Pham v. State
Pham v. State
Opinion of the Court
Appellant John Tuy Pham was convicted by a jury of the offense of murder, and was assessed a punishment of life imprisonment in the TDCJ Institutional Division. Appellant Chance Derrick Gonzales pled guilty to the offense of murder in the 208th District Court of Harris County, Texas. He was sentenced to 45 years’ confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (“TDCJ”) institutional division pursuant to a plea bargain.
We consolidated Appellants’ cases, as the same issues are raised in each of their appeals, and both cases are being appealed from the First Court of Appeals in Harris County. We will affirm the judgment of the court of appeals in both cases.
I. Facts
Appellant Pham was sixteen years old at the time he became a suspect in the drive-by shooting that resulted in the death of the victim, Dung Van Ha. At 2:35 p.m. on September 9, 1998, Houston police officers arrested Appellant at Clear Brook High School. At 3:35 p.m., a magistrate gave Appellant legal warnings as required by section 51.095 of the Texas Family Code. Subsequently, Appellant was taken to the police station and questioned by an investigator. Appellant admitted to his involvement in the shooting at approximately 4:38 p.m. He was then taken to a juvenile facility for processing by the police officers. An officer from this processing facility first notified Appellant’s family at about 8:15 p.m. when he spoke to Appellant’s sister. No one from the police department spoke with Appellant’s parents until 9:50 p.m. Appellant’s parents did not come to see him until the following day.
Appellant Gonzales was arrested in connection with a shooting death during a robbery at a convenience store when he was 15 years old. Appellant was identified by two witnesses who confirmed that he shot the victim while attempting to steal beer from the store for a gang party. Police arrested Appellant at a party, sometime between midnight and 1:30 a.m. Before police officers took Gonzales to a juvenile processing office at approximately 2:30 a.m., the officers made a stop at a sheriff’s station where they left him for 20-30 minutes so they could pick up a surveillance tape from a convenience store. This tape showed Appellant committing a similar type of robbery the same night. Appellant was given his Miranda warnings in the car on the way to the processing facility. The officer’s then took Appellant to a municipal judge at 3:35 a.m., where he was given the warnings required by Texas Family Code section 51.095. It was in the judge’s chambers with the police officers that Appellant Gonzales then gave his written statement. The arresting officer testified that he did not notify Appellant’s parents that their son had been arrested. Appellant Gonzales’ parents did not know that he had been arrested until he was processed into the juvenile arresting facility five to six hours after he was arrested, and after he gave his statement to police.
II. Procedural History: Pham
Appellant Pham originally appealed his conviction to the First Court of Appeals. The court of appeals in Pham v. State
III. Procedural History: Gonzales
Appellant Gonzales appealed to the First Court of Appeals from a plea of guilty. The court of appeals handed down its original decision (Gonzales I) on November 4, 1999, holding that Appellant’s confession was inadmissible because the State had not met its burden of proving that Texas Family Code § 52.02(b) had not been violated.
IV. First Court of Appeals’ Decisions and Grounds for Review
The court of appeals held in Pham III that the State did obtain Appellant Pham’s confession in violation of Texas Family Code section 52.02(b), however, in light of our opinion in Gonzales II, the court also held that the confession was not automatically inadmissible without first conducting an analysis under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 38.23 to determine
The court of appeals next addressed the issue of which party has the burden of proving a causal connection, noting that no direct authority establishes who takes on this burden.
In Appellant Gonzales’ case, the court of appeals, citing its decision in Pham III (discussed above), again held that when there is a violation of section 52.02(b) of the Texas Family Code, the initial burden is on the defendant to demonstrate a violation of the statutory requirement and a causal connection between that violation and the ensuing confession. Again, the court held that Appellant Gonzales produced no evidence that would demonstrate a causal connection between the police violation of the Family Code and his ensuing confession, therefore his statement was admissible.
