Fischer v. State

In Fischer v. State, 252 S.W.3d 375 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008), the defendant sought the suppression of the recorded audio portion of the Department of Public Safety trooper's observations concerning Fischer's performance on the standardized field sobriety tests. 252 S.W.3d at 377. The issue faced by the trial court was whether the audio portion of the driving while intoxicated videotape would be subsequently admissible at trial. Id. at 377-78. The trial court ultimately denied Fischer's suppression motion. Id. at 378. On discretionary review, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the Fourteenth Court of Appeals's holding that the trial court erred because such audio recordings did not properly qualify as a "present sense impression" that should be excepted from the hearsay rule but, instead, constituted a "speaking offense report." Id. at 376, 378, 379-84 & 387. In Fischer v. State, the issue before that court was whether a law enforcement officer's factual observations of a DWI suspect, contemporaneously dictated on his patrol car videotape, are admissible as a present sense impression exception to the hearsay rule under Texas Rule of Evidence 803(1). Id. at 376. The court concluded they are not. Id. In that case, after pulling over the driver for failing to wear a seatbelt, the officer conducted a road-side investigation into a suspected DWI offense. Id. The officer made four separate trips back to his patrol car for the specific purpose of narrating what he had seen, smelled, and heard during his investigatory stop. Id. at 385. He continually referred to the driver as "the subject" during his narratives. Id. at 384-85. He offered his opinions and conclusions about what his investigation revealed and how the driver performed on the field sobriety tests. Id. at 385. The court of criminal appeals concluded "The recorded factual observations made by police officers investigating a suspected crime are not the type of 'non-reflective' street-corner statements of objective observers that the present sense impression exception is designed to allow." Id. at 383. Present sense impressions are admitted because they are non-narrative, off-hand comments made without any thought of potential litigation by a neutral and detached observer without any motive to fabricate, falsify, or exaggerate his observations. Id. The court further noted "on-the-scene observations and narrations of a police officer conducting a roadside investigation of a DWI offense are fraught with the thought of future prosecution." Id.