State v. Hardin

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellant v. SHEILA JO HARDIN

No. PD-0799-19

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas

November 2, 2022

ON STATE'S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW FROM THE THIRTEENTH COURT OF APPEALS NUECES COUNTY

Newell, J. delivered the opinion of the Court in which Hervey, Richardson, Walker, Slaughter and McClure, JJ. joined. Slaughter, J., filed a concurring opinion. Keller P.J., filed a dissenting opinion in which Yeary and Keel JJ., joined. Yeary, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which Keller, P.J., and Keel, J., joined.

Does a driver commit a traffic offense if the car's right-rear tire briefly, but safely, touches and drives over the dividing line between the center and right lane of traffic? No. Here, a police officer stopped Appellee for committing the traffic offense of "failing to maintain a single marked lane of traffic" when he observed the right rear tire of her rented U-Haul touch and drive on the striped line marking the right side of center lane. No circumstances made this movement unsafe. Appellee moved to suppress evidence obtained after that warrantless traffic stop, and the trial court granted the motion. The court of appeals affirmed. We agree.

The Traffic Stop

The facts in this case are not in dispute. Corpus Christi Police Officer David Alfaro saw a U-Haul parked at a closed Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) restaurant at around 1:19 a.m. He had previously received a "Be on the Lookout" (BOLO) regarding a U-Haul that was suspected of being involved in multiple burglaries. Consequently, he followed the U-Haul when it drove away from the parking lot.

While following it, Officer Alfaro observed the vehicle in the middle of a three-lane highway. The driver, later determined to be Appellee, had control of the vehicle at that time. The rear passenger-side tire of the truck briefly straddled the lane divider shortly after rounding a curve. The truck moved slowly back towards the opposite lane divider while remaining in its lane. Appellee did not veer or dash toward the other lane. Appellee was not driving erratically. Appellee was not speeding. When she drifted, she did not hit anything or even come close to hitting anything. Office Alfaro then pulled Appellee over.

The Motion to Suppress

Based upon evidence collected pursuant to a search of Appellee's vehicle after the traffic stop, the State charged Appellee with fraudulent possession of identifying information and forgery of a government instrument. Appellee filed a motion to suppress. Appellee argued that Officer Alfaro lacked reasonable suspicion to initiate the traffic stop and therefore any subsequent seizure of evidence without a warrant should be suppressed.

The State's sole witness at the hearing on Appellee's motion to suppress was Officer David Alfaro. Officer Alfaro testified to the facts recited above. Although he testified that he pulled her over for the alleged violation and to investigate what her U-Haul was doing at the KFC restaurant at that time of night, he only mentioned the alleged traffic violation as justification for the traffic stop in his arrest report.

At the hearing, defense counsel introduced footage from Officer Alfaro's dash camera into evidence. The video depicts Appellee's U-Haul traveling in the middle lane of a three-lane divided highway with no other vehicles on either side. While rounding a curve in the road to the right, her vehicle drifts towards the left side of her lane without touching the center lane divider on the left. After rounding the curve, and as Officer Alfaro's vehicle moves closer to Appellee's vehicle, Appellee's vehicle corrects back to the right within her lane. Then, the right rear tire of Appellee's U-Haul crosses over the center lane divider on the right for "a couple seconds" and rides on top of it for a few more. Appellee's U-Haul then returns to and remains in the center lane until Officer Alfaro activates his patrol lights, and Appellee exits the highway and pulls over.

The trial court granted the motion to suppress. It supported its order granting Appellee's motion to suppress with the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:

1.The trial court finds credible the testimony of Corpus Christi Police Officer D. Alfaro that on April 23, 2017, he observed Sheila Jo Hardin's vehicle traveling on the highway in front of him in the marked center lane of travel, and that he initiated a traffic stop for failure to maintain a single lane after he observed Hardin's tires cross over the striped lines marking the center lane without Hardin signaling a lane change, although there were no other vehicles in the vicinity at the time or any other circumstance to suggest that this movement was unsafe. The trial court further finds that a video recording of Hardin's vehicle made at the time of these observations and entered into evidence at the hearing on [the] motion to suppress supports Officer Alfaro's testimony.

