Tai Lamichael Combs v. the State of Texas

• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas
• Decided: May 29, 2025
• Docket: 01-23-00724-CR
• Status: Published

Opinion

Opinion issued May 29, 2025

In The

Court of Appeals For The

First District of Texas ———————————— NO. 01-23-00724-CR ——————————— TAI LAMICHAEL COMBS, Appellant V. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 183rd District Court Harris County, Texas Trial Court Case No. 1792626

MEMORANDUM OPINION

A jury found the appellant, Tai Lamichael Combs, guilty of aggravated

assault of a family member and sentenced him to eleven years of confinement. In

his sole issue on appeal, Combs argues the trial court erred in denying his motion

to suppress evidence of a firearm found by police officers. He contends that the record did not show the complainant had apparent authority to consent to a search

of the apartment where the firearm was located; thus, he contends the search was

unconstitutional. We disagree.

Because the evidence supports the officers’ reasonable belief that the

complainant had apparent authority to consent to a search of the apartment, the

search was lawful, and the trial court did not err in denying the motion to suppress.

We thus affirm.

BACKGROUND

The Assault

This case arises from a domestic disturbance police call involving Combs

and the complainant, “S.J.,” a person with whom Combs had a dating relationship.

On October 26, 2022, Combs and S.J. entered into an argument at S.J.’s apartment,

after which Combs repeatedly punched and kicked S.J., choked her, and struck her

in the head with his gun. Combs then pointed his gun at her and threatened to kill

her. S.J.’s sister was aware of the situation and called the police. Combs was

arrested and subsequently charged with aggravated assault of a family member.

Motion to Suppress Hearing

Combs filed a motion to suppress. He argued that the police violated his

Fourth Amendment rights by conducting a search without a warrant or valid

consent.

2 At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the responding police officer, K.

Englishbey, testified to the events that unfolded on the night of the assault.

Englishbey explained that he and another officer were dispatched for a

“disturbance with a weapon involved” call. Englishbey testified that upon arrival at

the apartment, S.J. answered the door, and the officers had her step out. Englishbey

then saw Combs inside the apartment, approached him, and detained him in a

patrol vehicle for safety.

According to Englishbey, S.J. informed him that “it was her apartment” and

“she’s been there for a few months now.” S.J. also reported that Combs had “been

there about two weeks.”1

Englishbey explained that, because the call involved a disturbance with a

weapon, the officers searched for a weapon around the scene and searched the

initial area where Combs “could be sitting or standing.”

When asked who gave consent to search that area, Englishbey testified:

“[S.J.] did.” He further explained: “I just asked her is this your property? She said,

‘yes.’ And then I was like, ‘Can we search it?’ And she said, ‘yes.’”

1 Englishbey acknowledged that, at the time, he had no information on whether Combs was on the lease, paid rent there, had keys to the apartment, where he slept, or if the bed was his or hers.

3 While searching the bed area where Combs was sitting, Englishbey found a

bag of ammunition on the bed, and another officer found a firearm underneath the

same mattress and bed frame.

During the hearing, the State played a copy of Englishbey’s body camera

video from that night.2 The video confirms the events as described by Englishbey.

It shows him arriving at the apartment. It then shows S.J. opening the front door,

which revealed Combs sitting on a bed near a kitchen a few feet from the front

door. S.J. left the doorway and came outside, and Englishbey approached Combs

where he sat on the bed and handcuffed him. The video shows the bed located in

the open living room area of the apartment next to the front door and kitchen,

without any door or enclosure preventing access to the bed.

As the video shows, Englishbey left with Combs, then returned to the

apartment where S.J. then sat on the same bed. The video shows that once S.J. left

the bed, Englishbey searched the items atop it and found a bag with ammunition;

another officer later found a firearm under the mattress.

The defense did not present any evidence. Englishbey’s testimony and body

camera video were the only evidence offered at the suppression hearing.

The trial court denied Combs’s motion to suppress without making any

findings of fact or conclusions of law. A jury subsequently found Combs guilty of

2 As the parties acknowledged, the video lacks any sound, except for a brief segment. 4 aggravated assault of a family member and sentenced him to eleven years’

imprisonment. Combs appealed.

DISCUSSION

On appeal, Combs argues the trial court erred in denying his motion to

suppress because there was insufficient evidence to support the officers’ belief that

S.J. had apparent authority to consent to a search of the apartment. We disagree

and affirm.

