Timothy Lee ROBINSON, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas
No. PD-0238-11
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas
Sept. 19, 2012
377 S.W.3d 712
The Court further says that the “haze” regarding the legislature‘s intent was lifted when the legislature added the “good cause” requirement to Section 22(c) in 2007. The Court relies heavily upon a passage from a House Research Organization Bill Analysis that seems to suggest that Section 22(c) allows judges to extend probation periods for state-jail felonies (as well as for other felonies and misdemeanors). The passage in question is part of the “background” section of the bill analysis,20 and it does not appear in either the House Committee Report21 or the Senate Research Center‘s Bill Analysis.22 I cannot agree that this isolated, background passage in a House Research Organization report for a 2007 bill constitutes an acknowledgment by the legislature of its intent in enacting the 1993 amendments. Even if it were, “one session of the legislature does not have the power to declare the intent of a past session, and a legislative construction of an act of another legislature is uniformly held to be entitled to little weight.”23 And simply adding a “good cause” requirement cannot by itself cause Section 22(c) to suddenly apply to state-jail felonies.
I conclude that the trial judge had no authority to extend the period of the appellants’ deferred-adjudication probation. I respectfully dissent.
John R. Messinger, Lisa C. McMinn, State‘s Attorney, Austin, for State.
OPINION
PRICE, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
The appellant was convicted of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance, namely cocaine, in the amount of 200 grams or more but less than 400 grams,1 and the jury sentenced him to twenty years in prison with a $10,000 fine. In an unpublished opinion, the Texarkana Court of Appeals reversed his conviction, finding that, although the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the appellant‘s motion to suppress, the trial court‘s failure to provide a jury instruction pursuant to Article 38.23(a) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure was error for which thе record demonstrated egregious harm, warranting remand for a new trial.2 We granted the State Prosecuting Attorney‘s (SPA) petition for discretionary review to address its sole issue with regard to the propriety of the trial court‘s decision to deny an Article 38.23(a) jury instruction.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL POSTURE
The Motion to Suppress
Prior to trial, the appellant filed a motion to suppress any and all evidence stemming from the traffic stop in this case. The appellant‘s motion argued, inter alia, that the traffic stop, purportedly for the failure to signal a turn at an intersection, was a pretext to justify an ongoing investigation of the appellant. The motion claimed that the arrest occurred without a warrant on the basis of a tip from an unidentified and unreliable informant and that any statements and/or recordings obtained as a product of the appellant‘s arrest were therefore tainted by this illegal stop. At a pre-trial hearing on the appellant‘s motion, the only witness was Detective Cesar Muñoz of the Mount Pleasant Police Department. The trial court denied the appellant‘s motion to suppress, finding that probable cause existed to justify the initial stop of the appellant and that the appellant voluntarily consented to the search that led to the discovery of the contraband.3
B. The Evidence at Trial
The issue of the legality of the initial traffic stop was re-litigated during the appellant‘s jury trial. The jury heard that, in the early morning hours of August 25, 2008, Muñoz received an anonymous call to his cell phone. The caller informed Muñoz that a “Mr. Robinson” would be arriving back in Mount Pleasant from Dallas transporting a “large amount” of cocaine. Muñoz called Officer Simon Porter with the narcotics patrol division and informed him of the tip. The two positioned themselves in their respective police cruisers at opposite ends of the street on which the appellant‘s known address, 511 Margaret Drive, was located. Muñoz was parked facing eastbound at the intersection of East Eighth Street and Margaret Drive.4 From this vantage, Muñoz observed the appellant, who was driving a black Dodge Charger and traveling eastbound on Ninth Street, “merge” right onto Margaret Drive, and fail to use his turn signal. Muñoz activated his overhead lights to initiate a traffic stop. The appellant pulled into his driveway on Margaret Drive. Muñoz and Porter pulled up behind the appellant and, after exiting their respective patrol cars, both reported smelling burnt marijuana upon approaching the appellant‘s car. The appellant consented to a search of the Charger and was arrested after Muñoz discovered a bag of crack cocaine lying on the concrete driveway directly below the front passenger seat.
At issue at trial was whether the character of the roadway at the point where Ninth Street “merged” into Margaret Drive was such that a turn signal was legally required. It was Muñoz‘s opinion that a traffic infraction occurred when the appellant, traveling from Ninth Street to Margaret Drive, “continued to the right without turning his turn signal on[,]” which the appellant had “a duty” to do at “the intersection.” Muñoz acknowledged that there are no traffic signals or signs at this “intersection“; however, Muñoz did not waver from his position that, although the flow of trаffic at this juncture could be characterized as simply “following” the roadway around onto Margaret Drive, to “turn” or “continue” onto Margaret Drive from Ninth Street without a signal is a violation of the law.
