Court Opinion

ID: 9759693
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:25:29.964728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:04.121376
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, Judge,
Concurring.
The majority asserts that the State will “be generally required” to prove, along with the elements of driving while intoxicated set out in Texas Penal Code § 49.04(a), that reasonable suspicion or probable cause existed to stop or arrest an accused in order to obtain a DWI conviction against her. Since Texas Penal Code § 49.04(a) itself does not demand any such showing, I am not quite sure how the majority comes to find it as a requirement for a DWI conviction for purposes of our Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 52 S.Ct. 180, 76 L.Ed. 306 (1932) analysis.
The fact that, in many DWI cases, the defendant moves to suppress evidence on the theory that the State lacked reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop or arrest and that the State, in turn, must show that it had the requisite reasonable suspicion or probable cause in order to admit the evidence, does not bear on our analysis under Block-burger. This is so because Blockburger asks only that we turn to the two relevant statutes and determine whether “each provision requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not” in order to discern whether the two statutes define “the same” or different offenses. Id. at 304, 52 S.Ct. at 182. After all, when the State wants to penalize an accused for any given offense it need only meet its burden of proof for each and every element of the offense as set out in the statute. It need do no more. In the case now before us, Texas Revised Civil Stat. article 6687b-l requires proof that reasonable suspicion or probable cause exist to stop or arrest a person before their driver’s license can be revoked, where Texas Penal Code § 49.04(a) does not require any such proof for a successful DWI prosecution. But § 49.04(a) does not require any proof above and beyond that required in 6687b-l. For this reason, I agree with the majority that the two statutes in this case constitute the “same offense” under Blockburger and that the Court of Appeals erred to find that they do not.
With these remarks, I concur in the result only.