A. Standard of review

We review a trial court’s decision to deny a motion to suppress under a

bifurcated standard of review: we afford almost total deference to the trial court’s

determination of historical facts that depend on credibility; we review de novo the

court’s application of law to those facts. See Hubert v. State, 312 S.W.3d 554, 559

(Tex. Crim. App. 2010); Ford v. State, 158 S.W.3d 488, 493 (Tex. Crim. App.

2005). Where, as here, the trial court did not enter findings of fact, we “view the

evidence in a light most favorable to the trial court’s rulings and assume that the

trial court resolved any issues of historical fact or credibility consistently with its

ultimate ruling.” Hubert, 312 S.W.3d at 560. We will sustain the trial court’s ruling

if it is “reasonably supported by the record and correct on any theory of law

applicable to the case.” Laney v. State, 117 S.W.3d 854, 857 (Tex. Crim. App.

2003).

5 B. Consent to search may be given by an individual with apparent authority over the premises.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits

“unreasonable searches and seizures” by government officials. U.S. CONST.

AMEND. IV; Limon v. State, 340 S.W.3d 753, 756 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011).3 The

entry into a residence by police officers is a “search” under the Fourth Amendment

that requires a warrant unless the entry falls within one of a well-defined group of

exceptions to the warrant requirement. Limon, 340 S.W.3d at 756. One such

exception arises with voluntary consent to search. Id.

The question becomes: who can consent? Of course, one with actual

authority to consent to the search may do so. As the Court of Criminal Appeals has

explained, a “third party can consent to a search to the detriment of another’s

privacy interest if the third party has actual authority over the place or thing to be

searched.” Hubert, 312 S.W.3d at 560. In a shared living situation, the third party

may, in his own right, give valid consent when he and the absent, non-consenting

person share “common authority” over the property as shown by mutual use of the

3 Combs’s argument focuses on the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Because he does not separately brief an argument under the Texas Constitution, we focus our analysis on the United States Constitution’s Fourth Amendment. See TEX. R. APP. P. 38.1(i); Young v. State, 563 S.W.3d 325, 329 n.3 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2018, pet. ref’d).

6 property with joint access or control. See Hubert, 312 S.W.3d at 560–61 (citing

United States v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 170, 171 n.7 (1974)).

Additionally, consent to search “may be validly obtained from an individual

with apparent authority over the premises.” Limon, 340 S.W.3d at 756. If an officer

reasonably believes that a third party purporting to provide consent has actual

authority over the place or thing to be searched, apparent authority exists,

rendering the search reasonable. Hubert, 312 S.W.3d at 561 (citing Illinois v.

Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 186 (1990)).

The test for apparent authority is objective: “would the facts available to the

officer at the moment warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that the

consenting party had authority over the premises?” Limon, 340 S.W.3d at 756

(quoting Rodriguez, 497 U.S. at 188). Whether an officer’s belief was reasonable

“hinges on widely shared social expectations and commonly held understanding

about the authority that co-inhabitants may exercise in ways that affect each

other’s interest.” Limon, 340 S.W.3d at 756–57 (internal quotation marks and

citations omitted).

“The State must prove actual or apparent authority by a preponderance of

the evidence.” Id. at 757. Whether a third party had actual authority to consent to a

search of another’s property and whether an officer was reasonable in finding that

7 a third party had apparent authority to consent are mixed questions of law and fact.

Hubert, 312 S.W.3d at 559–60.

C. The trial court did not err in denying Combs’s motion to suppress; the record shows that an individual with apparent authority over the premises consented to the search.

Because the State met its burden to show that an individual with apparent

authority consented to the search, the trial court did not err in denying Combs’s

motion to suppress. In assessing apparent authority, the question is whether Officer

Englishbey’s belief in S.J.’s authority to consent was reasonable under the facts

known to Englishbey at the time of the search. See Limon, 340 S.W.3d at 757. It

was.

This record supports the reasonableness of Englishbey’s belief that S.J. had

authority to consent to a search of the apartment, including the bed:

• When Englishbey arrived at the apartment, S.J. was inside the apartment and opened the front door by herself, at night.

• S.J. told Englishbey that the apartment was hers and that she had resided there for months.

• While S.J. spoke to the police before they initiated their search, S.J. sat on the same (and only) bed where Combs had been observed sitting, suggesting joint access and control over the bed. See Hubert, 312 S.W.3d at 560–61 (providing that common authority is shown by mutual use of the property with joint access or control).

