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933 S.W.2d 719

Woods v. State

Texas Court of Appeals, 3rd District (Austin)

Decided October 16, 1996

Texas Court of Appeals, 3rd District (Austin) · decided 1996-10-16

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently June 1998

3 state decisions

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“A. It was that when she came in, she got a very surprised and scared expression on her face, and then tried to go around the security like she was entering through the JP Five door. Q. And then what did she do? A. Then she turned around and started to leave. When we asked her where she needed to go, she said she needed to go to the fifth floor. [[Image here]] A. We told her how to get to the fifth floor, and at that point she said, “No, I need to go back out to my car first,” and this is something that we- have seen a lot of other times. That’s when we know somebody usually has something in their purse. McCullen testified that on approximately fifty occasions, he had seen a similar expression on the face of a person before discovering a weapon or drugs. He acknowledged on cross-examination, however, that he had seen the same expression on persons who did not prove to have a weapon or contraband. Richardson also testified at the second hearing. He stated that appellant was stopped because, “We wanted to run [the purse] through the x-ray machine and see if there was a weapon or contraband in it.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Woods v. State

Relies on DuBose v. State

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1996-10-16

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

POWERS, Justice,

¶1dissenting.

¶2When reviewing a ruling on a motion to suppress evidence, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s legal conclusion. DuBose v. State, 915 S.W.2d 493, 497-98 (Tex.Crim.App.1996). We may reverse the court’s ruling as an abuse of discretion only if no reasonable view of the record supports it. Id.In my opinion, the majority fails to accord the district court the deference to which it is entitled.

¶3*727At the second hearing on appellant’s motion to suppress, McCullen testified that appellant “tried to go around the security like she was entering through the JP Five door.” I believe this testimony may reasonably be understood to mean that appellant attempted to evade the security screening devices by pretending to enter the hallway from the door of the justice of the peace courtroom. Such a deliberate effort to avoid the security checkpoint was a reasonable and articulable basis for suspecting that appellant had a weapon in her purse. I therefore cannot hold that the district court abused its discretion in concluding that the officers were legally justified in detaining appellant and “frisking” her purse.

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