Eduardo Valtierra & Heriberto Valtierra, Appellants v. the State of Texas

Summary

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that, viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling, the record supported implied—if not explicit—consent for Officer Moneada to walk approximately twenty feet down the open hallway to knock on the bathroom door where a suspected runaway was said to be showering, because the scope of Heriberto Valtierra's consent to enter and look for Erica reasonably extended to the areas where she would be found. Applying the objective-reasonableness standard for measuring the scope of consent, the court concluded the officer's actions were within the original consent to enter and investigate Erica's whereabouts. The court further held that the court of appeals misapplied the bifurcated Guzman standard of review by withholding deference where the body-microphone recording was merely inaudible rather than contradictory of the officer's testimony. The judgments of the court of appeals were reversed and the causes remanded, with the validity of the protective sweep left for further proceedings.