Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of November 7, 2016.

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

Cook v. State, No. 02-15-00319-CR (Nov. 10, 2016) (Livingston, C.J.; Dauphinot, J., dissents with opinion; Gardner, J., concurs without opinion).

Held:  The trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying the pretrial motion to suppress.  After appellant voluntarily answered her door when the police knocked on it, the police had reasonable suspicion to investigate her for drunk driving in light of (1) facts that had been relayed by two 911 callers who were following a silver Hyundai that they said had swerved across three lanes and run into a median and that they had followed until the driver pulled the car into a garage in an apartment complex, (2) appellant’s admission to the police that she had just returned home after having been driving and that she owned a silver Hyundai, and (3) appellant’s “red watery eyes, slurred, thick [tongued] speech and an immediate odor of alcohol” when she spoke.  Additionally, the police had probable cause to arrest appellant based on her failure of field sobriety tests, coupled with the information that gave rise to reasonable suspicion to detain her.  Finally, to the extent that appellant contended that her apartment was not a suspicious place for purposes of article 14.03(a)(1) of the code of criminal procedure because there is no evidence of how much time had elapsed from when the officers were dispatched to when they spoke to her at her door, the evidence shows that the time was very short, around ten minutes, and thus the trial court did not err by concluding that her apartment could be a suspicious place under article 14.03(a)(1) for that reason.

Dissent:  The trial court erred by denying Appellant’s motion to suppress because the police seized her from her home without a warrant, violating the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 9 of the Texas constitution.