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Date: 02-13-2021
Case Style:
Sharon Denise Sanders v. The State of Texas
Case Number: 02-19-00273-CR
Judge: Brian Walker
Court: Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
at Fort Worth
Plaintiff's Attorney: David L. Richards
Joseph W. Spence
Defendant's Attorney:
OR
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Description:
Fort Worth, TX - Criminal defense attorney represented Sharon Denise Sanders with a Driving While Intoxicated charge.
Sanders was arrested for DWI and did not consent to provide a blood
specimen. Based on the arresting officer’s probable-cause affidavit, a search warrant
issued authorizing the seizure of Sanders’s “BLOOD.” Sanders’s blood specimen was
drawn, and an analysis of the specimen revealed that her blood-alcohol content
approximately two hours after her arrest was 0.174, well over the legal limit. See Tex.
Penal Code Ann. § 49.01(2)(B). Sanders filed a pretrial motion to suppress the
analysis results because the warrant authorized only the seizure of her blood
specimen, not the resulting blood-alcohol analysis. The trial court denied the motion,
the results were admitted at trial, and a jury found Sanders guilty of misdemeanor
DWI. See id. § 49.04(a), (d).
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Sanders now argues on appeal, as she did in the trial court, that the
constitutional infirmities in the search warrant required the trial court to suppress the
results of the blood-alcohol analysis. Sanders does not challenge her arrest or the
legality of the seizure of her blood specimen. Instead, she focuses on the fact that the
warrant did not specifically authorize the subsequent analysis of the specimen. In her
estimation, the Fourth Amendment required either a separate warrant for the analysis
or a “reference” to the analysis in the warrant.
In a case factually indistinguishable from this appeal, the Court of Criminal
Appeals has held that a magistrate’s probable-cause determination in issuing a warrant
authorizing seizure of a blood specimen sufficiently authorizes the analysis of the
blood-alcohol content of the specimen, even though such analysis is not specified in
the warrant:
Here, the State obtained the blood sample by way of a magistrate’s
determination that probable cause existed to justify its seizure—for the
explicit purpose of determining its evidentiary value to prove the offense
of [DWI]. That magistrate’s determination was sufficient in this case to
justify the chemical testing of the blood. And this is so, we hold, even if
the warrant itself did not expressly authorize the chemical testing on its
face.
Crider v. State, 607 S.W.3d 305, 308 (Tex. Crim. App. 2020), petition for cert. filed, (U.S.
Dec. 11, 2020) (No. 20-823); see also Jacobson v. State, 603 S.W.3d 485, 491–92 (Tex.
App.—Fort Worth 2020, pet. ref’d) (holding same). Neither the presented facts here
nor Sanders’s suppression arguments compel us to disregard this binding precedent
from the Court of Criminal Appeals and hold otherwise. Accordingly, we conclude
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that the Fourth Amendment did not, as a matter of law, require the suppression of
Sanders’s blood-alcohol concentration at trial.
II. ASSESSED FEE
Sanders contends that the statute requiring the assessment of a $25 fee “for the
trying of the case by the district or county attorney” upon a misdemeanor conviction
violates the Texas Constitution’s separation-of-powers protection. See Tex. Const.
art. II, § 1; Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 102.008(a). Sanders bases this argument
on her assertion that the fee is “not expended for criminal justice purposes,”
rendering the fee a court-imposed tax.
Indeed, if the statute under which a fee is assessed does not provide for its
allocation to be expended for legitimate criminal-justice purposes, the fee’s assessment
unconstitutionally turns the trial court into a tax gatherer. Salinas v. State, 523 S.W.3d
103, 109 n.26 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017); see, e.g., Casas v. State, 524 S.W.3d 921, 925–27
(Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2017, no pet.) (holding statutory cost for emergency medical
services unconstitutional because intended use of funds was not for a legitimate
criminal-justice purpose). However, we have clearly held that the district-attorney fee
Sanders challenges here is, in fact, properly allocated to legitimate criminal-justice
purposes; thus, it does not violate the separation of powers and is not an
unconstitutional tax. Tyler v. State, 563 S.W.3d 493, 500–03 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth
2018, no pet.); see also Moreno v. State, No. 02-19-00298-CR, 2020 WL 1465993, at *1
(Tex. App.—Fort Worth Mar. 26, 2020, pet. ref’d) (per curiam) (mem. op., not
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designated for publication) (describing as “settled” constitutionality of Article
102.008(a)’s district-attorney fee). Sanders offers no reason to revisit our prior
holdings on this issue.
Outcome: Binding precedent from the Court of Criminal Appeals and from this court
compel our holdings that the warrant for the seizure of Sanders’s blood specimen also
authorized the subsequent blood-alcohol analysis and that the district-attorney fee is constitutional. Accordingly, we overrule Sanders’s issues and affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: