In The
Court of Appeals
Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo
No. 07-25-00310-CR
ADISA AKANBI KAREEM, APPELLANT V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, APPELLEE
On Appeal from the County Criminal Court No. 9 Tarrant County, Texas1
Trial Court No. 1848341, Honorable Brian Bolton, Presiding
August 25, 2026
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before DOSS and YARBROUGH and PRATT, JJ.
Appellant, Adisa Akanbi Kareem, appeals from his placement on deferred adjudication community supervision for the offense of driving while intoxicated. By what we construe as three issues, Appellant argues (1) the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress; (2) the State suppressed production of favorable evidence in violation
1 This case was transferred from the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth pursuant to a docket
equalization order from the Supreme Court of Texas. We apply that court’s precedent to the extent it conflicts with our own.
of Brady v. Maryland; and (3) the trial court violated Appellant’s due process rights by increasing his bond in retaliation for his decision to appeal. We overrule the first two issues. Because the notice of appeal did not invoke our jurisdiction to review the appeal bond, we dismiss the third issue. We affirm the trial court’s order.
BACKGROUND
The State charged Appellant with misdemeanor driving while intoxicated.
Appellant moved to suppress. His motion raised twenty-one numbered grounds. Among them were claims that the officers followed him for an unreasonable length of time, that they lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop, that they questioned him without warnings against self-incrimination, that they denied him counsel, and that they failed to warn him of the consequences of refusing to provide a specimen.
The parties stipulated at the outset of the hearing that the arrest was warrantless.
No officer testified. The State responded to the motion ground-by-ground and offered two recordings. State’s Exhibit 1 contains dash-camera footage. State’s Exhibit 2 contains body-worn camera footage. Appellant did not object to either exhibit, and the trial court admitted both.
The State published Exhibit 1 from the beginning. The dash-camera recording opens with the patrol unit behind Appellant, who is traveling in the center of three lanes with his passenger-side tire on the lane divider. Appellant signals a right turn and takes a two-lane exit. As he exits, his passenger-side wheels cross the white dotted line twice before he returns to his lane. In returning, he brings his driver-side wheels within inches of the divider on his left. His right turn signal then remains active for roughly fifteen
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seconds. During that interval he again crosses into the lane to his right, remains there about four seconds, and returns to his own lane rather than completing the lane change.
When Appellant returned to his lane, his driver side tires contacted the left-hand line.
The officer activated his emergency lights. Appellant pulled onto the left shoulder.
While in the police cruiser, one officer is heard making reference to an odor and instructing the other officer to make observations during their interaction with the driver. He says, “They could be on their phone, who knows?”
The State published Exhibit 2, the body-worn camera video, in two segments. The first began near the nine-minute mark and showed the officer administering the field sobriety tests. The second began near the thirty-two-minute mark and showed the officer reading Appellant the statutory warnings required by § 724.015 of the Transportation Code, along with Appellant’s written consent to provide a specimen.
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After the State rested, defense counsel asked that the first minute and five seconds of “the last video” be played. Counsel indicated he meant the body cam video. The State then played State’s Exhibit 2 from the beginning. In those opening minutes, Appellant’s passenger explained that the two had been at the Ice House in Euless. Asked whether he had been drinking, Appellant said no. The officer explained that he asked because he could smell alcohol. The passenger then volunteered that he had been drinking. Asked a second time to confirm that he had not been drinking at all, Appellant again said no. When the officer said that he had stopped Appellant for swerving, Appellant answered that he had been avoiding another driver. The officer directed Appellant out of the vehicle for field sobriety tests. At the conclusion of those tests, the officer asked once more whether Appellant had been drinking. This time Appellant said he had two drinks. The officer then arrested Appellant.
Appellant then testified. He agreed that his vehicle moved from lane to lane. He testified that no other vehicles were around him at the time and that nothing about the lane changes was unsafe. He explained that he moved “to avoid the cones and devices on the road.”
Appellant also contended that the State’s video recordings were incomplete, describing the omitted material as the “zero-to-five” portion. He said that portion captured the officers remarking that his weaving might be explained by phone use, and that it would show the traffic-control devices as well. Appellant testified that he possessed a copy of that footage from his former counsel, that his current counsel possessed a copy, and that the footage was on his phone in the courtroom. He offered to play it. His counsel then redirected him to other matters, and neither offered the footage as an exhibit. On cross-
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examination, Appellant repeated that the recording omitted the officers’ remark and any view of traffic-control devices. The prosecutor advised the court that the State did not possess any dash-camera or body-worn camera footage predating what had been admitted.
