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Mark Curtis Richardson v. State

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 9, 2004
Docket06-03-00036-CR
StatusPublished

This text of Mark Curtis Richardson v. State (Mark Curtis Richardson 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
Mark Curtis Richardson v. State, (Tex. Ct. App. 2004).

Opinion



In The

Court of Appeals

Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana


______________________________


No. 06-03-00036-CR



MARK CURTIS RICHARDSON, Appellant

 

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee


                                              


On Appeal from the 188th Judicial District Court

Gregg County, Texas

Trial Court No. 025730-A


                                                 



Before Morriss, C.J., Ross and Carter, JJ.

Opinion by Justice Carter



O P I N I O N


            Mark Curtis Richardson appeals from his conviction, on his plea of guilty pursuant to a negotiated plea agreement, for possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. His contentions of error are directed at the trial court's ruling on his pretrial motion to suppress.

            The original hearing on the motion to suppress was conducted four years before the trial. The motion to suppress was overruled after a hearing and after the parties filed briefs on the issue November 24, 1998. On October 31, 2002, a hearing was held on Richardson's motion to reconsider his motion to suppress based on new authority presented to the court. The trial court overruled the motion to reconsider November 6, 2002. Richardson pled guilty on January 10, 2003, and was assessed a twelve-year sentence.

            Richardson first asks this Court to abate the appeal because he was not provided with a reporter's record of the guilty plea proceeding, and argues that one is necessary to complete his brief. We recognize, however, that a trial court's decision to grant or deny a motion to suppress is reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard. Villarreal v. State, 935 S.W.2d 134, 138 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996). The general rule is that an appellate court should afford almost total deference to a trial court's determination of the historical facts supported by the record, especially when the trial court's fact findings are based on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor. Id. There is no suggestion or indication the suppression issue was revisited at the time of the guilty plea. Accordingly, there is no indication that any matter of any relevance to the appeal that may be brought in this situation was addressed in any other context than the hearing on that issue. Under these facts, abatement for preparation of a reporter's record from the guilty plea is unnecessary. The request is denied.

            Richardson contends the trial court erred by overruling his motion to suppress evidence discovered during a search of his vehicle. The record shows Richardson was driving on an interstate highway and was stopped by a policeman (Deputy James Benson), who testified he saw the car swerve onto the shoulder about a foot, for about one or two seconds. He also testified there was another vehicle between his police vehicle and Richardson's vehicle, which was traveling approximately fifteen to twenty feet behind Richardson's vehicle in the inside lane. He thought Richardson's action of driving across the white line was not safe and he was "concerned with . . . them coming back into their lane of traffic and possibly going the other direction." The officer testified he pulled Richardson over for failure to maintain a single lane. Officer Benson testified that, after stopping the car and questioning the occupants (the passenger lied about his name), he asked for—and was given—permission to search the car. As a result of the search, he found cocaine in a box containing dirty clothes.

            Richardson contends the traffic stop was illegal and thus the resulting search was necessarily also illegal. He directs this Court to the recent opinion in Corbin v. State, 85 S.W.3d 272 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002), for a discussion of a very similar situation.

            As correctly pointed out by counsel, in this case, as in Corbin, the driver veered onto the shoulder a distance of only about a foot, for only one or two seconds. In our initial opinion in Corbin, we held there was insufficient evidence to indicate from the information that the appellant failed to maintain his lane in an unsafe manner, and thus the stop was unreasonable. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did not review our conclusion on that matter, but reversed our determination that the motion to suppress was properly denied because Officer Benson was exercising his community caretaking function in making the stop. Id. at 278–79.

            The stop in this case, as in Corbin, was predicated on evidence of a violation of Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 545.060(a) (Vernon 1999), which provides that, "An operator on a roadway divided into two or more clearly marked lanes for traffic: (1) shall drive as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane; and (2) may not move from the lane unless that movement can be made safely." As we recognized in Corbin, this statute does not provide that any movement over a dividing line between lanes or between a lane and a shoulder is necessarily a criminal offense, but instead presumes a certain degree of common sense will be applied to the observation of the driver's actions by requiring that a driver shall drive "as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane . . . ." and that he or she may not move from the lane unless the movement can be made safely. Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 545.060(a); Corbin v. State, 33 S.W.3d 90, 94 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2000), rev'd, 85 S.W.3d 272 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002).

            In our analysis of a traffic stop, the question is whether the State proved the reasonableness of the stop. See Russell v. State, 717 S.W.2d 7, 9–10 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986). An officer may stop and briefly detain a person for investigative purposes even in the absence of evidence rising to the level of probable cause if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, lead him to conclude the person is, has been, or soon will be engaged in criminal activity. Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d 33, 35 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997).

            In determining whether the intrusion was reasonable, an objective standard is applied.

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Related

Anders v. California
386 U.S. 738 (Supreme Court, 1967)
Halbert v. Michigan
545 U.S. 605 (Supreme Court, 2005)
Martinez v. State
29 S.W.3d 609 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2000)
Corbin v. State
85 S.W.3d 272 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2002)
Woods v. State
956 S.W.2d 33 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1997)
Bledsoe v. State
178 S.W.3d 824 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 2005)
Corbin v. State
33 S.W.3d 90 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 2000)
Hernandez v. State
983 S.W.2d 867 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1998)
High v. State
573 S.W.2d 807 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1978)
Villarreal v. State
935 S.W.2d 134 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1996)
Davis v. State
947 S.W.2d 240 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1997)
Russell v. State
717 S.W.2d 7 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, 1986)

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Mark Curtis Richardson v. State, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mark-curtis-richardson-v-state-texapp-2004.