In the
Court of Appeals
Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana
No. 06-25-00188-CR
PAUL CHRISTIAN HAUGHT, Appellant V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 8th District Court Hopkins County, Texas
Trial Court No. 2530942
Before Stevens, C.J., van Cleef and Rambin, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Justice van Cleef
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Following the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence found after a traffic stop, a Hopkins County jury convicted Paul Christian Haught of possession with intent to deliver four grams or more but less than 200 grams of methamphetamine, a first-degree felony. See TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 481.112(d) (Supp.). The trial court sentenced Haught to forty years’ imprisonment, with a $2,500.00 fine.
On appeal, Haught contends that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his “motion to suppress because deputies did not have reasonable suspicion to believe that any traffic violation occurred.” We find that deputies did have reasonable suspicion and the trial court did not abuse its discretion. Even so, we modify the trial court’s judgment to reflect that Haught was convicted under Section 481.112, and not Section 481.115(d), of the Texas Health and Safety Code as erroneously stated in the judgment. Compare TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 481.112(d), with § 481.115(d). As modified, we affirm the trial court’s judgment. I. Background Deputy Sergeant Justin Wilkerson and Deputy Hayden Hollon, with the Hopkins County Sheriff’s Office, were in a marked patrol unit, parked with their lights off, surveilling a residence where there was suspected drug activity. The deputies saw a vehicle arrive at the residence and leave within about five minutes, which Wilkerson believed indicated a possible drug transaction. After leaving the residence, the vehicle entered Interstate 30 and the deputies followed. Once on the interstate, Wilkerson observed that only one-half of the vehicle’s license plate was illuminated. He thus deduced that one of the two license plate lamps on the vehicle was not
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functioning. Wilkerson instructed Hollon to momentarily switch off the patrol unit’s headlights because Wilkerson believed Hollon’s headlights were helping to illuminate the vehicle’s license plate. Hollon did so, allowing Wilkerson to confirm that only one-half of the vehicle’s license plate was not illuminated. Wilkerson testified that having only one of two license-plate lamps functioning was a violation of the Texas Transportation Code and was cause to initiate a traffic stop.
Hollon activated the patrol unit’s emergency lights and pulled the vehicle over.
Wilkerson testified that he walked to the rear of the vehicle and confirmed that one of the two lamps intended to illuminate the license plate was not working.
During the traffic stop, Wilkerson asked the driver what she was doing at the surveilled residence. The driver stated that she was donating clothes to a woman she engaged with on Facebook Marketplace but did not know her name and had already deleted their messages. Wilkerson and Hollon grew suspicious of the driver’s story and requested to search the vehicle. The driver did not consent to a search of the vehicle. Deputies then got both the driver and the passenger, who was later identified as Haught, out of the vehicle and called for a “drug-sniffing canine.” During an open-air sniff, the canine alerted to drugs in the vehicle. Deputies then searched the vehicle based on the canine alert and found methamphetamine stashed in a sock partially under the rear of the driver’s seat on the back floorboard. Haught took responsibility for the methamphetamine and was arrested for possession at the scene.
Haught moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the search of the vehicle, alleging that the evidence stemmed from an improper stop.
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At the suppression hearing, Wilkerson testified that the sole basis for the stop was the inoperable license-plate light and that, per the Texas Transportation Code, when a vehicle has two license-plate lamps designed to illuminate the license plate, both must be working when the vehicle’s lights are on. Wilkerson explained that license-plate illumination allows officers to read a plate, run it through dispatch, verify registration, and check whether a vehicle is stolen.
After the suppression hearing, the trial court made the following written findings:
2. Within one minute, the deputies caught up to the vehicle that they had observed come and go from the residence in question. Upon approaching the vehicle, both officers noticed that the vehicle was equipped with two lights to illuminate the license plate—one on the left side of the plate, and one on the right side. They noticed this because it was evident that the light on the left appeared to be working, but the one on the right was not lighted. Deputy Hollen [sic] switched his headlights on and off in order to confirm that one of the two lamps designed to illuminate the license plate was not working. Upon confirmation, Deputy Hollen [sic] activated his emergency overhead lights in order to initiate a traffic stop.
3. After the vehicle came to a stop and Deputy Hollen [sic] approached the driver to discuss the reason for the stop, Deputy Wilkerson approached the rear of the vehicle and further confirmed that one of the two lamps intended to illuminate the license plate was defective and was not lighted. The vehicle’s headlamps were on, as it was late at night, and appeared to be in proper order.
....
