Court Opinion

ID: 9667040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:33:23.125348+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:34.309980
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING.
MORRISON, Judge.
The appellant presents a forceful argument on rehearing in which he contends that the arrest was not shown to have been a legal one because the evidence fails to disclose that the city of Houston had authorized the erection of the traffic control device in question.
We have concluded that when the legislature enacted Article 6701(d), R. C. S., which is the “Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on Highways,” the power to arrest without a warrant conferred on peace officers by Article 212, C. C. P., was expanded by Section 153 of Article 6701(d), R. C. S., so as to authorize an arrest without a warrant when a violation of any provision of such Article 6701(d), R. C. S., is committed in the presence of a peace officer. We hold, further, that the presence of a traffic-control device upon any highway may be relied upon by an officer making the arrest for failure to heed it unless he knows at the time that it was not placed there by constituted authority. Judge Hutcheson, in United States v. Rembert, 284 F. 996, ably expressed the Federal rule when he said:“.... it is not essential that, in making an arrest without a warrant, the officer must absolutely know that an offense is being committed; he must believe it is being committed, and must believe upon the evidence of his own senses in the case of a misdemeanor, and in the case of a felony upon credible evidence of other persons.” However, a prosecution for failure to heed a traffic-control device must have as an integral element thereof proof that the traffic control device was legally there. An officer may in certain cases make a legal arrest on probable cause, yet the arrested party cannot be convicted on probable cause alone.
This conclusion is sustained by what we said in Cox v. State, 154 Tex. Cr. R. 404, 227 S. W. (2d) 556, where we were dealing with the substantive crime growing out of a violation of the Code rather than the legality of an arrest by an officer who saw such violation occur.
Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.