Court Opinion

ID: 9680572
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:34:15.285944+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:29.393923
License: Public Domain

WALKER, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I agree with the majority that Officer Beauchamp’s initial stop of appellant for traffic violations was justified. The question presented is whether Officer Beauchamp possessed a reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify appellant’s continued detention for the purpose of a canine sniff of the vehicle.1 I would hold that he did, and that appellant’s continued three-minute detention was not violative of the Fourth Amendment.
The law is well-settled that an officer’s investigative detention of a suspect based on reasonable, articulable facts that an offense has been or is being committed does not violate the Fourth Amendment as long as: (1) the officer’s action was justified at its inception; and (2) the officer’s action was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19-20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Davis v. State, 947 S.W.2d 240, 242 (Tex.Crim.App.1997). This second prong deals with the scope of the detention. Davis, 947 S.W.2d at 243. Under the second prong, an investigative detention must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop. Powell v. State, 5 S.W.3d 369, 376 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 1999, pet. ref'd) (citing Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1325, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983)), cert. denied, 529 U.S. 1116, 120 S.Ct. 1976, 146 L.Ed.2d 805 (2000). Once the reason for the stop has been satisfied, the stop may not be used as a fishing expedition for unrelated criminal activity. Id.
The law is equally well-settled that additional facts and information discovered by an officer during a lawful detention may form the basis for a reasonable suspicion that another offense has been or is being committed. See Razo v. State, 577 S.W.2d 709, 711 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1979); Powell, 5 S.W.3d at 378-79; Mohmed v. State, 977 S.W.2d 624, 628 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 1998, pet. ref'd). Articulable facts coming to the officer’s knowledge during the proper stop or detention may justify further investigation. Razo, 577 S.W.2d at 711; Mohmed, 977 S.W.2d at 628. An officer is not required to ignore *261evidence or information that legitimately comes to his attention during a valid investigative stop merely because such evidence or information is not related to the initial purpose of the stop. See, e.g., Razo, 577 S.W.2d at 711; Powell, 5 S.W.3d at 378-79; Mohmed, 977 S.W.2d at 628.
Here, we confront the tension between these two well-settled legal doctrines. On one hand, to comport with the Fourth Amendment, an investigative detention must be temporary, must last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop, and cannot be utilized as a “fishing expedition” concerning unrelated criminal activity. See, e.g., Terry, 392 U.S. at 19-20, 88 S.Ct. at 1878; Davis, 947 S.W.2d at 243. On the other hand, when articulable facts leading an officer to reasonably believe another offense has been or is being committed come to the officer’s knowledge during a proper stop or detention, the officer may continue the detention and investigate further. See Razo, 577 S.W.2d at 711; Powell, 5 S.W.3d at 378-79; Mohmed, 977 S.W.2d at 628.
During Officer Beauchamp’s proper detention of appellant, he discovered that appellant and his passenger were traveling in a rental car rented from the Kansas City International Airport to a Bruce Williams. Neither appellant nor his passenger were listed on the rental agreement as additional drivers authorized to drive the rental car. Officer Beauchamp observed that appellant was very nervous. Appellant and his passenger gave “completely different” stories to Officer Beau-champ concerning their trip to Dallas. Appellant said they had just dropped someone off in Dallas, while appellant’s passenger said they had driven to Dallas alone. Appellant and his passenger likewise provided Officer Beauchamp with differing information concerning when they went to Dallas and departed from Dallas.
The videotape of the stop, admitted into evidence and played for the trial court during the suppression hearing, reflects that after speaking with appellant and discovering these facts, Officer Beauchamp returned to his patrol car, called in appellant’s Missouri driver’s license, and requested back up from a nearby patrol unit. After another officer arrived, Officer Beau-champ gave appellant warning citations, returned the rental agreement to him, and asked appellant if he had anything of an illegal nature in the car. Appellant said, “No.” When Officer Beauchamp asked for permission to “take a look” inside the car, appellant refused and said that the car was not his. At this point, appellant asked if he could leave, and Officer Beauchamp said no. Officer Beauchamp then removed his narcotics detection dog from his squad car, and the dog alerted on the passenger side door of the rental car.
