Court Opinion

ID: 9863324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 03:24:34.972599+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:41:10.309053
License: Public Domain

TOM G. DAVIS, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in the majority’s holding that the “agreed case” analysis relied upon by the Court of Appeals is improper. I also agree to that portion of the majority opinion which holds that the State must prove that a defendant knew the person requesting information was a peace officer in order to sustain a conviction under V.T.C.A. Penal Code, Sec. 38.02.
I dissent to the majority opinion because the evidence is insufficient to show that appellants knew that the person who had stopped them and requested information was a peace officer. I cannot agree that such knowledge can be inferred from the portions of the stipulation relied on by the majority in determining sufficiency. The majority’s entire analysis of the sufficiency of the evidence on this point is as follows:
“A rational trier of fact would surely be warranted in inferring [that appellants knew the person who had stopped them was a peace officer] from the stipulation acknowledging a ‘lawful arrest’ (which is most often effected by a peace officer) and specifically referring to ‘another officer.’ ”
The lawfulness of the stop is a different element of the offense, which appellants chose not to dispute. Furthermore, the lawfulness of a stop is determined objectively, after the fact, and a concession by appellants at trial that the stop was lawful is no evidence that they knew the person stopping them was a peace officer. The lawfulness of a stop does not depend on whether the person stopped knew he was being stopped by a peace officer. The stop in the instant case was lawful because appellants were committing an offense in the officer’s presence by blocking a public street during a protest. See Art. 14.01(b), V.A.C.C.P.
The reference to “another officer” in the stipulation, when read in context, also does not supply the necessary inference. Appellants conceded at trial that the person who stopped them was “Officer Lasley” and that prior to the time one of the appellants “had been requested to give her name and address to Officer Lasley, she had given her name and address to another officer who was not the officer who arrested her.” The term “officer” used throughout the stipulation merely reflects identification after the fact, i.e., the person who stopped them is identified as “Officer Lasley” and “another officer” (a different person) had previously requested information.1 Thus it does not follow from the stipulation that “Officer Lasley” stopped appellants and that “another officer” had previously stopped one appellant, that appellants knew at the time they were stopped that the person stopping them was an officer. The stipulation merely reflects that appellants knew at trial that the person was “Officer Lasley” and identified him as such.
*533The evidence is insufficient to sustain the convictions. I dissent.
ODOM and TEAGUE, JJ., join in this opinion.

. It is interesting that appellant Mendez was willing to identify herself to "another officer” but not to "Officer Lasley." This might show that appellant did not in fact know that "Officer Lasley” was a peace officer.