Court Opinion

ID: 9762492
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:25:28.516959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:35.032875
License: Public Domain

NYE, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The issue is whether, based upon the whole picture, Officers Lorberau and Manning, as experienced law enforcement officers, could reasonably surmise that appellant’s vehicle was engaged in criminal activity. I find no error in the trial judge’s conclusion that Lorberau and Manning had reasonable suspicion to stop appellant’s vehicle. The trial judge listened to Lorberau and Manning testify, obviously credited their testimony, and then ruled that they acted on reasonable suspicion. This Court rarely interferes in a trial judge’s findings concerning witness credibility. In any event, I find nothing to indicate that the officers’ testimony is not to be believed or that the officers manufactured the evidence which they said led them to suspect and to stop this vehicle. As I read the majority opinion, it is that the information which the officers had before them, and the reasonable inferences drawn from it, was insufficient, as a matter of law, to permit them to make this stop. Since I find the majority’s conclusion contrary to the United States Supreme Court’s declaration in United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981), I must disagree.
This case portrays both the difficulties of patrolling our highways and the skills which law enforcement officers use in enforcing our traffic laws. The evidence shows that at 12:25 or 12:30 a.m., two Department of Public Safety officers, Danny Lorberau and Kelley Manning, were traveling southbound at approximately fifty miles-per-hour on Interstate Highway 37. Appellant’s southbound vehicle approached their DPS vehicle very fast. As appellant passed their DPS vehicle, he applied the brakes so hard that the vehicle’s front end dipped down and its rear end raised up. Appellant then slowed to forty-five miles-per-hour and maintained that speed for three-quarters of a mile. At that point, Lorberau stopped appellant’s vehicle. Lorberau testified that he has “no doubt” that appellant was speeding when he passed their DPS vehicle. Lorberau testified that he also stopped appellant because appellant was driving “so slow”, and he wanted to make sure that appellant was *462not intoxicated, or that appellant’s vehicle was not stolen.
Based on his three years’ experience as a DPS patrolman, Lorberau said that appellant’s driving pattern was not similar to the way other drivers usually react when they pass a DPS vehicle from the rear. He said that in these situations, people do slow down; however, they will slow down to the actual speed limit and maintain that speed. Lorberau said that he has experience in dealing with the driving behavior which appellant exhibited. He said that “most of the time” this behavior means that the driver is either intoxicated or has been drinking.
Kelley Manning testified that he has been a DPS patrolman for four years. When asked why he and Lorberau stopped appellant’s vehicle, Manning replied that in some cases when drivers exhibit the behavior exhibited by the appellant, they are intoxicated.
The Fourth Amendment applies to seizures of the person, including brief investigatory stops of motor vehicles. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2578, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16-19, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1877-79, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity must justify an investigatory stop. Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 51, 99 S.Ct. 2637, 2640, 61 L.Ed.2d 357 (1979); Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 884, 95 S.Ct. at 2581; Terry, 392 U.S. at 16-19, 88 S.Ct. at 1877-79.
The totality of the circumstances — the whole picture — must be taken into account in determining what cause is sufficient to authorize police to stop a person. . Based upon the whole picture, the detaining officers must have a particularized and objec-five basis for suspecting that the particular person stopped is involved in criminal activity. See, e.g., Brown, 443 U.S. at 51, 99 S.Ct. at 2640; Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 884, 95 S.Ct. at 2581.
The United States Supreme Court defined this particularized and objective basis in United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981). The Court said that the notion that an assessment of the whole picture must produce a particularized suspicion contains two elements. First, the assessment must be based upon all the circumstances. The analysis proceeds with various objective observations, information from police reports (if they are available), and consideration of the modes or patterns of operation of certain kinds of lawbreakers. Second, the process just described must raise a suspicion that the particular individual being stopped is engaged in wrongdoing.1 Cortez, 449 U.S. at 418, 101 S.Ct. at 695. In all situations, the detaining officers are entitled to assess the facts in light of their law enforcement experience in detecting illegal activity. Cortez, 449 U.S. at 418, 101 S.Ct. at 695; Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 885, 95 S.Ct. at 2582; Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. at 1883.
The instant case uses all of the principles I just discussed. Specifically, it illustrates how law enforcement officers may use objective facts (which may be meaningless to the untrained eye) and combine them with deductions from these facts to form a legitimate basis for suspicion of a particular person and for action on that suspicion.
Looking at the whole picture, Lorberau and Manning had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting appellant of some type of criminal activity. Appellant’s vehicle approached theirs from the rear, exceeding the speed limit. Upon passing *463them, it braked hard and maintained a steady below the speed limit forty-five mile-per-hour pace. Lorberau knew that appellant’s driving pattern did not comport with the driving patterns of other drivers. Lorberau and Manning testified that based on their past experience as officers of the law, appellant’s behavior raised a suspicion that appellant was engaged in wrongdoing.
Our Court of Criminal Appeals has approved an investigatory stop based upon lesser facts than those present in the instant case. See Greer v. State, 544 S.W.2d 125 (Tex.Crim.App.1976). In Greer, a patrolman received a broadcast that a described Continental was “possibly D.W.I.” and had been seen going the wrong way on a one-way street. A later broadcast informed him that the vehicle had turned onto Eighth Street. The patrolman observed a large car on Eighth Street, there being no other traffic. He observed that the car met the description given and noted that the Continental was traveling from four to seven miles-per-hour. He followed the car for several blocks but did not see any traffic violations. The patrolman observed that from the information he received concerning where the car had been and from the turns the vehicle made, the driver was driving in a “kind of square.” Noting the out of county license plates and given the early morning hours, he concluded the driver could be lost and made an investigatory stop. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the stop was justified.
The limited purpose of the stop in the instant case was to determine appellant’s sobriety and whether appellant’s car was stolen. The intrusion upon appellant’s privacy associated with this stop was limited and was “reasonably related in scope to the justification for [its] initiation.” Terry, 392 U.S. at 29, 88 S.Ct. at 1884. The majority says that the stop was based upon an “inarticulate hunch” or “speculative suspicion of wrongdoing.” I would call it responsible police work.
I would affirm the trial court’s judgment.

. In Cortez, Chief Justice Burger points out that "[f]rom these data, a trained officer draws inferences and makes deductions — inferences and deductions that might well elude an untrained person.
The process does not deal with hard certainties, but with probabilities. Long before the law of probabilities was articulated as such, practical people formulated certain common sense conclusions about human behavior; jurors as factfinders are permitted to do the same — and so are law enforcement officers. Finally, the evidence thus collected must be seen and weighed not in terms of library analysis by scholars, but as understood by those versed in the field of law enforcement.” Cortez, 449 U.S. at 418, 101 S.Ct. at 695.