Both Appellants argue that a causal-connection analysis is part and parcel of an attenuation-of-taint analysis, and that the burden of proof falls on the State to negate the causal connection between the violation and the confessions of the two Appellants. Appellants claim that the court of appeals ignored cases stating that when voluntari
The State argues in these cases that the court of appeals did not err in placing the burden of production on Appellants to offer evidence to prove that violations of the Family Code occurred, and that they were causally connected to the ensuing confessions. The State contends that Appellants failed to meet the burden of production, i.e. they did not produce any evidence that their statements were obtained in violation of any laws. Additionally, the State argues that causal connection and attenuation-of-taint are two separate analyses by which a court will determine whether evidence was obtained in violation of the law as set out in article 38.23.
We granted review in both of these cases to clarify the causal connection analysis which must be undertaken in article 38.23 suppression of evidence claims. In Appellant Pham’s case, we granted the following two grounds for review: 1) did the court of appeals err in holding that causal connection and attenuation-of-taint constitute separate analyses, and 2) did the court of appeals err by requiring Appellant to prove a causal connection between the violation of section 52.02(b) of the Texas Family Code and Appellant’s confession? In Appellant Gonzales’ case, we granted the following ground for review: did the court of appeals adopt the wrong standard by which a causal connection must be established under article 38.23 to justify suppression of evidence seized in violation of the Family Code?
IV. Law
Neither party argues with the settled law that the burden of proof is initially on the defendant to raise the exclusionary issue by producing evidence of a statutory violation, and that this burden then shifts to the State to prove compliance. The main issue we face here is whether the defendant has the burden of producing evidence that shows the violation is connected to the obtaining of the evidence sought to be suppressed.
Appellants argue that a causal connection analysis cannot be separated from an attenuation analysis, and thus, since it is well settled that the State bears the burden of proving attenuation of taint, the burden is also upon it to produce evidence of a causal connection. We disagree. If we follow this circular argument, anytime an appellant asserted a statutory violation of Family Code section 52.02(b), a court would immediately have to conduct an attenuation-of-taint analysis because it is part of the causal connection analysis. This would further the assumption that once Appellant shows a violation of the statute under 52.02(b), the evidence is automatically assumed inadmissible unless the State demonstrates attenuation-of-taint, an assumption which we expressly rejected in Gonzales II.
We have held that the State may make an attenuation-of-taint argument which is included under an Article 38.23 analysis.
If the defendant produces evidence that there is a causal connection, the State may either try to disprove this causal evidence, i.e. disproving that there is a causal connection in existence at all, or, the State may make an attenuation-of-taint argument. Attenuation-of-taint is evaluated under the four-step Brown v. Illinois
We also uphold the court of appeals’ distribution of the burdens of proof in both of these cases. We have long held that “the burden of persuasion is properly and permanently placed upon the shoulders of the moving party. When a criminal defendant claims the right to protection under an exclusionary rule of evidence, it is his task to prove his case.”
Appellant argues that the burden should be on the State to show the causal connection, and analogizes this situation to the admissibility of confessions when issues of voluntariness are raised. Although the burden is on the State to prove that a defendant’s confession was voluntary once the issue has been raised, that situation may be distinguished from the statutory violation of the Texas Family Code we have here. All a defendant must do on a claim of involuntary confession is to demonstrate there is a cognizable violation, and the confession is immediately presumed inadmissible unless the State can prove by a preponderance of the evidence that it was made voluntarily.
Thus, the court of appeals correctly held that the burden is on the defendant, as the moving party in a motion to suppress evidence obtained in violation of the law under Art. 88.23, to produce evidence demonstrating the causal connection which this court required in Gonzales II. The burden then shifts to the State to either disprove the evidence the defendant has produced, or bring an attenuation-of-taint argument to demonstrate that the causal chain asserted by the defendant was in fact broken.
