Sheldon Keith Crain, Appellant v. the State of Texas

Summary

The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas granted discretionary review to resolve whether an Amarillo officer's midnight spotlighting of a pedestrian, coupled with his directive to 'come over here and talk to me,' was a consensual encounter or a Fourth Amendment detention. Holding that the spotlight combined with the request-that-sounded-like-an-order was a show of authority to which the appellant yielded, the court concluded a reasonable person in the appellant's position would not have felt free to leave; because the late hour, area burglaries, and a waistband grab supplied no reasonable suspicion, the detention was unlawful and the pistol found in the ensuing pat-down was fruit of an unreasonable seizure that should have been suppressed. The court reversed the court of appeals' judgment and remanded for a harm analysis under Rule 44.2(a). Judge Cochran, joined by Judge Holcomb, concurred that the officer's words were grammatically an imperative command and that the officer's intent was irrelevant; Presiding Judge Keller, joined by Judges Keasler and Hervey, and Judge Keasler, joined by Judges Keller and Hervey, dissented, urging near-total deference to the trial court's credibility-based finding that the words were a request and would have affirmed.