2.The Court further finds there was no evidence concerning the time of alleged burglaries or the BOLO regarding the U-Haul, the source of the information that a U-Haul was involved in burglaries in the area, or the reliability of the source, and there was no description of the vehicle regarding size, license plate, etc., from which an officer could reasonably suspect Defendant's vehicle might be involved in or have evidence of criminal activity.

The trial court concluded that, based upon these facts, Officer Alfaro lacked reasonable suspicion to stop Appellee for committing a traffic offense.

The State appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in holding Officer Alfaro lacked reasonable suspicion to stop Appellee for committing a traffic offense. The only argument the State raised on appeal was that the failure to maintain a single lane is a traffic violation, regardless of whether or not it was safe to do so, and that violation provided reasonable suspicion for the traffic stop.^[1] The court of appeals rejected this argument and affirmed the trial court's order suppressing the evidence.

The State filed a petition for discretionary review. We granted review to consider whether "The Thirteenth Court of Appeals erred in concluding that the officer who stopped Hardin's vehicle lacked reasonable suspicion to stop her for failing to maintain a single lane by swerving into another lane, whether or not this movement could be done safely." We hold that the court of appeals did not err and affirm.

Standard of Review

As the court of appeals correctly noted, we review a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress under a bifurcated standard of review.^[2]We give almost total deference to a trial court's determination of historical facts and credibility when supported by the record.^[3] Likewise, we afford almost total deference to a trial court's ruling on mixed questions of law and fact, if the resolution to those questions turns on the evaluation of credibility and demeanor.^[4] When the trial court makes explicit fact findings, as the trial court did in this case, we determine whether the evidence (viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling) supports these fact findings.^[5] We review legal conclusions, such as the construction of a statute, de novo.^[6]

Reasonable Suspicion

A warrantless traffic stop is a Fourth Amendment seizure that is analogous to temporary detention; thus, it must be justified by reasonable suspicion.^[7] If an officer has a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed a traffic violation, the officer may conduct a traffic stop.^[8] Reasonable suspicion exists if the officer has specific articulable facts that, combined with rational inferences from those facts, would lead the officer to reasonably conclude the person is, has been, or soon will be engaged in criminal activity.^[9] When making a determination of reasonable suspicion, we consider the totality of the circumstances.^[10]

Here, the question of whether there was reasonable suspicion to detain Appellee is not a function of Officer Alfaro's demeanor or credibility. Instead, it turns on the application of a traffic statute to uncontested facts. To resolve the dispute in this case, we must first construe Transportation Code §545.060, "Driving on Roadway Laned for Traffic." Statutory construction is a question of law that we review de novo.^[11]

Statutory Construction

When we interpret statues, we seek to effectuate the collective intent or purpose of the legislators who enacted the legislation.^[12] In doing so, we necessarily focus our attention on the literal text of the statute in question and attempt to discern the fair, objective meaning of the text at the time of its enactment.^[13] We follow this principle because (1) the text of the statute is the law; (2) the text is the only definitive evidence of what the legislators had in mind when the statute was enacted into law; and (3) the Legislature is constitutionally entitled to expect that the Judiciary will faithfully follow the specific text that was adopted.^[14] Our duty is to try to interpret the work of our Legislature as best we can to fully effectuate the goals they set out.^[15] Legislative intent isn't the law but discerning legislative intent isn't the end goal, either.^[16]The end goal is interpreting the text of the statute.^[17]

In interpreting the text of the statute, we must presume that every word in a statute has been used for a purpose and that each word phrase, clause, and sentence should be given effect if reasonably possible.^[18] We do not focus solely upon a discrete provision; we look at other statutory provisions as well to harmonize text and avoid conflicts.^[19] "Time-honored canons of interpretation, both semantic and contextual, can aid interpretation, provided the canons...