Lakeshia Williams was in the passenger seat of the appellant‘s car at the time of the stop. She testified during the appellant‘s case-in-chief that, “[i]f you turn left” from Ninth Street onto Margaret Drive, “you have to put a signal on“; whereas to “turn right, you [are] just going around the corner” as Ninth Street “curves” into
C. The Jury Charge Conference
The trial court held a charge conference on the record to permit defense counsel to raise his objections to the court‘s proposed charge. The appellant objected to the absence of an instruction under Article 38.23(a) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, specifically requested such an instruction, and asked the trial court reconsider its ruling on his pre-trial motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the traffic stop.6 The tendered instruction would have directed the jury to determine whether the appellant was “required to use a turn signal[.]”7 The trial court overruled the appellant‘s objection, de-
D. On Direct Appeal
After the jury convicted him, the appellant raised two related issues оn appeal with respect to the legality of the traffic stop. First, he argued that the trial court erred in failing to grant his motion to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of that stop. Second, he argued that the trial court erred in refusing his requested Article 38.23(a) jury instruction. As to the suppression issue, the appellant argued that he had not executed a “turn” at an “intersection,”8 despite Muñoz‘s “unsupported” characterization of the roadway, and therefore, he was not legally required to use his turn signal. For this reason, he maintained, the traffic stop was unjustified. With regard to the jury instruction issue, the appellant pointed to three contested issues of fact that he claimed were raised by the evidence at trial that entitled him to an Article 38.23(a) instruction.
The State countered the appellant‘s suppression issue by arguing that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion to suppress because the appellant‘s failure to signal violated the Transportation Code and/or the Mount Pleasant city ordinances, and, in any event, Muñoz‘s reasonable belief that the appellant was required to signal was sufficient to initiate a traffic stop without the State having to satisfy a burden to prove that a traffic offense was actually committed. In response to the Article 38.23(a) jury instruction issue, the State directly disputed that the three fact issues the appellant identified were genuinely contested at trial, or, perhaps more importantly, even amounted to issues of historical fact, as distinguished from questions of law that are properly reserved for determination by thе trial court.
The court of appeals, although disagreeing with the appellant that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion to suppress,9 nevertheless reversed the appellant‘s conviction on the jury charge issue. Applying the three-step test that this Court laid out in Madden v. State, 242 S.W.3d 504, 510 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007),10 the
The SPA petitioned this Court for discretionary review, raising only the issue of whether the reasonableness of Muñoz‘s belief that a turn signal was necessary constitutes an issue of historical fact to be submitted to the jury in the form of an Article 38.23(a) instruction. We grаnted review of the SPA‘s sole issue to assess the proper role of the jury under an Article 38.23(a) instruction.
ANALYSIS
The SPA argues in its brief to this Court that there were no disputed issues of fact presented at trial that would entitle the appellant to an Article 38.23(a) instruction to the jury; and because the jury is not permitted to answer questions of law, whether Muñoz believed that the law required the appellant to signal at the point at which Ninth Street “merges” with Margaret Drive was not an appropriate question for the jury. The SPA identifies the “material fact” in this case as “the configuration of the meeting of Ninth and Margaret,” but argues that this fact was not actually disputed at trial.13 Muñoz and Williams, the only two witnesses who testified to the configuration of the intersection, agreed that Ninth Street “merges” or “continues” into Margaret Drive; it mеrely changes names, according to the SPA.14 Whether or not the appellant was required to use a turn signal at this “meeting” of the two roadways was an application-of-law-to-fact question that is properly left for the trial court‘s determination.15 We agree.
