Ellis v. State

535 S.W.3d 209
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 22, 2017
DocketNO. 02-16-00309-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 535 S.W.3d 209 (Ellis v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ellis v. State, 535 S.W.3d 209 (Tex. Ct. App. 2017).

Opinion

OPINION

MARK T. PITTMAN, JUSTICE

The' trial ■ court found Appellant Ricky Lynn Elks guilty of driving while intoxicated — felony repetition (DWI) and sentenced him to.serve ten years in prison and to pay a $1,000 fine, but the trial court suspended imposition of the confinement portion of the sentence and placed Appellant on community supervision for eight years. In his sole point, Appellant contends that “[t]he trial court erred by denying [his] motion to . suppress because the [police] officer lacked reasonable suspicion to initiate a traffic stop based solely on the ambiguous notation that insurance was ‘unconfirmed’ and because the evidence was not developed to establish the reliability of the license check computer system.” Given the specific facts of this case, we uphold the trial court’s conclusion that reasonable suspicion justified the stop, and we affirm the trial court’s judgment.

I. Statement of Facts

Appellant-was driving his Jeep northbound on Rio Grande Boulevard in Euless, Texas when Officer David Chaney, a police officer for the City of Euless, stopped Appellant solely because the patrol car’s computer indicated that liability insurance on the Jeep was “unconfirmed.” Ultimately, Officer Chaney determined that Appellant had committed DWI and arrested him. Appellant filed a motion to suppress all evidence gained from the stop, and after a hearing, the trial court denied the motion. The trial court found Appellant guilty after a bench trial, and he appealed.

A. Evidence Regarding the Stop

Officer Chaney testified as follows about . the stop of Appellant:

• At approximately 3:30 p.m. on September 1, 2015, Officer Chaney parked his patrol car in the center median of the 2200 block, of Rio Grande Boulevard in Euless;
• Officer Chaney’s patrol car had a database maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS);
• A 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV traveled northbound past Officer Chaney;
• Officer Chaney typed the Jeep’s license plate into the computer, “[j]ust checking [the database] for warrants, . registration, the validity of the registration, and confirmation that the ve- ■ hide had insurance or not”;
• After Officer Chaney input the Jeep’s license plate number, the “insurance return” from the database showed that the Jeep’s insurance status was “unconfirmed per the State of Texas,” which meant that the Jeep was “not showing to have current insurance as required by Texas state law”; . ,
• The return from the database would have said “insurance confirmed” if the Jeep had been insured;
• Officer Chaney’s training and experience led him to conclude that the Jeep was uninsured;
• Officer Chaney stopped the Jeep based solely on the “unconfirmed” insurance return from the database;
• Appellant did not provide Officer Chaney with insurance 'information at the time- of the stop;
• Officer Chaney conceded that Appellant’s insurance card admitted at trial indicated that he had insurance coverage on the Jeep on the date of his arrest; and
• It is possible for a driver to have an insurance card but not.actually have insurance.

B. Evidence Regarding the Database Providing the Insurance Information

Officer Chaney testified as follows regarding the database:

• It. was maintained by the FBI and DPS and part of NCIC and TCIC;1
He .had training for the database, which the trial court could have inferred Officer Chaney indicated was Texas Law Enforcement Electronic Telecommunications System (TLETS), early in his career and completed refresher training, a refresher test, and continuing education on the system évery two • years;
• Officer Chaney did not know how the database worked;
• Officer Chaney did not know if the database was • web-, internet- or cloud-based;
• Officer Chaney did not know the database’s requirements for accuracy;
• As far as Officer Chaney knew, the database “could be 99 percent accurate” or “50 percent accurate”;
• Officer Chaney did not 'know how often insurance companies reported ' information or how often they were required to report’ information to the database;
• Officer Chaney did not know how insurance companies reported information to the database;
• To the best of Officér Chaney’s knowledge, insurance companies reported coverage of vehicles to the State of Texas;
• Officer Chaney did not know how often “they check”;
• When questioned if he knew how accurate the database was, Officer Chaney answered, “I have to take it as being accurate”;
• Officer Chaney stated that police officers “take it on good faith that the information that is provided ... [by the database] is valid information”;
• No one had ever told him that the database was unreliable;
• Officer Chaney could input license-plate numbers, vehicle-identification numbers (VINs), driver’s license numbers, and names into the database from his patrol car;
• Officer Chaney could retrieve warrant information, vehicle information (including whether it had been stolen and whether it was insured), and information on the driver’s license or identification card’s validity from the database;
• Officer Chaney estimated that he had used the database “[t]ens of thousands” of times;
• Based on Officer Chaney’s experience, the database was very accurate;
• Officer Chaney estimated that he had received an “unconfirmed” insurance return “probably 20 percent” of the time, “give or take[,]” and “[h]undreds, if not thousands” of times;
• Officer Chaney estimated that he . had discovered that someone had insurance despite receiving an “unconfirmed” return a “handful” of times; “[vjery, very seldom”; and “less than ten percent of the time”; and
• Officer Chaney admitted the possibility that other “unconfirmeds” could be shown to be false later when a ■person cited for not having insurance showed proof of insurance to a judge.

The parties agreed that how the database works is controlled by law.

C.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
535 S.W.3d 209, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ellis-v-state-texapp-2017.