Dugar v. State

629 S.W.3d 494

Kevin DUGAR, Appellant

v.The STATE of Texas, Appellee

NO. 09-19-00098-CR

Court of Appeals of Texas, Beaumont.

Submitted on January 25, 2021

Opinion Delivered April 7, 2021

Discretionary Review Refused September 15, 2021

Ryan Matuska, for Appellant.

Angela Mann Kneeland, Wayln G. Thompson, Beaumont, for Appellee.

Before Golemon, C.J., Horton and Johnson, JJ.

OPINION

HOLLIS HORTON, Justice

Kevin Dugar appeals from his conviction for driving while intoxicated (DWI), a Class A misdemeanor.¹ Dugar raises two issues for our review. First, Dugar argues the police officer who stopped his SUV lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct the stop. Second, Dugar contends the trial court abused its discretion by admitting the test results the State obtained from Dugar after seizing his blood. For the reasons explained below, we conclude Dugar's arguments seeking to overturn the final judgment lack merit, so we will affirm.

Background

One morning around 1:40 a.m., Officer Christopher Pratt, a police officer employed by the Beaumont Police Department, saw an SUV traveling south on Martin Luther King Parkway (MLK). Officer Pratt was behind the SUV. From there, he noticed the SUV being driven in a manner that allowed it to drift partially into other marked southbound lanes on MLK. From footage taken from Officer Pratt's dashcam video, the SUV is seen drifting across the lane it was in when it is first visible in the video. Officer Pratt, who testified in the trial, explained that no other southbound traffic was on MLK near the SUV when he saw it straddling more than one lane on MLK.

Shortly after Officer Pratt noticed the SUV's driver had drifted from the lane it was traveling in, he used his emergency lights to stop the SUV.² Dugar was driving the SUV and was the only person inside. At trial, Officer Pratt acknowledged that when he spotted the SUV, no other vehicles were around it on MLK. The officer also agreed that, given the lack of traffic that night, the fact Dugar's SUV drifted across his lane did not pose a danger to anyone traveling on MLK.

After stopping Dugar, Officer Pratt noticed Dugar smelled of alcohol, had glassy eyes, slurred his speech, and had trouble following the officer's directions. Officer Pratt gave Dugar a horizontal gaze nystagmus test, a test he failed. According to Officer Pratt, Dugar then refused to perform the rest of the standard field sobriety test, a test police officers use to identify whether a driver is impaired. Based on what the officer observed before stopping Dugar and the information gathered in the stop, Officer Pratt arrested Dugar because he suspected Dugar of driving while impaired.

At trial, Dugar moved to suppress the evidence police obtained based on the stop, arguing that Officer Pratt lacked reasonable suspicion to stop Dugar without proof to show the movement of Dugar's SUV between lanes endangered anyone on the road. The trial court denied Dugar's motion. Later, the State developed testimony showing that after Officer Pratt arrested Dugar, he obtained a warrant authorizing him to seize a specimen of Dugar's blood. The State had the blood tested in the Jefferson County Crime Lab. At trial, the testimony about the tests shows Dugar's blood had an alcohol concentration level of 0.15 or more based on testing done at the Jefferson County Crime Lab.³

At the end of the trial, the jury found Dugar guilty of DWI. Dugar appealed and raises two issues in his brief. First, he argues Officer Pratt's testimony fails to show that Dugar violated the statute that requires a vehicle being driven on a roadway with clearly marked lanes to maintain a single lane since Officer Pratt acknowledged the movement of the SUV did not endanger anyone else on the road. Second, Dugar argues the State failed to meet its burden to prove that an unbroken chain of custody tied the blood specimens he gave the nurse to the specimen that was later tested at the Jefferson County Crime Lab.

