Opinion ID: 4503571
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reasonable Suspicion to Stop Rodriguez

Text: We first evaluate whether Vivero had reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop. The Government argues that Rodriguez was stopped for driving in the left-hand lane without passing in violation of the Texas Transportation Code. 2 Section 544.004 of the Code provides that an operator of a vehicle “shall comply with an applicable traffic-control device [i.e., traffic sign].” TEX. TRANSP. CODE S. § 544.004(a). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held that a violation of § 544.004 occurs when one drives in the left-hand lane without passing another vehicle and there exists a “‘left lane for passing only’ sign . . . present within a reasonable distance of the traffic stop.” Abney v. State, 394 S.W.3d 542, 548 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). Because “there are no specific guidelines for the spacing of the ‘left lane for passing only’ signs,” courts must determine “whether such a sign is applicable on the facts of each case.” Id. at 549–50; see also Castillo, 804 F.3d at 366 (“[W]e follow Abney . . . and conclude that a court 2 In its opposition to the motions to suppress and its briefing to this court, the Government appeared at times to argue that Rodriguez violated § 544.011 of the Texas Transportation Code. However, that provision merely requires that signs on highways directing slower traffic to travel in a lane other than the farthest left lane “must read ‘left lane for passing only.’” TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 544.011. No Texas traffic law specifically addresses driving in the left lane without passing. See United States v. Castillo, 28 F. Supp. 3d 673, 674 (S.D. Tex. 2014) (Costa, J.), aff’d, 804 F.3d 361 (5th Cir. 2015). Rather, as the Government noted elsewhere in its briefing to the district court and on appeal, the relevant provision is Section 544.004, which requires compliance with traffic signs. See TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 544.004(a). 6 Case: 18-40329 Document: 00515293390 Page: 7 Date Filed: 01/31/2020 No. 18-40329 must ‘determine, based on the statute, whether [a] sign is applicable on the facts of each case.”) (second alteration in original). Here, as in Abney, we must determine whether “the officer had reasonable suspicion that Appellant committed the traffic violation of driving in the left lane without passing when a sign (a traffic control device) prohibited such action.” Abney, 394 S.W.3d at 548. To determine whether the stop was supported by reasonable suspicion, we consider “the totality of the circumstances” giving rise to the traffic stop, including whether the sign applies to Rodriguez, whether Rodriguez had a credible alternative reason for driving in the left lane, and whether Vivero provided Rodriguez an opportunity to switch lanes before stopping her. See Castillo, 804 F.3d at 366–67; Abney, 394 S.W.3d at 548–50. We first consider whether the “left lane for passing only” sign applies to Rodriguez, i.e., whether “the facts support[] a reasonable inference that [Rodriguez] drove past the sign before being pulled over.” Abney, 394 S.W.3d at 549. In Abney, the Texas Court of Criminals Appeals held that an officer did not have reasonable suspicion to pull over Appellant where Appellant, in the officer’s opinion, may have passed a “left lane for passing only” sign located at least fifteen miles away, the officer had no idea when Appellant entered the highway, and “[t]he facts support[ed] that Appellant was driving in the left lane to make a left turn.” See 394 S.W.3d at 549-50. In Mouton v. State, a Texas appeals court concluded that there was probable cause to support a traffic stop when the officer observed Mouton driving in the left lane and followed him “for at least a mile before stopping him” three to four miles from the last left-lane-for-passing-only sign. See 101 S.W.3d at 690. In Baker v. State, the Texas appeals court upheld a traffic stop when the sign was approximately six miles from the location of the stop. See 50 S.W.3d at 145. The officer first observed Baker driving in the left-hand lane behind him and 7 Case: 18-40329 Document: 00515293390 Page: 8 Date Filed: 01/31/2020 No. 18-40329 then saw Baker pass him and continue to drive in the left lane for “a quarter to half a mile or three quarters of a mile” before stopping him. See id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Additionally, in United States v. Castillo, we determined that a traffic stop was supported by reasonable suspicion when the officer first observed