Page 26 - TPA Journal March April 2025

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

TEXAS POLICE ASSOCIATION

LEGAL DIGEST

March - April 2025

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.

SEARCH & SEIZURE exigent circumstances, back door. The men forced Appellant and his
cell phone coworkers into the freezer while they took the
money from the cash registers. After taking the
For exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless money, the men fled, and the manager triggered
seizure of personal property, such as a cell phone, the security alarm. Officers with the Stafford
the record must show that law enforcement offi- Police Department responded to the restaurant and
cers reasonably believed that evidence would be began investigating the robbery that night.
imminently destroyed if they waited to obtain a After responding to the restaurant, officers inter-
warrant to seize the property. Affirmative conduct viewed the employees that were present during the
by the suspect is not required, but it is one cir- robbery. Through those interviews, officers
cumstance in the totality-of-the-circumstances test learned that the robbers had entered through the
that may show that the potential destruction of back door, which Appellant had left unsecured
evidence was imminent. However, the absence of when he took the trash out that night. Appellant
such affirmative conduct does not foreclose an cooperated with the investigation and told officers
exigent-circumstances determination. We agree that he was asked to take the trash out by the man-
with the State that the court of appeals erred to ager, Tammi Ball. When officers spoke to Ball,
hold that it did. We reverse the court of appeals however, she told them that Appellant had offered
and remand for a proper exigent-circumstances to take the trash out, which she found to be suspi-
analysis. cious because, according to her, Appellant usually
Appellant worked at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in avoided work. Ball also said that Appellant took
Stafford, Texas. Shortly after the restaurant closed the trash out through the restaurant’s back door,
for the night on December 10, 2015, two armed which was against the restaurant’s policy.
men entered the restaurant through an unsecured The next morning, the Stafford Police Department

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