Standard of Review

We review rulings on motions to suppress using a bifurcated standard of review.⁴ In Dugar's case, the parties never asked the trial court to provide them with explicit oral or written findings to support the trial court's ruling denying Dugar's motion. In a hearing on a motion to suppress, "the trial judge is the sole trier of fact and judge of credibility of witnesses and the weight to be given to their testimony."⁵ If the trial court did not make any explicit findings of fact in making its ruling, the reviewing court "infers the necessary factual findings that support the trial court's ruling if the record evidence (viewed in the light most favorable to the ruling) supports these implied fact findings."⁶ For that reason, we afford almost total deference to the ruling the trial court made on the motion when the trial court's ruling hinged on its findings of the historical facts, particularly when they turn on the trial court's decisions about matters concerning credibility and demeanor.⁷ We apply this highly deferential standard "regardless of whether the trial court has granted or denied a motion to suppress[.]" By using this standard, we give the trial court's ruling the strongest legitimate view of the evidence, and in the absence of explicit findings, we review the record to determine if the evidence supports the trial court's ruling denying the motion.⁸

According to Dugar, Officer Pratt violated his Fourth Amendment rights by stopping him based on the circumstances described in the record of the stop.⁹ The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects individuals from an unreasonable search or seizure.¹⁰ Under the Fourth Amendment, an arrest is a "quintessential seizure" of the person.¹¹ Thus, traffic stops based on an officer's suspicion that the driver violated a traffic law "is a ‘seizure’ of the occupants of the vehicle and therefore must be conducted in accordance with the Fourth Amendment."¹²

Should police obtain evidence based on the violation of a suspect's Fourth Amendment rights, the federal exclusionary rule usually prevents a state from using the evidence in a criminal proceeding against the party whose rights were violated.¹³ The exclusionary rule prevents the State from using evidence that police obtained directly or indirectly from an illegal seizure, evidence courts often refer to when issuing an opinion discussing the exclusionary rule as the "fruit of the poisonous tree."¹⁴ There are, however, several exceptions to the exclusionary rule, and the exception at issue in Dugar's case involves whether evidence the police obtained from Dugar based on the stop resulted from an objectively reasonable mistake about what the maintain-a-single-lane statute means.¹⁵

The ruling denying Dugar's motion implies the trial court found Dugar's motion lacked merit. While the trial court did not identify any specific reason for its ruling, we must nonetheless "sustain [the ruling] if [we] conclude[ ] that the decision is correct on any applicable theory of law."¹⁶ "We review de novo whether the totality of the circumstances is sufficient to support an officer's reasonable suspicion of criminal activity."¹⁷

Analysis

The Initial Stop

In Dugar's first issue, he argues Officer Pratt lacked reasonable suspicion to stop his SUV based on his alleged failure to maintain his vehicle within a single lane. According to Dugar, the maintain-a-single-lane statute is not violated unless the driver is shown to both cross a clearly marked lane and to make the movement when the movement is unsafe.¹⁸

In the trial, Officer Pratt testified that when he saw Dugar's SUV, it did not pose a danger to any other vehicle "during this particular time[.]"¹⁹ The trial court denied Dugar's motion based solely on Officer Pratt's description of the circumstances that led to the stop. At trial, the State never established that Officer Pratt had a warrant for Pratt's arrest that authorized the stop. Even so, a police officer may stop a vehicle if its driver violated a traffic law while in the officer's presence without obtaining a warrant if the reasonable suspicion standard is satisfied.²⁰

"Reasonable suspicion exists if the officer has specific articulable facts that, when combined with rational inferences from those facts, would lead him to reasonably suspect that a particular person has engaged or is (or soon will be) engaging in criminal activity."²¹ This test "is an objective one that focuses solely on whether an objective basis exists for the detention and disregards the officer's subjective intent."²² A court determines whether reasonable suspicion exists based on "the totality of the circumstances" leading to the stop.²³ "This is an objective standard that disregards any subjective intent of the officer making the stop and looks solely to whether an objective basis for the stop exists."²⁴

Since Dugar was stopped without a warrant, the State bore the burden to establish that what Officer Pratt saw would lead a reasonable police officer to believe a driver violated the maintain-a-single-lane traffic law based on the movement of the SUV Officer Pratt described in the trial.²⁵ In its brief, the State raises three arguments to support its claim that a police officer would have a reasonable suspicion to believe the maintain-a-single-lane statute had been violated in the officer's presence. First, the State argues the maintain-a-single-lane statute is violated by movement across lanes "regardless of whether [the movement] was unsafe."²⁶ To support that argument, the State suggests this Court should follow the reasoning in a plurality opinion by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Leming v. State , a case in which that Court determined section 545.060, when properly interpreted "makes it an actionable offense to either fail to maintain a single lane or to change lanes when conditions are not safe to do so."²⁷ Second, the State argues the movement of Dugar's SUV created a danger to others had anyone tried to pass Dugar...