Court Opinion

ID: 9640876
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:17:28.825651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:08.809001
License: Public Domain

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting.
This case raises three significant issues, one of which the majority addresses, albeit only in a footnote, and two of which the majority fails to address:
1. Is this court correct to create a double standard for reviewing rulings on motions to suppress, depending on whether the trial court rules for or against the State?
2. Alternatively, if we reach the merits of the suppression issue, what weight do we give the trial court’s implicit findings of fact when they are supported by a witness’s testimony but contradicted by a videotape of those events?
*1003. Further, when a law enforcement officer testifies that his reasonable suspicion to detain the defendant was established by a combination of three events, and the videotape shows that one or more of those events did not occur, has the State proved reasonable suspicion to justify the warrantless detention?
Because the majority establishes a double standard for reviewing rulings on motions to suppress, and, alternatively, in reaching the merits of the suppression issue does not address the last two questions posed above, I respectfully dissent.
I. Oral Ruling on Motion to Suppress
The trial court orally denied Appellant’s motions to suppress but did not enter a written order. In his first point, Appellant argues that the trial court erred by denying his motions to suppress. This court has held that there is no appealable ruling on a motion to suppress unless the trial judge enters a written order.1 As noted in Cox, “[W]e notified the State of our concern that we lacked jurisdiction over the appeal because there is no appealable written order.”2 We concluded in the opinion that we indeed lacked jurisdiction based on the absence of a written order.3
Following the Rosenbaum court,4 we interpreted “entered by the court” to mean the signing of a written order.5 We recognized that Rosenbaum dealt with former appellate rule 41(b)(1), which required an appealable order signed by the trial court, and which has been superseded by appellate rule 26.2(b), which does not.6 And we did not address the fact that although article 44.01(d) of the code of criminal procedure and appellate rule 26.2(b) speak of a sentence to be appealed,7 the appellate timetable runs not from the signing of the written judgment and sentence but from the pronouncement of sentence in open court.8
By holding in Cox that the trial court does not enter an order granting a motion to suppress until formally signing a written order, even though the ruling and findings of fact and conclusions of law have been pronounced on the record in open court, we allowed the State more than six extra months to perfect its appeal. Yet, in the case now before this court, the majority holds that the trial court enters an order denying a motion to suppress when the trial court pronounces its ruling orally.9 The majority states that the appeal lies because after a trial is concluded, the appellant is appealing from “a final judgment of conviction.”10 But the majority confuses the criminal rules of procedure with the civil rules of procedure. While the appellate timetable in a civil case runs from the signing of the judgment, the appellate timetable in a criminal case begins to run when the sentence is pronounced *101orally in open court.11 The judgment may be signed days or even weeks later in a criminal case and has no effect on the appellate timetable.
To remain consistent with the rule of Cox, we should hold that because there is no written order denying Appellant’s motions to suppress, there is nothing to appeal from the suppression ruling, and we should dismiss the issue.12 The majority, however, holds that when a defendant appeals from a ruling on the motion to suppress, no written order is necessary.
II. The Officer’s Testimony vs. The Exhibits
Further, in reaching the merits of the suppression issue, the majority does not address the significance of the conflicts between the officer’s testimony and the objective evidence. In the trial court, Tar-rant County Sheriffs Deputy Howard Johnson testified that while on patrol around 1:30 a.m. on September 1, 2004, he observed a green Lincoln driving eastbound on FM 1187. Appellant was the driver of the vehicle. Johnson testified that he saw the vehicle fail to maintain a single lane; specifically, he said that he saw about a fourth to half of the vehicle cross over the yellow center lane divider and into the westbound lane. Although he later turned on his video camera, he did not record the driving he described at this point.
Johnson testified that he then began to follow the vehicle. He said he saw the car drive over the center line at least once more and that he noticed the vehicle weaving “rythmatically” within the traffic lane. At some point while following the vehicle, Johnson turned on his in-car camera. He denied that Appellant was speeding and testified that he would have stopped Appellant had Appellant been speeding. Johnson did testify, however, that Appellant “fail[ed] to maintain a single lane several additional times.”
The pertinent portion of the transportation code provides, “An operator on a roadway of sufficient width shall drive on the right half of the roadway....”13 The videotape, still photographs, and testimony reveal that the roadway in the stretch in question is a narrow, winding road with no shoulder and with concrete barriers and barrels along the far edge of the roadway. A sign warns of the narrow road, and Johnson admitted that it could be safer to “get a little bit further away from a no-shoulder if there’s no other traffic coming.” As the majority concedes, Johnson himself was unable to confine his vehicle to the right-hand lane, although he testified that there was “adequate room on the roadway.” Appellant testified at the suppression hearing that he never crossed the center line.
Johnson testified that he stopped Appellant’s vehicle because of two instances of driving over the center line and “rhyth-matic weaving” that, to him, was indicative of intoxication. The videotape does not support the officer’s description of Appellant’s driving. Indeed, Appellant’s driving reveals no evidence of impairment and nothing that would provide reasonable suspicion of impairment that would justify a detention.
The majority substitutes its determination of reasonable suspicion for Johnson’s, although the majority relies on his testimony that he saw Appellant’s vehicle cross the center line. Johnson testified that he *102stopped Appellant because he had reasonable suspicion that Appellant was intoxicated and constituted a danger to himself, based on seeing him cross the center line twice and weave within his lane. The majority disagrees and says that Johnson stopped Appellant because he had reasonable suspicion that Appellant had violated section 545.051.
Although the standard for determining reasonable suspicion is an objective one, in that there need only be an objective basis for the stop, and the subjective intent of the officer conducting the stop is irrelevant,14 when the officer states objective bases for the stop that are disproved by the physical evidence, here, the videotape, how much deference do we give the trial court’s implicit findings of fact? When the still photograph of the roadway shows a lane so narrow that the vehicle depicted is riding the center stripe, how much deference do we give the trial court’s implicit finding based on Johnson’s testimony that the lane was not especially narrow? Again, it is a violation of section 545.051 to cross the center stripe only when the roadway is “of sufficient width.”15 The majority does not discuss these important questions.
Johnson testified that reasonable suspicion to detain Appellant was provided by l he combination of Appellant’s crossing the center line twice, once on videotape and once unrecorded, and weaving “rhythmati-eally” within his lane. The videotape disproves Johnson’s testimony. How much weight do we give the trial court’s implicit finding that Johnson made these observations when the videotape contradicts his testimony? The majority does not discuss this important issue.
III. Conclusion
Because the majority establishes a double standard for rulings on motions to suppress, and, alternatively, does not address the deference we should afford a trial court’s implicit findings when objective, physical evidence conflicts with an officer’s testimony on which the findings are based, I respectfully dissent.

. State v. Cox, 235 S.W.3d 283, 283, 285 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 2007, no pet.) (en banc).

. Id. at 284.

. Id. at 285.

. State v. Rosenbaum, 818 S.W.2d 398 (Tex.Crim.App.1991).

. Cox, 235 S.W.3d at 284.

. Id. at 284 & n. 9.

. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 44.01(d) (Vernon Supp.2008); Tex.R.App. P. 26.2(b).

. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 42.03, § 1(a) (Vernon Supp.2008); Tex.R.App. P. 26.2; Taylor v. State, 131 S.W.3d 497, 500 (Tex.Crim.App.2004).

. See majority op. at 96 n. 1.

. Id.

. See Tex.R.App. P. 26.1, 26.2.

. See Cox, 235 S.W.3d at 285.

.Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 545.051 (Vernon 1999).

. Garcia v. State, 43 S.W.3d 527, 530 (Tex.Crim.App.2001).

. Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 545.051.