TX13: Where charged with failure to identify, the lawfulness of the detention can’t be determined by a motion to suppress

Where defendant was charged with failure to identify herself when lawfully detained, this court is bound by the Court of Criminal Appeals in Woods that a motion to suppress can’t be used to litigate the lawfulness of the initial detention. Gonzalez v. State, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 9751 (Tex. App. – Corpus Christi – Edinburg Sept. 1, 2016):

A suppression hearing is for the limited purpose of addressing preliminary matters, not the merits of the case itself, and it may not be used to decide the sufficiency of the evidence to support an element of the offense. See State v. Iduarte, 268 S.W.3d 544, 551-52 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008); Woods v. State, 153 S.W.3d 413, 415 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (holding that statutes authorizing pre-trial proceedings do not contemplate a “mini-trial” on the sufficiency of the evidence to support an element of the offense). In Woods, for example, the court of criminal appeals concluded that the defendant could not use a motion to suppress to challenge the legality of his detention in connection with a prosecution for evading arrest or detention, an element of which requires that the attempt to arrest or detain him be lawful. See Woods, 153 S.W.3d at 415; see also Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 38.04 (West, Westlaw through 2015 R.S.).

In the present case, as in Woods, lawful detention is an element of the charged offense of failure to identify. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 38.02(2) (“A person commits an offense if he intentionally gives a false or fictitious name … to a peace officer who has … lawfully detained the person.” (emphasis added)). Applying the reasoning in Woods, by asking the trial judge to suppress the arrest and the details of failing to provide her name to the officer, Gonzalez was in effect asking the trial judge to rule on whether the State had proof of an element of the offense. See Woods, 153 S.W.3d at 415. She was asking the trial judge to address the merits of the case itself, not to address issues that can be determined before there is a trial on the general issue of the case. See id. As the Woods Court reasoned, Gonzalez, in essence, tried to argue in her motion and now on appeal that the State could not prove one of the elements of the crime; that the State could not prove that the detention for which she provided a false or fictitious name was lawful because it was unreasonable. See id. If the trial judge granted Gonzalez’s motion to suppress her misidentification and ensuing detention, the State could no longer prosecute Gonzalez for failure to identify. See id. Gonzalez was asking the judge to rule whether or not an offense had actually been committed. See id.