Castillo driving in the left lane 5.3 miles from the closest left-lane-for-passingonly sign. 804 F.3d at 366. The officer caught up with Castillo’s vehicle approximately eight miles from the sign and followed the vehicle for an additional three miles before making the stop. See id. at 363. In concluding that the stop was valid, we observed that the officer followed Castillo for several minutes and allowed him an opportunity to switch lanes and that Castillo did not provide a “credible alternative reason for driving in the left lane.” Id. Here, Vivero testified that there was a sign at mile marker 744 instructing motorists that the left-hand lane was for passing only. Rodriguez came behind Vivero’s vehicle and followed it for two to three minutes. Vivero testified that Rodriguez eventually passed him at or around mile marker 751 or 752, and that he pulled her over near mile marker 756. However, Vivero also said he was driving below the speed limit, and the video evidence shows that just over one minute elapsed from when Rodriguez passed Vivero to when she was stopped. Although the dashcam video does not reveal the exact mile at which Rodriguez passed Vivero, if Rodriguez was stopped at mile marker 756—which the parties do not dispute—and Vivero was driving below the speed limit, then Rodriguez could not have passed Vivero around mile marker 751 or 752. Instead, she must have been closer to mile marker 755 when she passed Vivero. Thus, the distance from the left-hand for passing only sign at mile marker 744 to the point at which Vivero first saw Rodriguez driving in 8 Case: 18-40329 Document: 00515293390 Page: 9 Date Filed: 01/31/2020 No. 18-40329 the left lane was about eleven miles. 3 However, Rodriguez was driving behind Vivero for two to three minutes before she passed him, and Vivero therefore knew Rodriguez was on the highway about eight or nine miles from the “left lane for passing only” sign, increasing the likelihood that she passed it. These distances are not covered by any of the cases previously discussed—they are longer than the four- to six-mile distances deemed reasonable in Mouton, Castillo, and Baker, 4 and shorter than the fifteen-mile distance that the court in Abney held was too far to be applicable. Besides the distance from the sign, however, we must evaluate other circumstances that inform the likelihood that Rodriguez passed the sign. See Abney, 394 S.W.3d at 549, 550 (conducting a distance-specific analysis in part because the facts did not support “a reasonable inference that the defendant drove past the sign before being pulled over” and stating that how many miles the officer followed the driver and evidence concerning whether there was an entrance on the highway between the sign and location of the stop are “certainly factors to consider when evaluating the totality of the circumstances”); Castillo, 804 F.3d at 367 (considering “the typical traffic flow on Highway 59 and the likelihood that a car on that stretch of road would have been traveling a long distance rather than a short one”). Here, the court explained that the stretch of highway that Rodriguez was on was “rural” with occasional ranches and homes “along 3 The caselaw is inconsistent regarding the rubric for measuring whether a sign is applicable because it is within a “reasonable distance”: some courts have measured the distance between the sign and the traffic stop, see Mouton, 101 S.W.3d at 690; Baker, 50 S.W.3d at 145; Earvin, 2015 WL 4104701, at , while others have measured the distance between the sign and where the violation began. See 804 F.3d at 366; 394 S.W.3d at 550. We follow the approach of Abney, the most thorough Texas case to deal with this issue, and Castillo, a published opinion from this court, and measure the distance between the sign and where the officer first observed the vehicle in the left lane without passing. See Castillo, 804 F.3d at 366; Abney, 394 S.W.3d at 550. 4 We note that these cases relied on the distance between the sign and the stop, while Abney relied on the distance between the sign and when the driver moved into the left lane. 9 Case: 18-40329 Document: 00515293390 Page: 10 Date Filed: 01/31/2020 No. 18-40329 the side of the highway.” While there are turnarounds in the median, the court found that the area of the highway with southbound traffic is generally used for long-distance travel, based on the officer’s “being very familiar with this area of the highway.” The record does not indicate whether there were onramps between the sign and where Vivero first encountered Rodriguez. In Abney, the officer did not know at which point Abney entered the highway and first