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Warrantless Arrest

Oct 26
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Emergency Aid Police Arrest Texas

Does the Emergency Aid Exception Apply to Vehicle Stops?

By Warrantless Search

Officers Are Justified in Stopping Vehicles to Render Emergency Aid Making Evidence Found in the Process Fair Game

Emergency Aid Police Arrest TexasThe Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently handed down an opinion dealing with the emergency-aid warrant exception and whether that exception extends to vehicular stops. The issue facing the court was whether a traffic stop of Appellant Toussaint to warn him that a gang member had ordered a hit on him was justified under the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment. The court reversed the suppression order from the trial court holding that the emergency aid exception did justify the stop because this was a proper exigent circumstance.

US v. Toussaint (5th Circuit – 2016)

The Facts—Trial Court Found the Exigent Circumstances Had Expired

An FBI agent monitoring a wiretap overheard a suspected gang-member order his associate to kill Toussaint who could be found in a specific neighborhood driving a specific car, a silver Infiniti. Immediately the agent contacted a local police officer who met with several other officers to determine the plan to locate and warn Toussaint of the hit. The officers drive to the specified neighborhood and search for silver Infinities until they find one with an occupant leaving the neighborhood. The officers follow the vehicle, observe the driver, Toussaint, speeding and pull him over. Once pulled over Toussaint flees the officers on foot until he was caught and placed under arrest. During a search of Toussaint incident to arrest officers found a pistol and a bag of crack cocaine. The amount of time between the FBI agent overhearing the initial threat and Toussaint’s arrest was about 45 minutes.

Toussaint was charged with drug and firearm violations. Toussaint filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the stop arguing that the stop was not justified. The trial court granted Toussaint’s motion to suppress finding that the exigency of the emergency had expired by the time the officers stopped Toussaint.

The Court of Appeals Reversed the Trial Courts Decision—Holding the Emergency-Aid Exception Applied in this Case and the Exigency Had Not Expired

The court held that the emergency-aid exception extends to vehicular stops when under the circumstances of the need to assist persons with serious injuries or threatened with serious injury. The emergency aid exception allows officers to conduct warrantless searches or seizures when there is a need to assist persons with serious injuries or threatened with a serious injury. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 at 483. Under this exception, officers can enter areas they otherwise are not allowed in order to help someone. While the majority of such cases involve warrantless entries into homes, the court determined that there is no logical reason to not extend the exception to vehicular stops. Additionally, looking to reasonableness, “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment,” the court stated “the benevolent act of trying to notify a driver that his life is in danger epitomizes reasonableness.” Thus, the court held that the emergency aid exception can be used to justify a traffic stop under proper exigent circumstances.

Then, the court held that the exception applied in this case and officers were justified in stopping Toussaint. The court stated that trial courts must examine objective facts of the circumstance in determining whether there was an objectively reasonable basis for believing exigency actually existed. The officers’ subjective motivations are never relevant in the determination. When the officers received what all parties agreed was a credible threat against Toussaint, who was located in a specific neighborhood and driving a specific vehicle, the court held it was reasonable for the officers to believe there was a serious threat on Toussaint’s life. Further, that exigency still existed at the time of the stop because the threat on Toussaint’s life had not ended within the 45 minutes it took officers to locate him and warn him. Since the stop was justified the search was proper and evidence was legally obtained because it would be contrary to the needs of law enforcement to force officers to ignore evidence found when they stop vehicles to render emergency aid.

In conclusion, the court held that the emergency aid exception extends to vehicular stops and that here, the stop of Toussaint was justified under this exception because there was a serious threat on his life. Accordingly, the court reversed the suppression order because the trial court was improper in granting the motion.

Jan 22
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Attenuating of the Taint of Unlawful Police Conduct in Drug Crimes

By Drug Crimes

In Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975), the U.S. Supreme Court identified three factors that courts should consider when determining whether the taint of an unlawful arrest was attenuated prior to obtaining a confession:

1. The temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession;
2. The presence of intervening circumstances; and
3. The purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct (in making the arrest).

In May of 2012, in State v Mazuca, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals considered the proper application of the “attenuation of taint doctrine,” not to a confession, as in Brown, but to contraband that is seized immediately following an unconstitutional detention or arrest.  The question presented was this:

Will the discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant in the relatively few moments that ensue between the illegal stop and the seizure of the contraband invariably serve as an intervening event sufficient to purge the taint of the primary illegality?

In Mazuca, an El Paso police officer stopped the car in which appellee was a passenger because the officer believed he saw white light (rather than red) emitting from the tail lights.  Photos at trial would later prove that the tail lights were indeed red and that the car was not in violation of the Texas Transportation Code.  During the stop, the officer requested to see appellee’s driver’s license, and quickly learned that appellee had outstanding warrants.  During the course of the stop (after learning about the warrants) the officer seized both ecstasy and marijuana from appellee.  Appellee moved to suppress the contraband as the fruits of an illegal search.  The trial court granted the motion, making, inter alia, the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:

1. The driver of the Mustang did not violate Section 547.322 of the Transportation Code on December 11, 2008.
2. The Police Officers did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to perform a traffic stop on that date.
3. The arrest warrants of the Defendant did not purge the taint of the illegal stop due to the flagrancy of the police action, the close temporal proximity and the fact that no Miranda warnings were read.

