXIS 699, 2004 WL 103165, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/joubert-v-state-texapp-2004.