In closing, defense counsel conceded that Appellant failed to drive as nearly as practical within a single lane, telling the court that Appellant “was all over the place.” He argued that the second element of the statute went unproven because nothing established that the movement was unsafe. He pointed to the absence of officer testimony on that element and to Appellant’s testimony that no other vehicles were present. Counsel raised no other ground. The trial court denied the motion.
ANALYSIS
A. Reasonable Suspicion for the Stop
Appellant’s first issue attacks the denial of his motion to suppress on two grounds.
He argues the officers lacked reasonable suspicion for the stop. He also argues the officers questioned him in custody without the warnings against self-incrimination as required under the U.S. Constitution.
We review a suppression ruling under a bifurcated standard. We give almost total deference to the trial court’s determination of historical facts and to its credibility findings. Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997). We review the application of law to those facts de novo. Amador v. State, 221 S.W.3d 666, 673 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). The trial court made no express findings here, so we view the evidence in the light
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most favorable to the ruling and imply the findings the record supports. State v. Kelly, 204 S.W.3d 808, 818–19 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006).
An officer may stop a motorist without a warrant on reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation. See Jaganathan v. State, 479 S.W.3d 244, 247 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015); Derichsweiler v. State, 348 S.W.3d 906, 913–14 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011). The reasonable suspicion standard requires only “some minimal level of objective justification” for the stop. See United States v. Sokolow, 400 U.S. 1, 7 (1989); Brodnex v. State, 485 S.W.3d 432, 437 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015). Proof that the offense was actually committed is not required. Leming v. State, 493 S.W.3d 552, 561 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016) (quoting Drago v. State, 553 S.W.,2d 375, 377 (Tex. Crim. App. 1977)). We measure the suspicion against the totality of the circumstances known to the officer when he detained the driver. See Crain v. State, 315 S.W.3d 43, 52–53 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). The officer’s subjective intent has no place in the analysis. Ford v. State, 158 S.W.3d 488, 492 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005).
Section 545.060 of the Transportation Code supplies the substantive rule. A driver on a roadway divided into two or more clearly marked lanes shall drive as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane. He may not move from the lane unless the movement can be made safely. TEX. TRANSP. CODE § 545.060(a)(1)(2). The two clauses describe one offense: (1) when a driver leaves his lane and (2) does so unsafely. State v. Hardin, 664 S.W.3d 867 (Tex. Crim. App. 2022) (concluding that single, brief moment of lane departure by a box truck without unsafe maneuvers does not provide reasonable suspicion because it did not violate § 545.060); but see Adams v. State, No. 02-24-00249- CR, 2025 Tex. App. LEXIS 3903 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth June 5, 2025, pet. ref’d) (mem.
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op., not designated for publication) (distinguishing facts from Hardin where driver of sedan crossed into lane twice, remained partially in the lane for five seconds, and did so with multiple vehicles in the proximity).
Applied here, State’s Exhibit 1 shows conduct that Hardin does not describe.
Appellant crossed a lane divider three times in roughly half a minute. On the third crossing he traveled about halfway into the adjacent lane and stayed there some four seconds. He then returned to his own lane and made contact with the line on the opposite side. His turn signal remained active throughout, about fifteen seconds, without a completed lane change. These are objective facts, drawn from an exhibit admitted without objection, and they supply the minimal justification the standard requires.
Moreover, nothing in the record indicates that transportation code § 545.060 was the sole basis for the stop. Rather, that appears to be based on Appellant’s own speculation, making his reliance on Hardin, which involved neither using a mobile device nor driving while intoxicated, misplaced. See Hardin, 664. S.W.3d at 878.
Appellant next points to the second officer’s remark that the driver could be on a phone. He reads the remark as an admission that the officers observed no violation. The record counters Appellant’s argument in two ways. First, reasonable suspicion is measured objectively. What the officer believed, suspected, or said aloud does not control the analysis. Ford, 158 S.W.3d at 492; Sokolow, 490 U.S. at 7.2 Second, the remark came as one officer directed the other to consider odors and other signs during
2 Appellant insists his “swerving” was to avoid traffic control devices in the other lanes; however,
the video evidence establishes that the traffic control devices were not even present at the time of his maneuvers between lanes. Additionally, it was up to the trial court to determine whether Appellant’s excuse was true or not, and the trial court apparently determined it was not.
