Madas, Nitin Kumar

On a sunny day in downtown Corsicana, officers observed Madas briefly enter the parked vehicle of a suspected drug dealer and then leave on foot.  The officers followed him in their unmarked vehicle and initiated a stop for walking on the wrong side of the road.  One officer exited, explained the situation, directed Madas to the center of the vehicle’s hood, and frisked him for weapons.  That officer then asked for consent to search Madas’s pockets.  Madas consented.  It was the second officer, who was still exiting the vehicle as consent was given, who found a small bag of methamphetamine in Madas’s watch pocket.  Madas was charged with possession, lost his suppression motion, pleaded guilty, and appealed.

The court of appeals reversed.  It said, among other things, that Madas was asked for consent with two investigating officers with “weapons on display on the front of their police vests” within arm’s reach, who prevented him from turning around before he was asked for consent.  It held that “Carmouche [v. State, 10 S.W.3d 323 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000),] is directly on point and is precedent we are obligated to follow.”  Justice Bridges dissented.

The State argues that the facts of the case, captured on two body-cams and a dash-cam, are not as the court of appeals describes them.  The second officer was not fully out of the vehicle when consent was given.  The orange “weapons on display” appear to be non-lethal, as firearms are plainly visible on their hips.  And Madas and the first officer both turn their faces toward each other’s when consent is requested.  As a result of these and other facts, this case is nothing like Carmouche, in which the Court of Criminal Appeals put quotation marks around “request” and “ask” because, in context, those officers were not seeking consent.  In that case, “[o]n the side of a darkened highway, [Carmouche] was closely surrounded by four police officers who had him backed up against the hood of his car[,]” ordered to turn around and place his hands on the car, and asked for consent “as [the officer] [wa]s reaching for the crotch of [Carmouche]’s pants.”  Id. at 332 (emphasis in original).  That is a far cry from what happened here.  And many of the other facts deemed significant—like the presence of weapons, the fact that Madas was outnumbered, and the quick transition from frisk to request for further search—are too commonplace to upset a clear grant of consent.