Court Opinion

ID: 9620858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:48:52.159303+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:35.387692
License: Public Domain

WOMACK, J.,
dissenting, in which KELLER, P.J., and KEASLER, J., joined.
As the Court’s opinion points out, ante at 590-91, the Court of Appeals’ opinion fell into the ditch by attributing more importance to the issue of the officers’ delay in stopping the appellant than the record will bear. I fear that this Court’s opinion may be running into the ditch on the other side of the road.
As the Court’s opinion says, ante at 590, we should “give almost total deference to a trial court’s express or implied determination of historical facts and review de novo the trial court’s application of the law ... to those facts.”
I agree with the Court’s statement, ante at 591: “The trial judge made it clear that he believed the turns made by appellee were lawful, so no traffic violation was committed and the stop was not valid.” That belief was expressly stated at the beginning of the trial court’s Finding of Fact and Conclusion of Law Number 7, ante at 589: “The right hand turn and the left hand turn were lawful turns .... ”
The problem, with which this Court’s opinion does not deal, is that we cannot tell whether the trial judge’s belief was a finding of fact, to which we owe almost total *592deference, or a conclusion of law, to which we owe none.
If Number 7 was a finding of fact that the turns were legal because the appellee did signal his intention to turn each time, we are bound to accept that finding. But is it not remarkable that the word “signal” appears nowhere in the findings of fact and conclusions of law?
Is the Court overlooking the significance of the rest of the words in Number 7? “The right hand turn and the left hand turn were lawful turns from designated turn lanes that allowed those lanes to be used for turn only.” Do those words not suggest that the trial court concluded, as a matter of law, that a driver may turn from a dedicated turn lane without signaling? Such a conclusion would, be reviewed de novo.
Are not the trial court’s oral statements more consistent with a conclusion of law than a finding that the officers were lying about the absence of turn signals? The judge said (see ante at 590-91):
Even though they may be testifying they stopped him for a traffic offense, the court’s not bound by that. I don’t care what they say they stopped him for. If I find there was an legal [illegal?] basis for it, I think that’s what I have to make my ruling on. It seems to me that the traffic stop, if the facts you recite are correct and he made two turns from dedicated turn lanes on the light, I would not think there was any valid traffic stop.
I have inserted the word “illegal” in the third sentence because it seems more likely to be what the judge said, in light of the fourth sentence. And the fourth sentence is consistent with a conclusion of law about the requirement to signal from a dedicated turn lane, and inconsistent with a finding of fact that the appellant did signal.
The case well could turn on a conclusion of law, not a finding of fact. The question could be resolved easily by a remand to the trial court.
I respectfully dissent.

ORDER

PER CURIAM.
The State Prosecuting Attorney has filed a motion for rehearing and urges this Court to reconsider its decision on original submission. The State Prosecuting Attorney’s original petition for discretionary review raised one ground: “In order to render lawful a motor vehicle stop for a traffic offense, must the stop be effected within a reasonable time and a reasonable distance after the alleged violation.” The short answer to that issue, as set out in the original opinion, was yes.
The State Prosecuting Attorney now complains that the analysis in the original opinion was improper and that the opinion did not address the decision and reasoning of the court of appeals. We note that the court of appeals included in its opinion an alternative holding: “There were no witnesses to give formal testimony in this case, but it is clear counsel for both sides agreed on the facts involved, the sequence of events, and the reasons for the actions taken by the arresting officers. It was within the discretion of the trial court to determine whether to believe the officers’ allegations. See Meek v. State, 790 S.W.2d 618, 620 (Tex.Crim.App.1990). A reasonable review of the record supports the court’s decision in this, as well as in its determination that too much time and space elapsed before the stop. We find the record can reasonably be viewed as supporting the trial court’s conclusion, when viewed in the light most favorable to that conclusion.” Dixon v. State, 151 *593S.W.3d 271, 275 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 2004).
The State Prosecuting Attorney did not seek review of that alternative ruling. When a court of appeals issues alternative rulings on the same issue, its decision will be affirmed if fewer than all alternative rulings are appealed. Sims v. State, 792 S.W.2d 81, 82 (Tex.Crim.App.1990)(im-providently granted; appellant did not challenge the court of appeals’s alternative holding.) See also, 43A George E. Dix & Robert O. Dawson, Texas Peactice: Criminal PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE § 44.30 (2d ed.2001)(unless all alternative grounds are challenged, a ruling from the Court of Criminal Appeals does not affect the outcome and is therefore advisory.) The State Prosecuting Attorney’s motion for rehearing is denied.
WOMACK, J., concurs.
KELLER, P.J., dissents.