8. Upon cross-examination, Deputy Wilkerson was not claiming he could not read the license plate from fifty feet—a requirement for illuminated license plates. (“A . . . separate lamp shall be constructed and mounted to emit a white light that illuminates the rear license plate and makes the plate clearly legible at a distance of [fifty] feet from the rear.” Tex. Trans. Code 547.322(f).)[.] On re-direct, Deputy Wilkerson indicated that he would not have been able to read all the characters of the license plate at [fifty] feet because the right side of the plate was not illuminated. However, it was clear—both on direct
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and cross examination, as well as his statements made to Deputy Hollen [sic] as they approached the [vehicle], recorded on Wilkerson’s body-worn camera (“Hit your headlights.” [patrol car headlights go off and back on, confirming that one license plate light was out] “Oh yeah, they got a tag light out.”)—that Deputy Wilkerson considered the legibility of the plate to be irrelevant because he believed he and his fellow deputy were legally authorized to affect a traffic stop due to one of the two plate lights being inoperable. Furthermore, Deputy Hollen [sic] (as heard on State’s Exhibits #1 and #2) tells the driver, “I’m Deputy Hollen [sic], Hopkins County. The reason for the stop tonight is that one of your tag lights are [sic] out.”
....
15. Without deciding whether an inoperable license plate—irrespective of whether or not the license plate is clearly legible from the rear at a distance of [fifty] feet—amounts to sufficient reasonable suspicion to stop a motorist for a violation of [S]ection 547.322 of the Texas Transportation Code, this Court finds, as a matter of law, that Deputy Wilkerson’s construction of the statute was reasonable; therefore there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment[1] under Heien v. North Carolina. [See Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54 (2014)].
(Footnote omitted).
The trial court denied Haught’s motion to suppress. A jury found Haught guilty of the offense of possession with intent to deliver four grams or more but less than 200 grams of methamphetamine. See TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 481.112(d). The trial court sentenced Haught to forty years in jail. Haught appeals, arguing that the denial of his motion to suppress was an improper abuse of discretion by the trial court. II. Standard of Review “When reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, we apply a bifurcated standard of review.” Ochoa v. State, 707 S.W.3d 344, 360 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024). “The trial
1 See U.S. CONST. amend. IV.
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court is the sole trier of fact and judge of the witnesses’ credibility and weight to be afforded their testimony.” Id. “Accordingly, we defer almost totally to a trial court’s determinations of historical fact, so long as such determinations are supported by the record, as well as to its rulings on mixed questions of law and fact that hinge on credibility and demeanor.” Id. “We, however, review de novo the trial court’s rulings on pure questions of law or mixed questions of law and fact that do not hinge on credibility or demeanor.” Id. “The evidence and all reasonable inferences are viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, and the trial court’s ruling must be upheld if it is reasonably supported by the record and is correct under a theory of law applicable to the case.” Id. (quoting State v. Espinosa, 666 S.W.3d 659, 667 (Tex. Crim. App. 2023)). “The trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress will be reversed only if it is arbitrary, unreasonable, or outside the zone of reasonable disagreement.” State v. Heath, 696 S.W.3d 677, 689 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024).
“If an officer has a reasonable basis for suspecting that a person has committed a traffic offense, the officer may legally initiate a traffic stop.” Zervos v. State, 15 S.W.3d 146, 151 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2000, pet. ref’d)). “[A] routine traffic stop implicates [both] the United States and Texas Constitutions” and, under both, “must be reasonable.” Earl v. State, 362 S.W.3d 801, 802 n.2 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2012, pet. ref’d); see U.S. CONST. amend. IV; TEX. CONST. art. I, § 9, Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 436–37 (1984)). Law enforcement officers may stop and briefly detain individuals suspected of criminal activity on less information than is constitutionally required for probable cause to arrest. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 22 (1968). “The standard requires only ‘some minimal level of objective justification’ for the stop.” Hamal
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v. State, 390 S.W.3d 302, 306 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012) (quoting Foster v. State, 326 S.W.3d 609, 614 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010)). “This is an objective standard that disregards any subjective intent of the officer making the stop . . . .” Ford v. State, 158 S.W.3d 488, 492 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). The facts used to support the investigative stop must support “more than a mere hunch or suspicion.” Davis v. State, 947 S.W.2d 240, 244 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997) (quoting Garza v. State, 771 S.W.2d 549, 558 (Tex. Crim. App. 1989)). “Reasonable suspicion exists if the officer has ‘specific articulable facts that, when combined with rational inferences from those facts, would lead him to reasonably suspect that a particular person has engaged or is (or soon will be) engaged in criminal activity.’” Jaganathan v. State, 479 S.W.3d 244, 247 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015) (quoting Abney v. State, 394 S.W.3d 542, 548 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013)). III. Analysis Section 547.322(f) requires “[a] taillamp or a separate lamp” to “be constructed and mounted to emit a white light that: (1) illuminates the rear license plate; and (2) makes the plate clearly legible at a distance of [fifty] feet from the rear.” TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 547.322(f). Section 547.322(g) further states that “[a] taillamp, including a separate lamp used to illuminate a rear license plate, must emit a light when a headlamp or auxiliary driving lamp is lighted.” TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 547.322(g). (Emphasis added).