Y. Conclusion
In the case of Appellant Pham, we hold that the court of appeals conducted the appropriate analysis, and that the court did not err in requiring Appellant Pham to produce evidence to prove a causal connection between the violation of section 52.02(b) of the Texas Family Code and his ensuing confession. The decision of the court of appeals is affirmed.
In the case of Appellant Gonzales, we hold that the court of appeals adopted the correct standard by which a causal connection must be established under Art. 38.28 to justify the suppression of evidence seized in violation of the Family Code. The decision of the court of appeals is affirmed.
. John Tuy Pham v. State, 36 S.W.3d 199 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2000).
. Texas Family Code section 52.02(b) states:
*770 A person taking a child into custody shall promptly give notice of the person’s action and a statement of the reason for taking the child into custody, to:
(1) the child's parent, guardian, or custodian; and (2) the office or official designated by the juvenile board, (emphasis added)
. Pham v. State, 72 S.W.3d 346 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002).
. Gonzales v. State, 67 S.W.3d 910 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002) (Gonzales II).
. Pham v. State, 125 S.W.3d 622 (Tex.App.Houston [1st Dist.] 2003) (Pham III).
. Gonzales v. State, 9 S.W.3d 267 (Tex.App.Houston [1st Dist.] 1999) (Gonzales I).
. Gonzales v. State, 67 S.W.3d 910 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002).
. Gonzales v. State, 125 S.W.3d 616 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2003) (Gonzales III).
. Id. at 618.
. Id. at 619.
. Pham III at 625.
. Id.
. Id.
.Id. at 626.
. Id. at 627.
. Id.
. Johnson v. State, 871 S.W.2d 744 (Tex.Crim.App. 1994).
. Roquemore v. State, 60 S.W.3d 862 (Tex.Crim.App. 2001).
. Gonzales v. State, 67 S.W.3d 910 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002) (Gonzales II).
. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975).
. Mattei v. State, 455 S.W.2d 761, 766 (Tex.Crim.App. 1970)(quoting Rogers v. United States, 330 F.2d 535 (5th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 916, 85 S.Ct. 265, 13 L.Ed.2d 186 (1964)).
. Russell v. State, 717 S.W.2d 7, 9 (Tex.Crim.App. 1986).
. United States v. Reynolds, 367 F.3d 294 (5th Cir. 2004).
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
The Court concludes that an attenuation-of-taint analysis is different from a causal-connection analysis. Because the only support for this conclusion is a troublesome substantive footnote, and the conclusion is in conflict with Supreme Court jurisprudence, I dissent.
The United States Supreme Court introduced the attenuation concept over 65 years ago in Nardone v. United States.
We recognized this in Bell v. State
But a few years ago in Roquemore v. State,
The footnote has certainly confused the First Court of Appeals. On original submission in Pham, the First Court analyzed whether there was a causal connection between the illegality and the discovery of evidence, and the court concluded that there was. The court said the following:
If the arresting officers had promptly notified appellant’s parents of his arrest approximately two hours before his confession, there would have been time for them to get to the juvenile processing office at 1200 Travis before the confession. As in Comer,11 we cannot say with any degree of confidence that if appellant had access to his parents or his attorney, he would still have chosen to confess to the crime.12
Despite the court’s analysis, we granted the State’s petition and remanded the case for the Court of Appeals to consider the issue again in light of Gonzales.
In our original opinion, we conducted a taint-attenuation analysis, tracking Comer. This was apparently an insufficient analysis to avoid a remand for reconsideration in light of Gonzales,14
The court determined from our remand that, “at the outset,” it should “determine whether causal connection and attenuation
But the footnote in Roquemore was misguided and misleading. Additionally, a remand from this Court in light of another case does not necessarily mean that the appellate court was wrong in its original analysis. It means only that we want the court to consider the issue again and determine if its analysis needs to be altered in light of the new opinion. In this case, there was no need for the Court of Appeals to alter its analysis in Pham, I. It had already done an attenuation/causal connection analysis, which is all that Gonzales required.
