Full Opinion

Court of Appeals Tenth Appellate District of Texas 10-25-00396-CR Bradley Hunter Golden, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee On appeal from the 19th District Court of McLennan County, Texas Judge Thomas C. West, presiding Trial Court Cause No. 2024-683-C1 JUSTICE HARRIS delivered the opinion of the Court. MEMORANDUM OPINION Bradley Hunter Golden pled guilty to two counts of possession of a controlled substance—one for methamphetamine, and the other for psilocin— after the trial court denied his motion to suppress the introduction of the substances into evidence. The trial court sentenced Golden to 25 years in prison for each count. We affirm the trial court’s judgments. BACKGROUND With a felony arrest warrant for burglary of a motor vehicle with two prior convictions in hand, officers from the Waco Police Department arrived at Golden’s residence. Golden lived with his mother, to whom he paid rent. When officers arrived, Golden’s mother was in the front yard, and the officers asked her if Golden was home. She said yes. The officers then opened the front door and called for Golden to come outside. He eventually did, and the officers took Golden into custody and performed a protective sweep of the residence. A brown Carhartt jacket like one which was known to have been worn by the perpetrator of several recent automobile burglaries was seen in Golden’s room during the sweep. After conducting the sweep, a detective at the scene asked Golden’s mother if the officers could search the property. She signed a written consent form that allowed the officers to search everything on the premises except Golden’s bedroom. 1 Upon receiving consent, the officers began searching the premises, including an outbuilding located behind Golden’s bedroom. The officers discovered recently stolen computers and other equipment in the outbuilding. The detective then prepared a search warrant and affidavit to allow the officers to search the entire property. Included as part of the probable cause affidavit was the observation of the Carhartt jacket during the protective sweep. The trial court signed the search warrant, and soon thereafter, officers 1 Golden did not give the officers consent to search his bedroom. Golden v. State Page 2 began searching Golden’s bedroom in which they found drugs and firearms. Golden moved to suppress the drugs—methamphetamine and psilocin— found in his bedroom. The trial court denied Golden’s motion but did not issue any findings of fact or conclusions of law. MOTION TO SUPPRESS In his sole issue on appeal, Golden contends the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion to suppress the evidence of the drugs found in his bedroom. We review a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress for an abuse of discretion under a bifurcated standard of review. State v. Torres, 666 S.W.3d 735, 740 (Tex. Crim. App. 2023). While we afford almost total deference to the trial court's determination of historical facts and the trial court's rulings on mixed questions of law and fact, especially when those determinations are based on an assessment of credibility and demeanor, we review pure questions of law as well as mixed questions of law and fact that do not turn on an assessment of credibility and demeanor de novo. Id. at 740-741. When a trial court denies a motion to suppress and does not enter findings of fact, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the ruling and assume the trial court made implicit findings of fact that support its ruling as long as those findings are supported by the record. Wexler v. State, 625 Golden v. State Page 3 S.W.3d 162, 167 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021); Herrera v. State, 241 S.W.3d 520, 527 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). The party that prevailed in the trial court is afforded the strongest legitimate view of the evidence and all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from that evidence. Wexler, 625 S.W.3d at 167; State v. Garcia- Cantu, 253 S.W.3d 236, 241 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008). Protective Sweep Golden contends the protective sweep of the residence after his arrest was improper because it was not based on specific, articulable facts, not within the appropriate scope, and overly long in duration. Further, Golden asserts that the Waco Police Department’s policy for blanket-wide protective sweeps violates the objective, case-by-case test required by law. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by government officials. U.S. CONST. amend. IV. A warrantless search is per se unreasonable unless it falls within one of the “specifically defined and well-established” exceptions to the warrant requirement. McGee v. State, 105 S.W.3d 609, 615 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003). One of those exceptions is a “protective sweep” of the premises. See Reasor v. State, 12 S.W.3d 813, 816 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000). A “protective sweep” is a “quick and limited search of premises, incident to an arrest and conducted to protect the safety of police officers or others.” Golden v. State Page 4 Reasor, 12 S.W.3d at 815 (quoting Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 328, 108 L. Ed. 2d 276, 110 S. Ct. 1093 (1990)); Davis v. State, 74 S.W.3d 90, 96 (Tex. App.