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the approach. It identifies a possible explanation for movement the officers had already seen. And should the suspected offense have been use of a wireless device rather than failure to maintain a single lane, the same driving would support it. An officer need not witness the offense itself. See Leming, 493 S.W.3d at 561; Garcia, 43 S.W.3d at 530; Minor v. State, No. 07-12-00005-CR, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 14076, at *8–10 (Tex. App.— Amarillo Nov. 14, 2013, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (collecting cases finding reasonable suspicion of intoxication absent an observed traffic infraction).
Appellant also contends that Article I, § 9 of the Texas Constitution, which mirrors the Fourth Amendment, permits a distinct analysis from the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., Heitman v. State, 815 S.W.2d 681, 690 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991). He offers no argument, however, explaining how the state provision would yield a different result on these facts. Developing that argument for him would cast this Court as advocate rather than adjudicator. The complaint is forfeited. See TEX. R. APP. P. 38.1(i) (requiring arguments contain citations to applicable authority and to the record).
We overrule Appellant’s first issue as it concerns the traffic stop.
B. Miranda Warnings3
Appellant also faults the trial court for refusing to suppress statements he made before his arrest. Miranda reaches only custodial interrogation, and a roadside detention
3 The State argues that Appellant’s remaining arguments are unpreserved because, despite including them in his motion to suppress, he abandoned them by not arguing them at the hearing before the trial court. See, e.g., Provence v. State, No. 02-13-00475-CR, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 6874, at *8–9 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth July 2, 2015, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (holding that a defendant forfeited a suppression ground that he did not argue to the trial court). However, out of an abundance of caution, we address Appellant’s complaints to the extent they were raised in his motion to suppress.
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is ordinarily not custody. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S. Ct. 1602, 16 L. Ed. 2d 694 (1966); TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 38.22, § 3(a) (requiring warnings only when interrogation is custodial); see also Herrera v. State, 241 S.W.3d 520, 525 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (explaining Miranda warnings “safeguard an uncounseled individual’s constitutional privilege against self-incrimination during custodial interrogation”). Custodial interrogation means questioning by officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of freedom of action in a significant way. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S. Ct. 1602; accord Herrera, 241 S.W.3d at 525. Concerns about an alleged failure to comply with Miranda only arise when the individual is subject to both custody by a law enforcement officer and an interrogation. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444, 86 S. Ct. 1602; accord Warren v. State, 377 S.W.3d 9, 17 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2011, pet. ref’d).
Four situations may place a suspect in custody: when he is physically deprived of his freedom in a significant way, when an officer tells him he cannot leave, when officers create a situation that would lead a reasonable person to believe his freedom of movement has been significantly restricted, and when probable cause to arrest exists and officers do not tell him he is free to go. Dowthitt v. State, 931 S.W.2d 244, 255 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996). The first three require restraint of the degree associated with arrest rather than investigative detention. The fourth requires that the officer’s knowledge of probable cause be communicated to the suspect. Id.
By contrast, a traffic stop usually does not amount to custody due to its nonthreatening and noncoercive nature. Wexler v. State, 625 S.W.3d 162, 169 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021) (citing Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 435 (1984)). This is true
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even though a detained motorist would not feel free to drive away. Id. Warnings become necessary only when the motorist is treated in a manner that curtails his freedom to the degree associated with formal arrest. Id. at 169–70. Field sobriety testing does not by itself trigger them. Arthur v. State, 216 S.W.3d 50, 55–56 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2007, no pet.). Neither does a driver’s status as the focus of an intoxication investigation. Wexler, 625 S.W.3d at 170 (citing State v. Stevenson, 958 S.W.2d 824, 829 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997)).
Appellant argues that he was entitled to Miranda protections because: (1) multiple officers surrounded him; (2) the patrol unit continuously had its emergency lights activated; (3) the officers commanded, rather than requested, Appellant with regard to his physical position; and (4) the officers immediately used “accusatory questioning designed to elicit an admission of guilt.”4 But that is far afield from instances in which courts have found custody to have begun. Dowthitt, for example, involved fifteen hours of station- house questioning. 931 S.W.2d at 256. Officers accompanied the suspect to the bathroom, refused his request to speak with his wife, and told him he was not free to leave. Custody was said to have begun after he admitted his presence at the murders. Id. at 256–57.