encountered him on the highway at least fifteen miles from the nearest “left lane for passing only” sign. Abney, 394 S.W.3d at 549. Here, Vivero encountered Rodriguez on the highway eight to nine miles from the nearest “left lane for passing only” sign, was familiar with the highway, and knew it was generally used for long-distance travel. Thus, unlike the officer in Abney, trooper Vivero could point to articulable facts supporting a reasonable belief that Rodriguez passed the located sign eight to nine miles away. See Castillo, 804 F.3d at 367; Abney, 394 S.W.3d at 549. Moreover, unlike the driver in Abney, who drove in the left lane to make a left turn, see 394 S.W.3d at 549, Rodriguez has not explained why she remained in the left lane after clearing the second patrol car on the side of the road and the “obstruction” caused by a slow-moving truck further ahead on the highway and therefore has not advanced “credible alternative reason for driving in the left lane.” Castillo, 804 F.3d at 366. Her failure to provide a reason for remaining in the left lane for the twelve to fourteen seconds after she passed the slow-moving truck further supports a finding of reasonable suspicion for the traffic stop. See Castillo, 804 F.3d at 366; cf. Jaganathan v. State, 479 S.W.3d 244, 248 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015) (rejecting the lower court’s suggestion that appellant might have thought it was unsafe to switch lanes because it was not obvious from the video that it was unsafe). At the suppression hearing, defense counsel estimated that Rodriguez traveled about one-tenth of a mile during the twelve to fourteen seconds she 10 Case: 18-40329 Document: 00515293390 Page: 11 Date Filed: 01/31/2020 No. 18-40329 was in the left lane after passing the truck and before Vivero turned on his lights to pull her over. In Castillo, the officer observed the driver in the left lane without passing “for several minutes,” while the officer in Baker observed the driver travel in the left lane “a quarter to half a mile or three quarters of a mile” before pulling him over. See 804 F.3d at 366; 50 S.W.3d at 145 (internal quotation marks omitted). Although the officers in those cases observed the drivers in the left lane without passing for greater lengths of time than here, the Government argues that an officer can develop a reasonable suspicion that an individual is driving in the left lane without passing in a brief period of time, citing in support Jaganathan, 479 S.W.3d at 247–48, and Earvin, 2015 WL 4104701 at . In Jaganathan, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the appellate court’s holding that an officer did not have reasonable suspicion to conduct a traffic stop for driving in the left-hand lane, noting that the officer had driven behind the offender in the left-hand lane for ten to twelve seconds prior to initiating the traffic stop. 479 S.W.3d at 247–48. Similarly, in Earvin, the court upheld the denial of a motion to suppress where the officer observed the defendant driving in the left-hand lane for twenty to thirty seconds. 2015 WL 4104701, at –5. Though the court did not specifically address the timing issue in either case, we find them persuasive. “[R]easonable suspicion is a low threshold, requiring” only “some minimal level of objective justification for making the stop.” Castillo, 804 F.3d at 367 (internal quotation marks omitted). A traffic stop is justified if the officer has “an objectively reasonable suspicion that . . . a traffic violation, occurred, or is about to occur, before stopping the vehicle.” Lopez-Moreno, 420 F.3d at 430 (emphasis added). The twelve to fourteen seconds that elapsed between Rodriguez’s clearance of the truck and Vivero’s acceleration to make the traffic stop provided Vivero with reasonable suspicion that a traffic violation had occurred or was about to occur and, certainly, it provided him 11 Case: 18-40329 Document: 00515293390 Page: 12 Date Filed: 01/31/2020 No. 18-40329 with more than a “mere hunch.” Id. (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27 (1968)). As the Baker court explained, “[t]he standards to apply [in enforcing the leftlane-for-passing-only provision] are explicit. If it is in the left lane, the vehicle should be in the process of passing other vehicles. If it is not passing other vehicles, the vehicle should not be in the left lane.” See 50 S.W.3d at 146. Based on the totality of the circumstances, and viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government, we conclude that trooper Vivero had reasonable suspicion to stop Rodriguez. See Castillo, 804 F.3d at 367; Cervantes, 797 F.3d at 328.