—Waco 2002, no pet.). An officer may sweep a residence only if he possesses an “objectively reasonable belief, based on specific and articulable facts, that a person in that area poses a danger to that police officer or to other people in the area.” Reasor, 12 S.W.3d at 817 (emphasis added). Further, a protective sweep must not be a “full search of the premises.” Buie, 494 U.S. at 335. It may only extend to a “cursory inspection of those spaces where a person may be found” and only last long enough to “dispel the reasonable suspicion of danger.” Id. at 335; Reasor, 12 S.W.3d at 816. Officers may not conduct a protective sweep as a matter of right. State v. Watson, 630 S.W.3d 451, 457 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2021, no pet.); Cooksey v. State, 350 S.W.3d 177, 187 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2011, no pet.) (protective sweep not automatically proper as police policy). It is permitted only when “justified by a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the house is harboring a person posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.” Watson, 630 S.W.3d at 457 (quoting Buie, 494 U.S. at 336 and Reasor, 12 S.W.3d at 816). During the hearing on the motion to suppress, the detective stated that they conducted a protective sweep “just usually—just for our safety. We don’t want to be talking in the front yard with our back turned to the house and Golden v. State Page 5 there be somebody there.” His only other reason for conducting the sweep in this case was that Golden “mentioned to one of the other detectives that— regarding the stolen vehicle, that he was—there was somebody with him in the stolen vehicle or that the other person was driving or something, so….” Although the detective agreed with the State that someone could have been hiding under the bed with a gun, he offered no specific or articulable facts that a person was in the residence and posed a danger to himself or others in the area. At the end of the hearing, the detective also agreed with the trial court that it is department policy to conduct a protective sweep. This testimony is not sufficient to support an implied finding of a protective sweep. Accordingly, even when viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, because the detective could not express an “objectively reasonable belief, based on specific and articulable facts, that a person in that area pose[d] a danger to that police officer or to other people in the area[,]” the protective sweep constituted an unreasonable search. Our review, however, does not end here. We now turn to consider whether the trial court properly denied the motion to suppress pursuant to the search warrant issued after the unreasonable sweep of Golden’s home and room. Golden v. State Page 6 Correct Under Any Theory Applicable To The Case As an appellate court, we should uphold the trial court's denial of a motion to suppress so long as its ruling is correct on any legal theory applicable to the case. McClintock v. State, 541 S.W.3d 63, 74 n. 20 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017). The State generally contends that regardless of whether the protective sweep in this case was unreasonable, the trial court correctly denied Golden’s motion to suppress the evidence seized because the warrant was based upon observations made during the consented-to search of the residence and outbuildings. 2 But the affidavit in support of the search warrant contained a statement about the Carhartt jacket observed during the unreasonable sweep. Nevertheless, when a search warrant is issued on the basis of an affidavit containing unlawfully–obtained information, the evidence seized under the warrant is admissible only if the warrant clearly could have been issued on the basis of untainted information in the affidavit. Brackens v. State, 312 S.W.3d 831, 838 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2009, pet. ref'd) (citing Pitonyak v. State, 253 S.W.3d 834, 848 (Tex. App.—Austin 2008, pet. ref'd)); Hooper v. State, Nos. 10-16-00388-CR, 10-16-00389-CR, 10-16-00390-CR, 10-16-00391- CR, 10-16-00392-CR, 2018 Tex. App. LEXIS 1268, at *5-6 (Tex. App.—Waco Feb. 14, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op. not designated for publication). See also 2 Golden did not challenge in his motion to suppress or at the hearing, and does not on appeal, whether his mother’s written consent to search was voluntary; thus, we need not discuss it. Golden v. State Page 7 Davila v. State, 441 S.W.3d 751, 761 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2014, pet. ref’d) (“tainted” information will not invalidate otherwise valid warrant). If the tainted information was clearly unnecessary to establish probable cause for the search warrant, then the defendant could not have been harmed by the inclusion of the tainted information in the affidavit. Brackens v. State, 312 S.W.3d at 838. When reviewing whether an affidavit for a warrant provided a basis for finding probable cause, we do not consider each fact in isolation; rather, we consider the totality of the circumstances. Davila, 441 S.W.3d at 761. Here, the probable cause affidavit contained one sentence regarding the protective sweep: “While conducting a sweep of the residence, Detectives observed a brown Carhartt jacket in the room occupied by Bradley Golden.” Without that information, the affidavit also reflected that during the consented-to search of the outbuildings and sheds, the officers located two laptops known to be recently stolen from a vehicle which had also been reported stolen. Golden was a suspect in that vehicle theft. A black drawstring backpack containing burglary tools was also located, which matched video surveillance images of a black drawstring backpack worn by a male during the commission of several other offenses. Thus, based on a totality of the circumstances, this information would have been sufficient, without the Golden v. State Page 8 information about the Carhartt jacket, to obtain the search warrant of the residence and Golden’s room for property stolen and clothing worn during the other offenses. Accordingly, for this reason, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Golden’s motion to suppress, and Golden’s sole issue is overruled. CONCLUSION Having overruled Golden’s only issue on appeal, we affirm the trial court’s judgments. LEE HARRIS Justice OPINION DELIVERED and FILED: September 24, 2026 Before Chief Justice Johnson, Justice Smith, and Justice Harris Affirmed Do Not Publish CRPM Golden v. State Page 9