Court Opinion

ID: 9636396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:26:45.454041+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:45.048879
License: Public Domain

FRANK G. EVANS, Justice (Assigned),
dissenting.
The majority holds that the stop was justified because Trooper Williams reasonably believed that a traffic violation was in progress. I would hold that the State faded to present specific facts to justify a reasonable stop. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
In my opinion, this case is very similar to Hernandez v. State, 983 S.W.2d 867 (Tex.App.-Austin 1998, pet. refd). Hernandez involved a motion to suppress evidence gained as a result of a traffic stop. Id. at 868. The court considered whether a single instance of crossing a lane of traffic, traveling in the same direction, when the movement is not shown to be unsafe or dangerous, gave the officer a reasonable basis for suspecting that the defendant had committed a traffic offense.1 Id. Based on the language of the Transportation Code and the legislative history, the court held a traffic offense for moving out of a marked lane exists only when the conditions are unsafe. Id. at 871.
Here, the majority concludes appellant’s single drift onto the shoulder constitutes a questionable driving pattern that justifies the investigatory stop. In light of Hernandez, I disagree.
In State v. Tarvin, 972 S.W.2d 910, 912 (Tex.App.-Waeo 1998, pet. refd), the court held that a defendant’s weave into the next lane did not justify the officer’s investigative stop, where the officer did not observe any other traffic infractions. In Tarvin, an officer saw defendant’s vehicle drift to the right side of a two-lane road causing the vehicle’s tires to cross over the solid white line at the right-hand side of the road on two or three occasions. Id. at 910-11. The officer then pulled the defendant over. Id. at 911. The issue was whether the defendant crossed the white line on the outside of the road, and whether this crossing constituted weaving in violation of a traffic law. Id. at 911-12. The court distinguished plain weaving from activities that, when coupled with weaving, justify an investigative stop.2 Id. at 912. *614The court concluded that although mere weaving in one’s own lane of traffic can justify an investigatory stop when that weaving is erratic, unsafe, or tends to indicate intoxication or other criminal activity, nothing in the record indicated that the officer believed any of the above to be the case. Id.
Like the defendant in Tarvin, appellant never entered another lane of traffic or came near the oncoming traffic lane. Additionally, like in Tarvin, Trooper Williams did not see appellant commit any other traffic infractions, or see appellant’s van move in an unsafe way. Unlike Tarvin, however, appellant only drifted onto the shoulder once, whereas the defendant in Tarvin crossed the lane marker two or three times.
In conclusion, I would hold that the State did not prove, under the totality of circumstances, that Trooper Williams had a reasonable belief that appellant had violated the Transportation Code.

. The Hernandez court interpreted section 545.060 to mean that a violation occurs only when a vehicle does not stay within its lane and such movement is not safe or is not made safely. Hernandez, 983 S.W.2d at 871.

. Held v. State, 948 S.W.2d 45, 51 (Tex.App.Houston [14th Dist.] 1997, pet. refd) (weav*614ing back and forth across several lanes of traffic); Taylor v. State, 916 S.W.2d 680, 681-82 (Tex.App.-Waco, 1996 pet. ref'd) (weaving and speeding); Fox v. State, 900 S.W.2d 345, 347 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 1995, pet. dismissed) (erratic speed changes and weaving).