Unlike the court of appeals, we perceive no material factual dispute in this case, only a dispute among the witnesses with respect to the legal significance of what are, in essence, undisputed facts. There was certainly disagreement among the parties as to whether a driver is legally required to signal at this confluence of the roadways—specifically, whether the character of the curve where Ninth Street meets Margaret Drive constitutes a “turn” as contemplated under the Transportation Code, or instead simply forces motorists to “merge” with the natural flow of the direct course of traffic. But the рarties did not offer conflicting testimony before the jury with regard to the physical character of the roadway, viz: that Ninth Street “continues” onto Margaret Drive. Even Muñoz agreed that Ninth Street in fact “becomes” Margaret Drive and that the two separately named streets appear to “merge” into each other to result in only a change of name. Williams‘s testimony as to the physical description of the roadways—testifying that Ninth Street “curves” into Margaret Drive—was consistent with the testimony from Muñoz. What Williams contested in her testimony was that this “curve . . . around the corner” would require a turn signal—a layperson‘s point of view on a legal question reserved for the trial court. While it may not be perfectly clear on the record precisely what the witnesses were describing, it was clear enough that their respective descriptions of the layout of the roadways were consistent. What they disagreed about was the legal consequences of the appellant‘s conduct as he continued from Ninth Street onto Margaret Drive without using his turn signal. But this disagreement was for the trial court to arbitrate, according to the law, not for the jury to determine as if it were an ambiguous or contested question of historical fact.23
This is not to say that a police officer‘s reasonable mistake of historical fact can never be the legitimate subject of an Article 38.23(a) instruction. A police officer‘s reasonable mistake about the facts may yet legitimately justify his own conclusion that there is probable cause to arrest or reasonable suspicion to detain. This is so because a mistake about the facts, if reasonable, will not vitiate an officer‘s actions in hindsight so long as his actions were lawful under the facts as he
But that was not the kind of mistake at issue here. Muñoz‘s testimony
signal was therefore a question of law, not fact, and the admissibility of any evidence that Muñoz obtained as a result of the traffic stop does not depend on the reasonableness of his belief that the appellant was legally required to signal. The appellant was not entitled to an Article 38.23(a) instruction that the jury must disregard that evidence in the event it should find that Muñoz‘s belief was unreasonable.
DISPOSITION
We hold that the court of appeals erred to conclude that the appellant was entitled to an Article 38.23(a) jury instruction since there was no dispute about the material historical facts. The only dispute was about the legаl significance of those facts—a dispute that juries are not authorized to resolve. We therefore reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.
Ordinarily with a case in this posture, we would simply reinstate the judgment of the trial court. In the instant case, however, there is a wrinkle. In disposing of the appellant‘s interrelated first point of error, the court of appeals held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the appellant‘s motion to
[w]hile the record contains strong evidence that Ninth Street and Margaret Drive merged and that [the appellant] merely followed the direct course of the road, the evidence does not conclusively establish that a reasonable officer would have concluded Ninth Street and Margaret Drive merged and [the appellant] merely followed the direct course of the road. We are required to afford “almost total deference to a trial court‘s determination of the historical facts.” Guzman [v. State], 955 S.W.2d [85,] at 89 [(Tex. Crim. App. 1997)]. We are unable to conclude the trial court erred in denying [the appellant‘s] motion to suppress.30
To the extent that this holding is contingent on a conclusion that the record presents an actual dispute with respect to material historical facts, it is at odds with our сonclusion today that the record admits of nothing more than a dispute about the legal significance of those historical facts. Appellate courts may review the legal significance of undisputed facts de novo.31 Under these circumstances, we think it appropriate to remand the cause to the court of appeals for further consideration of the appellant‘s first point of error.32 The court of appeals may exercise its discretion to order additional briefing from the parties.33
Notes
We wоuld object to the charge on the basis that we believe it should contain an instruction, which we will be tendering to the Court, that reflects Article 38.23 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which deals with evidence not to be considered in certain situations.
And we would also urge the Court to reconsider its ruling on the traffic stop that occurred in this incident based on the case of Trahan versus State, 16 S.W.3d 146. It‘s a 2000 Court of Appeals case out of the Beaumont Court of Appeals, which in effect holds that 90-degree turns of automobiles is a type of turn contemplated in the transportation statute providing a turn signal must be used to indicate intent to turn.
And for that, we would offer that as a formal objection to the charge.
* * * The tendered instruction tracks language fromYou are instructed that no evidence obtained by an officer or other person in violation of any of provisions of the Constitution or laws of the State of Texas, or the Constitution or laws of the United States of America, shall be admitted in evidence against the accused in the trial of any criminal case. You are further instructed that an officer is permitted to make a temporary investigative detention of a motorist if the officer has specific articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, leads him to conclude that a person detained actually is, has been, or soon will be engaged in criminal activity.
The law regarding use of turn signals states that an operator shall signal by hand and arm or by signal lamp to indicate an intention to turn, change lanes, or start from a parkеd position. An operator intending to turn a vehicle right or left shall signal continuously for not less than the last 100 feet of movement of the vehicle before the turn.
Now, bearing in mind if you find from the evidence that on the occasion in question that Timothy Robinson, the driver of the vehicle, was not required to use a turn signal preceding his stop and detention by the officers herein or you have a reasonable doubt thereof, then such stopping of Timothy Robinson would be illegal and, if you find the facts so to be, or if you have a reasonable doubt thereof, you will disregard the testimony of the officer relative to his stopping the Defendant‘s vehicle and his conclusions drawn as a result thereof and you will not consider such evidence for any purpose whatsoever.