Richard Hyland v. State ( 2019 )

NUMBER 13-16-00596-CR
COURT OF APPEALS
THIRTEENTH DISTRICT OF TEXAS
CORPUS CHRISTI – EDINBURG
RICHARD HYLAND, Appellant,
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.
On appeal from the 319th District Court
of Nueces County, Texas.
OPINION ON REMAND
Before Chief Justice Contreras and Justices Longoria and Hinojosa
Opinion by Justice Longoria
Subsequent to publishing our memorandum opinion, the State filed a motion
requesting that we publish the opinion. We grant the State’s motion. Accordingly, this
Court’s memorandum opinion issued on October 31, 2019, is hereby withdrawn and the
following is substituted therefor.
This case was remanded to us by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Hyland v.
State, 574 S.W.3d 904, 916 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019). The Court concluded that the police
officer’s affidavit as excised by the trial court established probable cause, reversed our
previous judgment, and remanded the cause to us to address appellant Richard Hyland’s
remaining points of error. Id. at 916. The Court did not disturb our conclusion that the
evidence was sufficient to support the operation and causation elements of an intoxication
manslaughter offense. See Hyland v. State, No. 13-16-00596-CR, 2018 WL 1633487, at
*12–13 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg Apr. 5, 2018) (mem. op., not designated for
publication). Accordingly, on remand, we now must determine (1) whether the evidence
was sufficient to support a deadly weapon finding and (2) whether “the trial court should
have suppressed the results of the third, warrantless search” of Hyland’s blood. We
affirm.
I. DEADLY WEAPON FINDING
By his first issue, Hyland contends that the evidence was insufficient to support the
finding that he used or exhibited a deadly weapon—namely, a motorcycle—during the
commission of the offense of intoxication manslaughter.
A. Standard of Review and Applicable Law
The test for determining whether the evidence is sufficient to support a criminal
conviction is whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of
the crime beyond a reasonable doubt after viewing the evidence in a light most favorable
to the prosecution. Drichas v. State, 175 S.W.3d 795, 798 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005).
“Deadly weapon” is defined as: (A) a firearm or anything manifestly designed,
made, or adapted for the purpose of inflicting death or serious bodily injury; or (B) anything
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that in the manner of its use or intended use is capable of causing death or serious bodily
injury. TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 1.07(a)(17). A motorcycle is not “manifestly designed,
made, or adapted for the purpose of inflicting death or serious bodily injury[.]” TEX. PENAL
CODE ANN. § 1.07(a)(17)(A). But it may, “in the manner of its use or intended use [be]
capable of causing death or serious bodily injury.” Id. § 1.07(a)(17)(B); Nguyen v. State,
506 S.W.3d 69, 76 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2016, pet. ref’d) (a motor vehicle may be a
deadly weapon where “the vehicle was intentionally, recklessly or negligently used as a
weapon by the accused”). In any felony offense in which it is “shown” that the defendant
“used or exhibited [a] deadly weapon” during the commission of the offense or in
immediate flight therefrom, the trial court “shall” enter a deadly weapon finding in the
judgment. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 42A,054(c). Such a deadly weapon finding
impacts a convicted felon’s eligibility for community supervision, parole, and mandatory
supervision. See id.; TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. §§ 508.145(d)(1), 508.149(a)(1),
508.151(a)(2); Moore v. State, 520 S.W.3d 906, 908 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017).
To justify a deadly weapon finding under § 1.07(a)(17)(B), the State needs to
establish only that “the manner” in which the motorcycle was either used or intended to
be used was “capable” of causing death or serious bodily injury. See Tucker v. State,
274 S.W.3d 688, 691 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008). When assessing a defendant’s manner of
driving, we examine whether a defendant’s driving was reckless or dangerous. Couthren
v. State, 571 S.W.3d 786, 790 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019). To support a deadly weapon
finding, there must be evidence that the manner of driving was capable of causing death
or serious bodily injury apart from the fact of a collision and the defendant's intoxication.
Id.