In other jurisdictions, it is a given that an attenuation-of-the-taint analysis and a causal-connection analysis are one and the same. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit says that “the government must prove, from the totality of the circumstances, a sufficient attenuation or break in the causal connection between the illegal detention and the consent.”
In both Pham and Gonzales, the appellate court erred in analyzing the causal connection separately from the attenuation of the taint. The court also erred in placing the burden of showing a causal connection on the appellants. I would reverse both judgments. Because the majority holds otherwise, I dissent.
. 308 U.S. 338, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (U.S. 1939).
. 724 S.W.2d 780, 791 (Tex.Crim.App. 1986).
. 931 S.W.2d 268 (Tex.Crim.App. 1996).
. Id. at 269.
. Id. at 270.
. Id.
. 60 S.W.3d 862 (Tex.Crim.App. 2001).
. Id. at 875 n. 14.
. See Young v. State, 826 S.W.2d 141, 156 n. 5 (Tex.Crim.App. 1991).
. Comer v. State, 776 S.W.2d 191 (Tex.Crim.App. 1989).
. Pham v. State, 36 S.W.3d 199, 204-05 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2000) (Pham I).
. Pham v. State, 72 S.W.3d 346 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002) (Pham II), citing Gonzales v. State, 67 S.W.3d 910 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002).
. Pham v. State, 125 S.W.3d 622 (Tex.App.Houston [1st Dist.] 2003) (Pham III) (internal citations omitted).
. Id. at 625.
. Id.
. United States v. Caro, 248 F.3d 1240, 1247 (10th Cir. 2001).
. United States v. Terzado-Madruga, 897 F.2d 1099, 1113 (11th Cir. 1990).
. United States v. Causey, 818 F.2d 354, 361 (5th Cir. 1987), rev'd on other grounds, 834 F.2d 1179 (5th Cir. 1987). See also United States v. Wipf, 397 F.3d 677, 684 (8th Cir. 2005) (“challenged evidence derived through police illegality will still be admissible under the 'attenuation' doctrine if the causal connection between the constitutional violation and the discovery of the evidence has become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint”); United States v. Green, 111 F.3d 515, 521 (7th Cir. 1997) ("[e]vidence - may be 'sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint' if 'the causal connection between the illegal police conduct and the procurement of the evidence is “so attenuated as to dissipate the taint’ of the illegal action” ’ ”); United States v. Johnson, 626 F.2d 753, 758 (9th Cir. 1980) (stating that "majority opinion in Dunaway repeatedly emphasizes that it is the 'causal connection' that is the relevant inquiry in making the attenuation determination”).
. See, e.g., Hornsby v. State, 517 So.2d 631, 638 (Ala.Crim.App., 1987) (causal connection may become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint); State v. Tapply, 124 N.H. 318, 326, 470 A.2d 900 (N.H. 1983) ("Because of his illegal detention, any statements made by him during such period must be excluded unless the State shows that there has been a sufficient attenuation of the original taint to remove the causal connection between the illegal custody and the statements.”); State v. Barry, 86 N.J. 80, 94, 429 A.2d 581 (N.J. 1981) ("By focusing on 'the causal connection between the illegality and the confession,’ the attenuation doctrine serves to indicate when exclusion is necessary to further the purpose of deterrence."); State v. Garcia, 123 S.W.3d 335, 346 (Tenn. 2003) (addressing "whether the causal connection between an unlawful seizure and a subsequent consent has been broken, i.e. whether the primary taint of an unlawful seizure has been sufficiently attenuated”).
. 422 U.S. 590, 603-604, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). See also Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 218, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979).
. Boyle v. State, 820 S.W.2d 122, 131 (Tex.Crim.App. 1989).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- John Tuy PHAM and Chance Derrick Gonzales, Appellants, v. the STATE of Texas
- Cited By
- 97 cases
- Status
- Published