Page 32 - TPA Journal January February 2022

Joe C. Tooley, Legal Digest Editor
Joe C. Tooley, Attorneys & Counselors, Rockwall, Texas
www.TooleyLaw.com 972-722-1058

TEXAS POLICE ASSOCIATION

LEGAL DIGEST

January - February 2022

AUTHOR’S NOTE: It is the goal of this submission to extract those portions of relevant appellate
opinions or the syllabus of the legal reporter which bear directly upon law enforcement methods
and provide guidance for officers on an operational level. Much of the information pertaining to
these cases is lifted verbatim from the court opinion or syllabus with independent analysis inserted
as appropriate. Due to clarity for training purposes, the distinction between quotes from the
opinions and inserted analysis is not always identified and legal citations within the opinion are
often omitted. Emphasis is placed upon reported decisions from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

REASONABLE SUSPICION – detention and (“ACCA”) enhancement, and the firearm
search. sentencing enhancement. We AFFIRM.
On May 25, 2016, an off-duty police officer
Clarence Bass was approached by police officers observed Clarence Bass standing beside the open
after a tip was received that he was illegally selling trunk of a parked vehicle in a convenience-store
CDs outside of a store in a high-crime area. After parking lot. The off-duty officer, Christopher
Bass voluntarily opened the trunk of his vehicle, Langlois, reported the activity to the police unit
police arrested Bass for unlawful labeling of CDs assigned to that high-crime area, explaining that
and searched him and his vehicle, and discovered a Bass was standing next to a vehicle and appeared to
loaded pistol, magazine, cash, drugs, and drug be selling items from the truck. Based on this tip
paraphernalia. and a prior complaint that Officer Otoneal Boudet
had received about Bass illegally selling CDs in
Because Bass had 13 prior felony convictions, he front of local businesses from his Dodge
was subsequently charged federally with being a Challenger with a red stripe, Officer Boudet was
felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 dispatched to respond to the suspicious activity in
U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) & 924(e). Following a bench the area. While driving up to the scene, Officer
trial, Bass was convicted and sentenced to 180 Boudet activated his body camera to record the
months imprisonment. Bass appeals the district interaction.
court’s denial of his motion to suppress, the
imposition of an Armed Career Criminal Act When Officer Boudet approached Bass, Bass

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