## Facts

- A Texas state trooper stopped Sara Katherine Clay for speeding and developed probable cause to suspect driving while intoxicated.
- Clay was arrested and refused to provide a breath specimen.
- The trooper prepared a written search-warrant affidavit to obtain a blood sample.
- The trooper called a county-court-at-law judge; the trooper and judge recognized each other’s voices, and the trooper swore to and signed the affidavit during the call.
- The trooper did not sign the affidavit in the judge’s physical presence, and the judge did not physically witness the signature.
- The trooper faxed the signed affidavit to the judge; the judge signed the jurat and the search warrant and faxed the warrant back.
- A blood draw was conducted under the warrant, and the blood-test evidence supported a misdemeanor DWI charge.

## Issues

1. Whether Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 18.01 requires a search-warrant affidavit to be sworn in the magistrate’s physical presence.
2. Whether an oath administered by telephone for a written affidavit, followed by fax transmission for the magistrate’s review and jurat, satisfies article 18.01.

## Decision

- The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the court of appeals and the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress.
- The court held that article 18.01 does not impose a physical-presence requirement for the affiant to swear to a warrant affidavit.
- Under the stipulated procedure—voice recognition, telephonic administration of the oath, and prompt faxing of the signed affidavit for the magistrate’s jurat—the affidavit was properly sworn and the warrant was valid.
- A dissent would have required explicit legislative authorization for telephonic swearing procedures.

## Legal Principles

- Courts construe the warrant statute according to its text and do not add requirements that the Legislature did not express.
- The phrase “sworn” or “sworn before” in article 18.01 does not, by itself, require face-to-face administration of the oath.
- A telephonic oath can satisfy article 18.01 when the magistrate can verify the affiant’s identity and administer the oath, and the written affidavit is memorialized and presented to the magistrate for the jurat and warrant issuance.
- The decision addresses telephonic swearing to a written affidavit and does not generally create a separate, statutorily new regime of wholly telephonic warrant applications.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a DWI blood-draw warrant where the officer swore to a written affidavit by telephone and then faxed the signed affidavit to the magistrate for the jurat and warrant, holding that article 18.01 does not require the oath to be administered in the magistrate’s physical presence.


Clay v. State, 391 S.W.3d 94 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013)