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B. Witness Testimony
On the evening of May 30, 2014, Jaime Doherty1 was killed in a motorcycle
accident in Corpus Christi, Texas. Three witnesses testified that they observed different
portions of the events leading to the accident: Juan Ledesma, Phyllis Ledesma, and
Roger Villarreal.
Juan Ledesma testified that around 10:50 p.m., he was driving eastbound with his
wife Phyllis when a motorcyclist emerged from the parking lot of the Frontier Saloon.
According to Juan, the motorcyclist went “shooting across the road” and cut him off. Juan
jammed his brakes to avoid hitting the motorcycle, and the driver of the motorcycle
swerved into the westbound lane to avoid the Ledesmas’ vehicle. The motorcyclist then
veered back into the eastbound lane. Juan saw that the driver of the motorcycle was
male, and his passenger was a woman with long blonde hair flowing from under her
helmet. Ahead was an intersection where cars were stopped at a red light, and the
motorcyclist was forced to hit the brakes and swerve to one side of a vehicle to avoid a
collision. Juan testified that the motorcyclist then “popped the clutch on the motorcycle,”
jolting the bike forward, and his female passenger nearly fell off the back. Both Juan and
Phyllis Ledesma testified that the motorcyclist was driving erratically, weaving in and out
of traffic and varying his speed; at some points, it looked to Phyllis as though the
motorcycle was going to lean and “tump[] over.”
According to Juan, the motorcyclist then made a U-turn and began heading
westbound. Juan took a U-turn as well. He saw the motorcyclist accelerate to a great
speed. Juan could not keep pace, and he soon lost sight of the motorcycle.
The decedent’s first name is variously spelled in the record as “Jaimie” and “Jaime,” and her last
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name also appears as “Dougherty.”
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Juan continued down the road until, roughly five minutes later, he came upon the
scene of an accident: at a curve in the road, he saw two people on the ground, as well
as the same motorcycle he had observed earlier. Juan recognized one person as the
man driving the motorcycle, who was gasping for air. The other was a blonde woman
with a lifeless expression. Neither one was wearing a helmet. Juan administered CPR
to the woman until paramedics arrived. Juan later identified the two people as Hyland
and his wife Doherty, who was also identified at trial by her mother.
Similar to Juan’s testimony, Roger Villarreal attested that he was driving with his
wife when he observed a motorcycle traveling at great speed, weaving in and out of traffic.
He took note of the motorcycle’s driver, whom he described as a larger male, as well as
a smaller-bodied passenger, whom he believed to be a woman. Villarreal testified that
he briefly lost sight of the motorcycle, but he soon came upon the scene of the accident,
where he saw a man and a woman with the same stature as those riding the motorcycle
“seconds” earlier. He joined Juan Ledesma in trying to revive Doherty.
C. Analysis
Hyland argues that the evidence failed to establish that the manner in which he
operated the motorcycle was reckless or dangerous. He contends that the record fails to
establish “who was driving the motorcycle, how fast the driver was driving, the cause of
the accident, the condition of the roadway, what manner the driver was driving seconds
before the collision, whether the driver applied brakes before the collision, or whether the
motor was still engaged when the accident occurred.” In our previous legal sufficiency
analysis, which the Court of Criminal Appeals did not disturb, we discussed the
eyewitness testimony and determined that the evidence was sufficient to support the
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finding that Hyland was operating the motorcycle. See Hyland, 2018 WL 1633487, at
*12. Additionally, we found that the testimony supported a conclusion that Hyland was
driving recklessly:
This inference is also supported by testimony concerning Hyland’s reckless
driving, beginning with Juan Ledesma’s observation of a motorcycle
shooting out of the parking lot of the Frontier Saloon, swerving to avoid two
near-misses, and accelerating so rapidly that Doherty nearly fell off. After
Juan lost sight of Hyland, Villarreal observed similar driving, and he met the
Ledesmas at the scene of the accident seconds later.
