Mead v. State

1

Bryson Mead, Appellant v. The State of Texas

No. 02-23-00186-CR

Court of Appeals of Texas, Second District, Fort Worth

April 18, 2024

Do Not Publish Tex.R.App.P. 47.2(b).

On Appeal from the County Court at Law Hood County, Texas Trial Court No. 54146

Before Sudderth, C.J.; Bassel and Womack, JJ.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Dabney Bassel Justice

I. Introduction

In two issues, Appellant Bryson Mead challenges his misdemeanor conviction for failing to report a collision with a structure, fixture, or landscaping adjacent to a highway, for which he was sentenced to pay a $750 fine and to serve 120 days' confinement, probated for nine months. He argues (1) that the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction because the alleged offense occurred on a privately maintained road and (2) that Transportation Code Section 550.041 does not expand the authority of officers to arrest for traffic offenses occurring on privately maintained roads but merely expands the authority of officers to investigate accidents on private property. The specific statute creating a duty to report a collision (Section 550.025) applies only to collisions with items adjacent to a highway, which is statutorily defined as a publicly maintained way. That statute does not criminalize Appellant's conduct because he collided with items adjacent to a privately maintained road. The State argues that even though Appellant's failure to report was not criminalized by the statute under which he was charged, the scope of that statute is broadened by Section 550.041 that allows a law-enforcement officer to file "justifiable charges." In essence, the State argues that an officer may legislate a crime into existence after the conduct has occurred and when no other legislative enactment criminalizes the conduct. The statutory language cited by the State unambiguously does not support such an unorthodox interpretation. Accordingly, we reverse and render a judgment of acquittal.

II. Factual and Procedural Background

The facts established at the bench trial are essentially undisputed. The incident occurred in the Pecan Plantation subdivision in Hood County. The roads in the subdivision are privately owned and maintained.

On one of the subdivision's roads, a driver drove his vehicle through a residence's yard and did over $1,000 damage to landscaping and a flagpole. The sound of the collision brought neighbors outside; they saw a clattering car driving from the scene. One of the neighbors called the nonemergency number for the Hood County Sheriff's Department, and a deputy was dispatched. The presence at the scene of a license plate from the vehicle that ran through the yard simplified the deputy's task of identifying that vehicle's registered owner.

It took the deputy approximately forty-five minutes after arriving at the scene of the incident to drive to the registered owner's address. The deputy saw a vehicle parked at the address with substantial damage to its rear end and noted that the vehicle was missing its rear bumper, which presumably included its rear license plate. The deputy knocked at the door of the residence, and Appellant's father answered and then asked what Appellant had hit. At this point, neither Appellant nor the injured party had reported the incident to security for the subdivision or to the sheriff's department. The deputy eventually arrested Appellant for striking a structure and landscaping but failing to report the collision.

The record of the trial of this matter established the facts recited above but primarily focused on whether Appellant had committed any criminal offense by not reporting a collision with items adjacent to a privately maintained road. We will detail this controversy below.^[1]

The trial court found Appellant guilty and imposed the sentence referenced in this opinion's introduction. Appellant filed a notice of appeal.

III. Analysis A. We set forth the standard of review.

As noted, no one disputes what the record establishes with respect to Appellant's conduct; instead, the question is whether that conduct establishes a violation of the law. Thus, our sufficiency review is a variation of what we usually apply and is based on a determination of whether Appellant's conduct falls within the applicable penal provision. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has articulated this distinction as follows:

It is axiomatic that, in gauging the legal sufficiency of the evidence to support a particular criminal conviction, reviewing courts are obliged to view all of the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury's verdict, in deference to the jury's institutional prerogative to resolve all contested issues of fact and credibility. But sometimes appellate review of legal sufficiency involves simply construing the reach of the applicable penal provision in order to decide whether the evidence, even when viewed in the light most favorable to conviction, actually establishes a violation of the law.

Delay v. State, 465 S.W.3d 232, 235 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (emphasis added) (footnotes omitted); see also Lang v. State, 561 S.W.3d 174, 179 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018) (determining whether undisputed evidence of appellant's conduct constituted a violation of the organized retail theft statute). Determining the reach of a penal provision involves a question of statutory construction that "is a question of law that we review de novo." Lang, 561 S.W.3d at 180.

B. We set forth the principles of statutory construction that we apply.

The task of deciding whether Appellant's conduct violates a penal provision involves the construction of two sections of the Transportation Code. The guiding principles of interpretation that we apply when a statute is not ambiguous are as follows:

When we interpret statutes, we seek to effectuate the collective intent or purpose of the legislators who enacted the legislation. In doing so, we necessarily focus our attention on the literal text of the statute in question and attempt to discern the fair, objective meaning of the text at the time of its enactment. We follow this principle because (1) the text of the statute is the law; (2) the text is the only definitive evidence of what the legislators had in mind when the statute was enacted into law; and (3) the [Texas] Legislature is constitutionally entitled to expect that the [j]udiciary will faithfully follow the specific text that was adopted. Our duty is to try to interpret the work of our Legislature as best we can to fully effectuate the goals they set out. Legislative intent isn't the law, but discerning legislative intent isn't the end goal, either. The end goal is interpreting the text of the statute.

In interpreting the text of the statute, we must presume that every word in a statute has been used for a purpose and that each word, phrase, clause, and sentence should be given effect if reasonably possible. We do not focus solely upon a discrete provision; we look at other statutory provisions as well to harmonize text and avoid conflicts. Time-honored canons of interpretation, both semantic and contextual, can aid interpretation, provided the canons esteem textual interpretation.

Moreover, we read words and phrases in context and construe them according to rules of grammar. When a particular term is not legislatively defined but has acquired a technical meaning, we construe that term in its technical sense. When it has not, we construe that term according to common usage. We may consult standard or legal dictionaries to determine the meaning of undefined terms.

State v. Hardin, 664 S.W.3d 867, 872-73 (Tex. Crim. App. 2022) (footnotes and internal quotations omitted).

Only under limited circumstances may we step outside the text of a statute to interpret it. We may turn to "extra-textual factors" only "if a statute's language is ambiguous[] or if application of the statute's plain meaning would lead to an absurd result that the [Texas] Legislature could not possibly have intended." Lang, 561 S.W.3d at 180. Whether a statute is ambiguous turns on whether it "may be understood by reasonably well-informed persons in two or more different senses." Id. (quoting Bryant v. State, 391 S.W.3d 86, 92 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012)).^[2] C. We explain why we conclude that the statutory provisions at issue did not criminalize Appellant's conduct.

The State attempts to blend two ingredients-two provisions of the Transportation Code-to criminalize Appellant's conduct. Those ingredients do not gel. The first provision is a statute that makes it a crime for an operator of a vehicle to fail to notify the owner of "a structure adjacent to a highway or a fixture or landscaping legally on or adjacent to a highway" of a collision that damaged any of those items. Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 550.025(a).^[3] The face of this statute does not apply to Appellant's conduct because the structures, fixtures, and landscaping with which Appellant collided were adjacent not to a highway but to a privately maintained road within the Pecan Plantation subdivision. The second provision is Section 550.041 of the Transportation Code. Subsection (a) of that section allows an officer to file "justifiable charges relating to the collision without regard to whether the collision occurred on property to which [Chapter 550] applies." Id. § 550.041(a). The State's argument is that this language empowers an officer to legislate a crime that he or she believes is justified. Such a reading ignores the context in which the language is used; fails to apply the fair, objective meaning of Section 550.041(a)'s words; and argues for an interpretation that is constitutionally infirm. The language- unambiguously-does not vest a law-enforcement officer with such an unheard-of power.

D. Appellant's...