Tony Stature v. the State of Texas

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJuly 18, 2024
Docket02-23-00304-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Tony Stature v. the State of Texas (Tony Stature v. the State of Texas) 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
Tony Stature v. the State of Texas, (Tex. Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

In the Court of Appeals Second Appellate District of Texas at Fort Worth ___________________________

No. 02-23-00304-CR ___________________________

TONY STATURE, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS

On Appeal from County Criminal Court No. 7 Tarrant County, Texas Trial Court No. 1724153

Before Sudderth, C.J.; Kerr and Wallach, JJ. Memorandum Opinion by Justice Wallach MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellant Tony Stature appeals his conviction for driving while intoxicated

(DWI), second offense. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 49.04, 49.09(a). In six issues,

Stature argues that the trial court erred by: (1) failing to grant his motion to suppress

(first issue), (2) admitting blood evidence because the chain of custody was

insufficient (second issue) and because the blood evidence was obtained through an

invalid search warrant in violation of his rights under the United States and Texas

Constitutions (fourth and fifth issues), (3) denying his motion for mistrial after the

State presented evidence of a gun (third issue), and (4) denying his motion for

directed verdict (sixth issue). We affirm.

I. Background

On March 25, 2022, Euless police officer Jacob Shoemate was working patrol

when he observed a black truck’s weaving within its lane. Officer Shoemate followed

the vehicle, and he saw the driver, whom he identified as Stature, commit two traffic

offenses—failure to signal a lane change and failure to stop at a designated stop.

Officer Shoemate stopped Stature’s vehicle for the traffic violations, and when he

approached, he saw two beer cans inside Stature’s vehicle. According to Officer

Shoemate, Stature’s eyes were red and watery, and he had an odor of alcohol on his

person. Officer Shoemate asked Stature to get out of his vehicle so that he could

administer field sobriety tests.

2 Officer Shoemate observed that on the walk-and-turn test Stature exhibited six

out of the eight clues of intoxication. Officer Shoemate believed that Stature had lost

the use of his mental faculties based upon that test, but he did not find a loss of

physical faculties at that time. Stature next performed the one-leg stand test, and

Officer Shoemate determined from that test that Stature had lost the use of his mental

and physical faculties. A video of Stature’s walk-and-turn test and one-leg stand test

was played for the jury. Based upon the totality of the tests and his personal

observations, Officer Shoemate arrested Stature for DWI.

Officer Shoemate transported Stature to the Euless Police Department and

read him his statutory warnings. Stature did not consent to give a blood sample, so

Officer Shoemate had to request a search warrant for the blood draw. After getting

the search warrant, Officer Shoemate took Stature to the hospital for a blood draw.

Michael Bankhead drew Stature’s blood at the Texas Health HEB Emergency

Department and sealed the vial with a tamper-proof seal. Officer Shoemate took the

blood sample to the police property room, and it was later sent to a third-party

toxicology lab for testing. Jacklyn Merson, a senior analyst and laboratory supervisor

at Armstrong Forensics Laboratory, tested Stature’s blood sample and testified that he

had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.211—above the legal limit in Texas. See id.

§ 49.01(2)(b).

Before trial, Stature moved to suppress “all evidence subsequent to the red and

blues coming on,” arguing “that there wasn’t the requisite reasonable suspicion of

3 probable cause to justify the detention.” The trial court denied the motion, and the

case proceeded to trial.

At the close of the State’s case, Stature reurged his motion to suppress. He

made three suppression requests based upon evidence (1) that Officer Shoemate’s

testimony was not credible, (2) that there was no probable cause to arrest for DWI

because the officer did not administer the field sobriety tests correctly, and (3) that

there was no probable cause to obtain the search warrant for the blood draw. The trial

court denied the requested motions to suppress. The trial court also denied Stature’s

request for a directed verdict on the element of intoxication.

The jury convicted Stature of DWI and assessed his punishment at 30 days’

confinement in the county jail and a $2,000 fine. The trial court suspended imposition

of the confinement portion of the sentence and placed Stature on community

supervision for 18 months. This appeal followed.

II. Motion to Suppress

In his first issue, Stature argues that the trial court erred by failing to grant his

pre-trial motion to suppress. Stature does not challenge the trial court’s rulings on his

motions to suppress made at the close of evidence at trial.

A. Standard of Review

We review a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress evidence under a

bifurcated standard of review. Amador v. State, 221 S.W.3d 666, 673 (Tex. Crim. App.

2007); Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997). We give almost

4 total deference to a trial court’s rulings on questions of historical facts and

application-of-law-to-fact questions that turn on an evaluation of credibility and

demeanor, but we review de novo application-of-law-to-fact questions that do not

turn on credibility and demeanor. Amador, 221 S.W.3d at 673; Estrada v. State,

154 S.W.3d 604, 607 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005); Johnson v. State, 68 S.W.3d 644, 652–

53 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002).

B. Applicable Law

An officer may make a warrantless traffic stop if he has reasonable suspicion to

do so. Jaganathan v. State, 479 S.W.3d 244, 247 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). Reasonable

suspicion exists when, based on the totality of the circumstances, the officer shows

specific, articulable facts at the suppression hearing that, when combined with rational

inferences from those facts, would lead him to reasonably conclude that a person is

engaging in criminal activity. State v. Torrez, 490 S.W.3d 279, 283 (Tex. App.—Fort

Worth 2016, pet. ref’d). This is an objective standard that disregards any subjective

intent of the detaining officer and looks solely to whether an objective basis for the

stop exists. Id.

Whether a traffic stop was based on reasonable suspicion does not depend

upon showing that an actual offense was committed; it is enough to show that the

officer reasonably believed an offense was in progress. Id. Thus, at the suppression

hearing, the State need not establish that a crime occurred prior to the stop but must

elicit testimony showing sufficient facts to prove that reasonable suspicion existed

5 that the person stopped was engaging in criminal activity. Id. at 283–84. Reasonable

suspicion requires only a “minimal level of objective justification” for the stop. Hamal

v.

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Related

Jackson v. Virginia
443 U.S. 307 (Supreme Court, 1979)
Durrett v. State
36 S.W.3d 205 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2001)
Estrada v. State
154 S.W.3d 604 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2005)
Wiede v. State
214 S.W.3d 17 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2007)
Amador v. State
221 S.W.3d 666 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2007)
Archie v. State
221 S.W.3d 695 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2007)
Saldano v. State
70 S.W.3d 873 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2002)
Hawkins v. State
135 S.W.3d 72 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2004)
Gardner v. State
306 S.W.3d 274 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2009)
Davis v. State
313 S.W.3d 317 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2010)
Ovalle v. State
13 S.W.3d 774 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2000)
Heidelberg v. State
144 S.W.3d 535 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2004)
Coble v. State
330 S.W.3d 253 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2010)
Johnson v. State
68 S.W.3d 644 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2002)
Vafaiyan v. State
279 S.W.3d 374 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2008)
Madden v. State
799 S.W.2d 683 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1990)
Guzman v. State
955 S.W.2d 85 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1997)
Hamal, Angela Dodd
390 S.W.3d 302 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2012)
Jaganathan, Francheska v.
479 S.W.3d 244 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2015)
State v. Connie Torrez
490 S.W.3d 279 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2016)

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