Second Court of Appeals | Case Summaries

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of March 19, 2007

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions can be accessed by clicking the cause number then clicking View HTML Version of Opinion.

Amaya v. State, No. 02-06-00108-CR (Mar. 22, 2007) (Walker, J., joined by Holman and McCoy, JJ.).: Held: Because section 724.011 of the transportation code provides that a person arrested for suspected DWI is deemed to have consented to providing breath or blood specimens, the defendant bears the initial burden at a suppression hearing to prove that evidence exists that rebuts the statutory presumption that he voluntarily consented to providing the breath or blood specimens. Although Appellant argued that his consent was not voluntary because the statutory warnings were not read to him in Spanish, the trial court made a finding of fact that the evidence did not establish one way or the other whether Appellant could or could not read the written warnings that were given to him in Spanish. Therefore, Appellant did not satisfy his burden of rebutting the statutory presumption under section 724.011.
In re Spiritas Ranch Enters., L.L.P., No. 02-06-00463-CV (Mar. 22, 2007) (op. on reh'g) (Livingston, J., joined by Dauphinot and Holman, JJ.).: Held: The trial court abused its discretion by failing to grant a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Town of Little Elm from annexing the property of Spiritas Ranch Enterprises under section 43.052(h)(1) of the local government code until an evidentiary hearing could be held on Spiritas's request for temporary injunctive relief asking that the Town be restrained from annexation pending arbitration under section 43.052(i) of the local government code, which provides a property owner with a pre-annexation arbitration right. If the Town were allowed to annex Spiritas's property while arbitration under section 43.052(i) was pending, the Town could effectively cut off Spiritas's right to such pre-annexation arbitration; a post-annexation arbitration would be moot because the statute does not provide for disannexation if the arbitrator were to rule against the Town and, thus, the arbitration would be meaningless. Because the grant or denial of a TRO is not appealable, Spiritas does not have an adequate remedy by appeal and, thus, mandamus relief was conditionally granted.