Stevenson and Berkemer present facts closer to the present case. In Stevenson, an officer investigating a single-vehicle collision smelled alcohol, asked questions, and administered field sobriety tests. 958 S.W.2d at 825. The Court held that warnings were
4 Appellant also cites two cases from this Court that he alleges directly support his proposition.
However, after a diligent search, we could not find the cases using the West Law citation, our own cause numbers, or the names of the appellants.
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not required under those circumstances. Id. at 829. Berkemer involved a driver seen weaving for two miles, a stop, roadside questioning, and a sobriety test. 468 U.S. at 423. The Court emphasized that a traffic stop is brief, public, and ordinarily ends with the motorist continuing on his way. Id. at 437. The circumstances of the typical stop, it observed, do not leave a motorist feeling “completely at the mercy of the police.” Id.
Here, the record reflects that Appellant remained in his vehicle for initial questions asked about drinking and about his driving, beside a highway shoulder, and within minutes of the stop. The presence of a second officer, the activated emergency lights, and directions about where to stand do not create custody. See Berkemer, 468 U.S. at 437. Nothing in the recording shows that Appellant was told he could not leave, that probable cause was communicated to him, or that his liberty was restrained to the degree associated with arrest before the officer placed him under arrest. See Dowthitt, 931 S.W.2d at 255. The trial court did not err in declining to suppress the statements.
We overrule the remainder of Appellant’s first issue.
C. Alleged Brady Violations
By his second issue, Appellant contends the State suppressed a portion of the video admitted into evidence. A Brady violation occurs when the State suppresses favorable evidence, whether willfully or inadvertently. State v. Heath, 696 S.W.3d 677, 699 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024). Reversal requires three showings: that the State failed to disclose evidence, without regard to good or bad faith; that the evidence was favorable to the accused; and that the evidence was material, meaning a reasonable probability
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exists that disclosure would have changed the outcome. Hampton v. State, 86 S.W.3d 603, 612 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002).
Assuming without deciding that Appellant preserved his Brady violation claim for appellate review, we conclude that his claim fails.5 Appellant testified that his former counsel received a copy of the complained-of footage, that his current counsel held a copy, and that the footage was on his phone in the courtroom. Yet, he never introduced it. Evidence in the defendant’s hands and in the trial record was not withheld. See Hampton, 86 S.W.3d at 612. Appellant’s third issue is overruled.
D. Bond Modification
By his final issue, Appellant contends the trial court raised his bond in retaliation for his notice of appeal. His pretrial bond was a $500 personal appearance bond.6 His appeal bond was set at $2,500 and carried two conditions: to maintain a mobile alcohol detection device and an ignition interlock. Appellant moved to strike the interlock condition; he did not ask that the bond amount be reduced. The amended conditions retained the interlock requirement, subject to an exception for rental and employer-owned vehicles.
The State argues that the question is not properly before our Court. Appellant’s notice of appeal specifically identifies only the trial court’s ruling on his motion to suppress;
5 See Keeter v. State, 175 S.W.3d 756, 760 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (finding preservation error
where “[t]he appellant did not mention Brady in his motion or during the hearing on the motion, and did not include any Brady-related cases in his post-hearing submission.”).
6 A personal bond, sometimes referred to as a personal recognizance (PR) or a personal
appearance bond, permits the release of a defendant without the posting of any sureties or other securities. See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 17.03(a).
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it did not identify the trial court’s bond orders. The Legislature provided a distinct and preferential avenue for review of bail pending appeal. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 44.04(g). A separate notice of appeal is required. Ex parte Enriquez, 2 S.W.3d 362, 363 (Tex. App.—Waco 1999, no pet.) (per curiam); TEX. R. APP. P. 25.2(c)(2) (requiring the notice of appeal state the order from which appeal is sought).
Appellant’s notice of appeal did not invoke such review. We therefore lack jurisdiction over the complaint and dismiss the third issue.7
CONCLUSION
Having overruled the issues within our jurisdiction, we affirm the trial court’s order placing Appellant on deferred adjudication community supervision. We dismiss Appellant’s third issue for want of jurisdiction.8
Lawrence M. Doss
Justice
Do not publish.
7 Appellant insist he “is not seeking standard interlocutory review of an excessive bail order; rather,
[he] challenges an egregious violation of due process . . . .” We find Appellant’s argument to constitute a distinction without difference. To the extent Appellant intends to argue that his complaint somehow implicates the final judgment rather than the personal bond itself, he provides no authority for such a proposition, and we find none.
8 Appellant filed a motion to expedite the hearing and disposition of this matter. We deny his motion as moot.