Page 28 - TPA Journal July-August 2025

to agreement as to the intersection between subsections interpreting it.”
(a)(1) and (a)(2) of 545.060(a). Therefore, any enforce-
ment of § 545.060(a) before Hardin, judged under rea- We therefore reverse the court of appeals’ decision
sonable suspicion or probable cause standards, was and affirm the trial court’s judgment.
objectively reasonable.
Second, we do not find Officer Todd’s responses to Daniel v. State, Tex Court of Crim. Appeals,
counsel’s questions as to the interpretation of the law no.PD-0037-22, Feb. 14, 2024.
in his jurisdiction compelling. It is unclear from this
exchange if the officer was answering counsel’s ques-
tions regarding his understanding of the relevant law as FORCE Immunity, suicidal suspect
of the date of the offense or after the offense. If any-
thing, this exchange further serves to highlight the pre- Upset that he saw Facebook messages between his
Hardin confusion surrounding the intersections wife and her ex-husband, Steve Winder became
between subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) of 545.060(a) suicidal. Later that night, his wife Latrisha (who
among police officers, lawyers, and judges. was out of state for National Guard training)
Nevertheless, Officer Todd’s subjective belief regard- called her mother and told her that Steve had sent
ing whether 545.060(a) created two offenses or one her pictures in which he was holding a gun to his
offense is irrelevant to our analysis. What matters to head.
our analysis is whether it was objectively reasonable Latrisha called the Young County Sheriff’s depart-
for an officer in the Third Court of Appeals’ jurisdic- ment for a welfare check. Deputy Joshua Gallardo
tion to think that Appellant’s failure to maintain a sin- arrived and, after hearing Steve shout from within,
gle lane of traffic was a violation of Texas law. Which opened the front door. Steve’s mother-in-law indi-
brings us to Appellant’s third concern: that the applica- cated he was armed and walking to the nearby
tion of the mistake of law doctrine in this case invites bedroom door. Deputy Gallardo yelled at Steve to
a law enforcement officer to “forum shop” for inter- put the gun down before fatally shooting him.
pretations of law more favorable to his brand of polic- Appellants sued for (1) warrantless entry, (2)
ing. We disagree. This argument wrongly presupposes excessive force, (3) supervisory liability, (4)
that an officer has a choice in which appellate court his Monell liability, and (5) ADA violations. The
case will be assigned. The Texas Legislature has divid- District Court dismissed the case at the 12(b)(6)
ed the State into fourteen appellate court districts with stage. It did so correctly.
criminal jurisdiction, composed by county. In general,
a case is appealed from the county of conviction to the Steve was enjoying an afternoon of swimming and
court of appeals district that has jurisdiction over that drinks with family and friends when he acciden-
specific county. An arresting officer has no ability to tally got in his pool with his cell phone. So he
“shop” for a favorable intermediate court. went inside his house and charged his wife
Latrisha’s old cell phone. She was in Fort Lee,
In April of 2017, there was no controlling inter- Virginia training for the National Guard at the
pretation of Section 545.060(a) from the Court of time. On her phone, he found private Facebook
Criminal Appeals and the intermediate courts messages between Latrisha and her exhusband.
were split. A controlling interpretation did not Latrisha’s ex-husband wanted to get back togeth-
arrive until the opinion in Hardin issued on er, but she declined.
November 2, 2022. Therefore, the officer’s mis- Presumably upset, Steve walked next door to
taken interpretation of Section 545.060(a) was show the messages to his mother-in-law, Lou
“entirely reasonable in view of the nuanced statu- Anne Phillips, around 4:00 p.m. Lou Anne sympa-
tory language and the conflicting caselaw from thized with Steve, agreeing that Latrisha should
this Court and the intermediate courts of appeals have told him about the messages while empha-

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