Id. The evidence established that Hyland was intoxicated with a blood alcohol content of
0.175, more than two times the legal limit of 0.08. That evidence, in addition to the
testimony regarding Hyland’s reckless driving leading up to the accident, and the resulting
death to Doherty as a result of the accident, was sufficient to support a finding that Hyland
was operating the motorcycle in a manner in which the motorcycle was “capable” of
causing death or serious bodily injury. See Couthren, 571 S.W.3d at 790. Hyland’s first
issue is overruled.
II. WARRANTLESS SEARCH
By his fourth issue, Hyland argues that the trial court “should have suppressed the
results of the third, warrantless search of Mr. Hyland’s blood.” Specifically, Hyland argues
that the State was required to get a second search warrant to re-test Hyland’s blood. The
State responds that the blood draw was done pursuant to a valid warrant executed by the
Corpus Christi Police Department and the blood was lawfully in the possession of the
State to test it.
Relying on State v. Martinez, 534 S.W.3d 97 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg
2017), aff'd, 570 S.W.3d 278 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019), Hyland argues that the re-testing of
his blood constituted a warrantless search of his blood, and therefore should have been
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inadmissible. In Martinez, after a car accident, Martinez was transported by ambulance
to a hospital where his blood was drawn by hospital staff “for medical purposes.” Id. at
99. Martinez informed the hospital he did not want any tests performed on his blood,
refused to provide a urine sample, and left the hospital. Id. Subsequently, a trooper with
the Texas Department of Public Safety who was investigating the accident served a grand
jury subpoena on the hospital and obtained four vials of Martinez’s blood and his medical
records. Id. Two of the vials were sent to the crime laboratory for testing. Id. A motion
to suppress was granted wherein the trial court concluded that the search of the blood
and subsequent tests were performed without the necessary search warrant. Id. On
appeal, we held that the subsequent acquisition of Martinez’s blood sample and later
testing by law enforcement constituted a search by the State implicating Fourth
Amendment protections. Id. at 102. Accordingly, because the testing of the blood was
done without a warrant, we affirmed the trial court’s suppression of the blood test results.
Id.
Here, however, we are presented with a different fact pattern. Hyland’s blood was
not drawn by hospital staff for “medical purposes,” but rather was drawn pursuant to a
valid warrant being executed by law enforcement. The warrant instructed the officer to
“search for, seize and maintain as evidence the property described in said Affidavit, to-
wit: human blood from the body of [Richard Hyland].” The blood evidence obtained via
the warrant was then maintained as evidence by law enforcement and the State, where
testing of said evidence commenced. Therefore, unlike in Martinez, the search here was
not warrantless. See id.
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Hyland also relies on Hardy v. State, 963 S.W.2d 516 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997) and
State v. Huse, 491 S.W.3d 833 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016) to support his argument, but again,
the facts of those cases are distinguishable. In Hardy, the issue involved blood that was
not only drawn by the hospital for medical purposes, but also tested by the hospital for
blood alcohol content. Hardy, 963 S.W.2d at 518. The State did not obtain the blood in
order to test it; instead, the State sought the hospital’s test results. Id. at 523–24. There,
the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the State’s acquisition of the test results did not
violate a legitimate expectation of privacy. Id. at 527. Similarly, in Huse the State
acquired the medical records of Huse showing the results of his blood alcohol test that
were performed by the hospital. 491 S.W.3d at 836–37. Again, the issue there was not
as we have here, with a valid search warrant executed by law enforcement to obtain the
blood of Hyland.
We disagree with Hyland that Martinez, Hardy, or Huse are controlling. Unlike
those cases, here, the State had a valid search warrant and was not seeking Hyland’s
medical records. Hyland does not direct this Court to any authority or support, nor do we
find any, that states that the State cannot re-analyze evidence lawfully in its possession
pursuant to a valid search warrant. Accordingly, we overrule Hyland’s fourth issue.
III. CONCLUSION
The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
NORA L. LONGORIA
Justice
Publish.
TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
Delivered and filed the
21st day of November, 2019.
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