The 8th Court of Appeals (El Paso) affirmed.  The CCA considered the Supreme Court precedent, as well as the Texas Court of Appeals opinions in coming up with the rule below:

When police find and seize physical evidence shortly after an illegal stop, in the absence of the discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant in between, that physical evidence should ordinarily be suppressed, even if the police misconduct is not highly purposeful or flagrantly abusive of Fourth Amendment rights. Under this scenario, temporal proximity is the paramount factor. But when an outstanding arrest warrant is discovered between the illegal stop and the seizure of physical evidence, the importance of the temporal proximity factor decreases. Under this scenario, the intervening circumstance is a necessary but never, by itself, wholly determinative factor in the attenuation calculation, and the purposefulness and/or flagrancy of the police misconduct, vel non, becomes of vital importance.

While the rule sounds simple enough, the CCA’s application of the rule to the facts of the case is a bit troubling.  The CCA reversed the Court of Appeals, and held that…

[T]he behavior of the arresting officers, although clearly unlawful at the outset, was not so particularly purposeful and flagrant that the discovery of the appellee’s outstanding arrest warrants may not serve to break the causal connection between the illegal stop and the discovery of the ecstasy in the appellee’s pants pocket, thus purging the primary taint.  We hold that the trial court erred to conclude otherwise.

The opinion in this case seems a logically disconnected from the ultimate outcome. Apparently, some of the judges agree.  Here’s what Judge Meyers had to say in his dissenting opinion:

The result fashioned by the majority opens the door for police to ignore the probable cause requirement and make traffic stops without adequate grounds for doing so.  The majority’s analysis of the weight of the Brown factors may be correct, but the result discounts the trial court’s findings as to the credibility of the officers.

Judge Johnson dissented as well, writing:

I would hold that the court of appeals correctly recognized that, without the highly improper traffic stop, the officers could not have learned appellee’s name, found active warrants, or searched him and recovered contraband, all fruits of the poisonous tree.  We, like the court of appeals, should “afford almost total deference to a trial court’s determination of historical facts that are supported by the record, particularly when such findings are based on an evaluation of witnesses’ credibility and demeanor” and affirm its suppression of the evidence that was obtained because of the improper traffic stop.  I respectfully dissent.

If you were the subject on an unlawful arrest on a drug crimes case, contact the Fort Worth, Texas drug crimes defense lawyers at Barnett Howard & Williams PLLC today.  (817) 993-9249.

Dec 16
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Vigilant Border Protection

By Drug Crimes

Out near El Paso, the law enforcement folks are pretty anal about boundaries.  Apparently, their “border-protection” mentality applies equally to law enforcement officers from neighboring jurisdictions.  Below is a summary from a federal quarrel between officers of El Paso and Hudspeth Counties.  While it isn’t directly on point for this blog, it is tangentially related to Texas criminal law and it has a little bit of 4th amendment seizure flavor to it.

Short v. West, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals – November 2, 2011

Appellant was an officer in the El Paso Police Department, (EPPD) assigned to a narcotics task force for the 34th Judicial District. The 34th Judicial District includes both El Paso and Hudspeth counties. While conducting a task force related traffic stop in Hudspeth County, appellant encountered a Hudspeth County Sheriff Department (HCSD) deputy who asked him what he was doing there.  Appellant identified himself to the satisfaction of the deputy and told her that EPPD task force officers were working in Hudspeth County.  The deputy contacted her dispatcher who in turn called Hudspeth County Sheriff West and told him that EPPD officers were performing traffic stops in Hudspeth County.  Sheriff West ordered his deputies and find out whether the EPPD officers were, in fact, law enforcement officers.  Sheriff West also ordered his deputies to round up the EPPD task force officers and escort them to his office.

A lieutenant in the HCSD located appellant’s supervisor, who produced identification showing him to be an officer with the EPPD and the task force.  Appellant’s supervisor ordered him and the other task force members to return to El Paso County.  While on the way back to El Paso County, appellant and several task force members were stopped and surrounded by HCSD deputies.  The HCSD deputies ordered appellant and the other task force members to go to a nearby HCSD substation.  They were told that they would be arrested if they failed to comply.  Appellant and the task force members went to the HCSD substation where Sheriff West complained that he had not been notified of the task activities in his county. He then told the task force officers that they were free to leave.  Appellant sued Sheriff West under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating his rights under the Fourth Amendment.

The court held that Sheriff West was not entitled to qualified immunity.  First, the court found that appellant was seized for Fourth Amendment purposes. The HCSD deputies surrounded the task force officers’ vehicles preventing them from returning to El Paso County.  In addition, appellant was threatened with arrest if he did not accompany the deputies to the HCSD substation.  A reasonable person would not feel free to ignore such a show of force and go about his business.

Second, the court found that such a seizure was objectively unreasonable.  Sheriff West ordered the task force officers to be detained and brought to the HCSD substation so he could personally examine them. This was not likely to quickly confirm or dispel his suspicions as to whether or not the task force officers were legitimate law enforcement officers.  There were less intrusive ways to accomplish this.  Sheriff West could have contacted the EPPD Chief, whom he knew or he could have run the license plates on the task force officers’ vehicles. It was unreasonable to not recognize or pursue these options as alternatives to seizing Short.