Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Middleton v. State
Nos. PD-1236-20 through -1240-20 11/3/21
Issue:
When a defendant’s deferred-adjudication case (three theft offenses) is prosecuted in the same criminal action as his new case (two additional theft offenses), can the sentences for those two cases be stacked?
Holding:
No. Because §3.03 of the Penal Code does not include an exception to the concurrent-sentencing rule for theft offenses and the theft offenses were prosecuted in the same criminal action, the sentences must run concurrently. Read opinion.
Commentary:
The appellate prosecutors in this case put forth a valiant effort in support of the consecutive sentencing assessed by the trial court in this case. Unfortunately for them, the CCA simply wasn’t having it. The trial court in this case called the defendant’s five cases to be heard all at once. The defendant had previously pled guilty and been placed on deferred adjudication for three of these cases (all theft) and had yet to be tried on two of them (also theft). Neither party objected to the cases being heard together and the defendant was ultimately sentenced to state jail on all five cases and the court ordered the sentences to run consecutively. In their decision, the CCA briefly discusses §3.03’s “same criminal episode” element but largely focuses their attention on the “single criminal action” element. The result here is a pretty reasonable application of its previous decision in Robbins. The Court’s analysis spends a great deal of time focusing on the nature of deferred probation and motion to adjudicate hearings, which might give prosecutors some hope that the outcome would have been different had the defendant been on adjudicated probation instead of deferred. In dicta, however, the Court expresses skepticism that an adjudicated probation would have resulted in a different outcome.
Texas Courts of Appeals
State v. Astorga
No. 08-20-00180-CR 10/27/21
Issue:
Did the trial court correctly grant a motion to suppress after hearing testimony that tribal police arrested a non-Native American defendant for civil charges under the Tribe’s Traffic and Peace Codes?
Holding:
Yes. When a tribal police officer has probable cause to believe a non-Native American motorist has violated state or federal law on tribal lands, the tribal officer can detain the motorist for a reasonable time until state or federal law enforcement arrives. In this case, tribal police went beyond their policing authority when they handcuffed the defendant; read Miranda rights; searched “incident to arrest,” including a strip search; seized personal possessions; transported the defendant in a tribal police car to tribal police headquarters, and placed him in a holding cell. The trial court correctly determined that the arrest was illegal and suppressed the drugs seized from the defendant. Read opinion.
Commentary:
This opinion is a must-read for any prosecutor who is new to a jurisdiction that contains Native American Tribal lands. It is a very helpful primer on the jurisdictional limits that tribal police forces have over non-Native American individuals and how tribal law interacts with Texas state and federal law. Prosecutors with more experience dealing with the unique limits of tribal police authority and the interplay of tribal law with state and federal law will still find this case interesting. This is the first Texas state court to apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Cooley to a state offense. The opinion succinctly applies Cooley and reiterates the fact that tribal police’s authority over non-Native Americans found in violation of state or federal criminal law is limited to detaining the individuals for a reasonable period of time until state law enforcement arrives.
King v. State
No. 01-19-00793-CR 10/28/21
Issue:
Did a defendant have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his work-issued semi-truck, and did he have standing to challenge the seizure of his cell phone after a warrant had lapsed and investigators instructed the owner of his semi-truck to locate and send the cell phone to them?
Holding:
Yes. Finding no evidence the defendant intended to abandon his property (his cell phone), noting the reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace, and distinguishing the post-warrant seizure by the defendant’s supervisor acting as an agent of the police, the court concluded the defendant had standing. In addition, the court held the doctrine of attenuation of the taint did not apply, and the photographs found on the defendant’s phone and later presented during sentencing should have been suppressed, resulting in reversible harm. Read opinion.
Commentary:
The court thoroughly examines the issue of standing as it relates to abandoned property, expectations of privacy in a workplace and, in particular, the unique hybrid workplace/living space that is a “long-haul” commercial vehicle. The lesson to be learned from this case is that when an unfortunate oversight occurs and not all evidence that is subject to a search warrant is collected by law enforcement, the safest course of action is to obtain a second warrant to retrieve the overlooked property.