• This bed was located in the open living room area of the apartment, next to the front door and kitchen, without any door or enclosure preventing access to the bed.

8 • Englishbey asked whether the property was owned by S.J., and she said it was.

• Englishbey asked S.J. if they could search it, and she said yes.

The Court of Criminal Appeals and our Court have found apparent authority

to consent under similar (even lesser) circumstances. For instance, in Limon, 340

S.W.3d at 757–59, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that a teenager who opened

the front door by himself in response to an officer’s knock late at night had

apparent authority to consent to the officer’s warrantless entry. So too with Brown

v. State, in which this Court held that the defendant’s wife had apparent authority

to consent to a search of a motel room because the wife answered the door, stated

she was staying in the room, and consented to the search. 212 S.W.3d 851, 868

(Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2006, pet. ref’d). Other courts are in accord. See,

e.g., Davis v. State, 93 S.W.3d 664, 668 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2002, pet. ref’d)

(officers were reasonable in belief that female who said she lived in the

one-bedroom residence had apparent authority to consent to search).

D. Combs’s arguments do not change this conclusion.

Combs offers two arguments in response, neither of which changes this

conclusion. First, he argues the evidence does not show that S.J. gave “explicit or

implicit consent” to enter and search the bedroom area. But Officer Englishbey

testified at the suppression hearing that S.J. consented to the search. As precedent

instructs, where, as here, the trial court did not enter findings of fact, we “view the 9 evidence in a light most favorable to the trial court’s rulings and assume that the

trial court resolved any issues of historical fact or credibility consistently with its

ultimate ruling.” Hubert, 312 S.W.3d at 560.

Second, Combs argues that S.J.’s authority to consent became ambiguous

when the officers “became aware that [Combs] resided in the bedroom.” On this

basis, he argues that the officers were obligated to further investigate S.J.’s

authority to consent. See Whisenhunt v. State, 122 S.W.3d 295, 299 (Tex. App.—

Houston [1st Dist.] 2003, pet. ref’d) (officers relying on third-party consent are not

allowed to proceed with a warrantless search without inquiry when consent is

given in ambiguous circumstances). In support of his argument, Combs relies

primarily on this Court’s decision in Corea v. State, 52 S.W.3d 311 (Tex. App.—

Houston [1st Dist.] 2001, pet. ref’d). But Corea is inapposite, and this case

presents no ambiguity.

The issue in Corea was whether the State met its burden of proving that the

defendant’s brother-in-law had authority to consent to a search of the defendant’s

bedroom in an apartment leased by the defendant but also occupied by his brother-

in-law. During a burglary investigation, officers received information that the

defendant possessed stolen property. Id. at 314. The officers went to the apartment,

and the brother-in-law gave the officers consent to search the apartment and

10 showed the officers the defendant’s bedroom. Id. The trial court held that the

brother-in-law had apparent authority to consent to the search. Id. at 315.

This Court reversed. Id. at 317. We explained that the brother-in-law’s

authority to consent to the search of the defendant’s bedroom “became ambiguous

once he told the officers no one other than [the defendant] lived in [the

defendant’s] bedroom.” Id.; see id. at 316 (noting defendant could exclude brother-

in-law from room, and there was no evidence that defendant consented to brother-

in-law entering or that he had ever entered). At that point, the officers were

“obligated to investigate further to determine if [the brother-in-law] truly had the

authority to consent to a search of th[at] bedroom or to obtain a search warrant.”

Id. at 317.

Unlike in Corea, here, there was no ambiguity with respect to S.J.’s apparent

authority to consent to the search. S.J. opened the door to the police at night, sat

down on the bed at issue, told the police it was her apartment and property, and

consented to the search. No evidence suggests that Combs had his own bedroom or

a space where only he lived or to which only he had access. Instead, as the record

shows, the bed at issue sat in the open living room, next to both the front door and

the kitchen, without a door limiting access. No evidence suggests Combs had

exclusive control over the bed, that only he used the bed, or that S.J. was

prohibited from accessing or using it.

11 Because the evidence supports Officer Englishbey’s belief that S.J. had

authority to consent to a search of the apartment, the search was reasonable, and

the trial court did not err in denying Combs’s motion to suppress. We overrule

Combs’s sole issue.

CONCLUSION

We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

Jennifer Caughey Justice

Panel consists of Chief Justice Adams and Justices Caughey and Johnson.

Do not publish. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).