The trial court found that, as a matter of law, Wilkerson’s construction of the Texas Transportation Code was reasonable. Wilkerson had constructed the Texas Transportation Code to mean that, when two license-plate lamps exist on a vehicle, both must be functional, or else it constitutes a violation of the Texas Transportation Code.
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In his sole issue, Haught argues that there was no violation of the Texas Transportation Code because “a lamp” was illuminating the license plate, meaning one light, which allegedly satisfies Section 547.322(g). See id. Haught notes that Wilkerson specifically did not claim that the legibility of the license plate at fifty feet, referring to Section 547.322(f), was the basis of the stop.
We analyze the reasonableness of a traffic stop under an objective standard. Ford, 158 S.W.3d at 492. Our cases make clear “that an arresting officer’s state of mind (except for facts that he knows) is irrelevant to the existence of probable cause.” Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 153 (2004) (citing Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 812–813 (1996)).
The facts are undisputed and show that only half of the license plate was illuminated, which would be a violation of Section 547.322(f). The trial court found that “[Wilkerson and Hollon] noticed [the vehicle was equipped with two lights to illuminate the license plate] because it was evident that the light on the left appeared to be working, but the one on the right was not lighted.” At the suppression hearing, Wilkerson testified that the functioning license-plate lamp was only “illuminating the left portion of the license plate.” The traffic stop occurred at night and on the interstate. In the darkness, Wilkerson and Hollon deduced that, because only half of the license plate was illuminated, the vehicle must have had two lamps, and one must be nonfunctioning. The evidence before the trial court did not indicate any independent basis, outside the pattern of illumination on half of the license plate, that made the deputies initiate the stop. The deputies did not count the lamps nor independently witness the state of the bulbs before they activated their emergency lights. Rather, they noted the illumination pattern on the
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license plate and deduced that one of two lamps must be out. It was not until the vehicle was already pulled over that Wilkerson confirmed that one of the vehicle’s two license-plate lamps was out. Regardless of Wilkerson’s statutory construction, the plain language of Section 547.322 reveals that subsection (f) concerns the readability of an timing of the illumination of any lamp used to illuminate a license plate. “[A] separate lamp used to illuminate a license plate,” like “[a] taillamp” in subsection (g), does not mean or imply that only one taillamp is sufficient on a vehicle, nor does it mean that only one separate lamp used to illuminate a license plate is sufficient; it is the use of the lamp that dictates all such lights must emit light “when a headlamp or auxiliary driving lamp is lighted.” TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 547.322(g). Here, the record reveals that one of the vehicle’s separate lamps used to illuminate the rear license plate did not emit light when the vehicle’s headlights were on.
The trial court did not specify in its findings which subsection of Section 547.322 justified the traffic stop, and the record does not affirmatively show that the deputies were unable to discern the license plate at a distance of at least fifty feet—to the contrary, they had their emergency lights activated and their headlights on when they initiated the traffic stop at a greater distance. Even so, the record does disclose that this traffic stop occurred in dark conditions, that the vehicle’s headlights were on, and that the deputies had reason to believe that a license-plate light was out. Accordingly, it was reasonable for Wilkerson to deduce that a light designed to illuminate the vehicle’s license plate was not working, which is a violation of Section 547.322(g). Wilkerson’s deduction was both reasonable and correct.
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The trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that deputies had a reasonable suspicion that a license-plate lamp was not emitting light when the vehicle’s headlights were on. Exercising de novo review, we also affirm the trial court’s conclusion that Appellant’s traffic stop was for a violation of Section 547.322. The motion to suppress was therefore properly denied.
We overrule Haught’s sole issue.
IV. Modify the Judgment “This Court has the power to correct and modify the judgment of the trial court for accuracy when the necessary data and information are part of the record.” Anthony v. State, 531 S.W.3d 739, 743 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2016, no pet.) (citing TEX. R. APP. P. 43.2(b); Bigley v. State, 865 S.W.2d 26, 27 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993) (en banc)). “The authority of an appellate court to reform incorrect judgments is not dependent upon the request of any party, nor does it turn on the question of whether a party has or has not objected in the trial court.” Id. (quoting Asberry, 813 S.W.2d at 529–30).
Here, the trial court’s judgment mistakenly states that Haught was convicted under Section “481.115(d)” of the Texas Health and Safety Code. See TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 481.115(d). In contrast, the indictment, the verdict returned by the jury, and the findings of fact made by the court make it clear that Haught was convicted under Section 481.112(d). See TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 481.112(d). Accordingly, we modify the trial court’s judgment to properly reflect the record.
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V. Conclusion We modify the trial court’s judgment to reflect the correct “Statute for Offense” by removing “481.115(d)” and replacing it with “481.112(d).” As modified, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Charles van Cleef
Justice
Date Submitted: May 28, 2026 Date Decided: August 25, 2026
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