The entire stop, up until appellant’s arrest, took approximately twenty-two minutes. Appellant’s continued detention from when Officer Beauchamp gave appellant the warning citations until appellant’s arrest lasted approximately six minutes. Approximately three minutes elapsed between appellant’s refusal to permit a search of the rental car and the canine’s alert on the passenger door.2
At the time of appellant’s stop, Officer Beauchamp was a narcotics interdiction officer with Denton County, Texas. He had received special training in narcotics *262interdiction. The videotape of the stop and Officer Beauchamp’s testimony at the suppression hearing establish that he properly obtained additional information in the course of investigating appellant’s traffic violations. See Mohmed, 977 S.W.2d at 628 (holding that request for information concerning a driver’s license, ownership of a vehicle, insurance information, appellant’s destination, and the purpose of a trip are all proper inquiries after a traffic violation stop). This additional information caused him to have a reasonable suspicion that some additional crime had been or was being committed. Officer Beauchamp testified as follows:
[PROSECUTOR:] And at that point, why did you decide to utilize your canine?
A. Because I felt like at that time that I had developed reasonable suspicion, based on the conflicting stories, based on the driver nervousness, based on the information on the rental agreement, that there was some other crime taking place....
[PROSECUTOR:] And all the factors that you’ve listed, in your training and experience, are those common factors that you see in somebody that’s transporting illegal narcotics?
A. Yes.
Officer Beauchamp’s articulable suspicion that appellant was transporting illegal narcotics justified appellant’s continued detention for three minutes for a canine open-air search around the rental car. See Simpson v. State, 29 S.W.3d 324, 327 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2000, pet. ref'd); Martinez v. State, 29 S.W.3d 609, 612 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2000, pet. filed); Zervos v. State, 15 S.W.3d 146, 152-53 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 2000, pet. ref'd); Powell, 5 S.W.3d at 377-378; Mohmed, 977 S.W.2d at 628 (all holding that observations made and facts learned by officer during traffic stop justified continued detention).
In summary, I agree with the majority’s statement that “before issuing the [traffic citation] warnings, Officer Beau-champ needed sufficient facts to reasonably suspect appellant was hiding narcotics to permit further detention for the canine search.” But unlike the majority, I would conclude that viewing all of the evidence offered at the suppression hearing in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling Officer Beauchamp made observations and learned information during his proper traffic stop of appellant that gave rise to specific articulable facts, which, given Officer Beauchamp’s experience and personal knowledge as a narcotics interdiction officer, together with the reasonable inferences from these facts, led Officer Beauchamp to reasonably suspect appellant was transporting illegal drugs. Moreover, I believe that this suspicion reasonably warranted the three-minute time intrusion imposed on appellant while Officer Beauchamp investigated further by conducting an open-air canine search of the exterior of the rental car. Therefore, I would hold that appellant’s continued detention did not cross the sometimes fine Fourth Amendment line between law enforcement officers’ possession of articu-lable facts justifying continuation of a traffic stop detention for further investir gation and law enforcement officers’ continuation of a traffic stop detention in a “fishing expedition” effort to obtain articu-lable facts or probable cause. Compare Davis, 947 S.W.2d at 245 (recognizing that officers’ continued detention of appellant because he did not look like someone on a business trip was not based on articulable facts giving rise to reasonable suspicion of criminal activity); see also Dortch, 199 F.3d at 200-01 (holding that officers’ third pat-down search of appellant almost thir*263ty-five minutes into traffic stop violated Fourth Amendment). I would overrule appellant’s first point and affirm the trial court’s judgment.

. I also agree with the majority that our review of the suppression issue is limited to the record from the suppression hearing.

. Once the canine alerted on the rental car passenger door, probable cause existed for Officer Beauchamp to search the rental car. See United States v. Dortch, 199 F.3d 193, 197 (5th Cir.1999). Thus, the "continued detention" at issue here is the approximately three-minute span between Officer Beauchamp's delivery of the traffic citation warnings to appellant and the canine's alert on the rental car’s passenger door.