Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
State v. Hardin
No. PD-0799-19 11/2/22
Issue:
Does Transportation Code §545.060(a) establish a single offense with two elements or two possible ways to commit the offense of “failure to maintain a single lane of traffic”?
Holding:
One offense with the elements of: (1) failure to maintain a single marked lane of traffic, and (2) that failure to maintain a single lane is unsafe. In this case, the officer had no reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant when her vehicle’s right rear tire briefly touched the dividing line between the center and right lane of traffic because the State did not prove that the movement was unsafe. The Court distinguished its holding from the holding in Leming v. State, 493 S.W.3d 552 (2016), noting that in Leming, the officer had reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant for DWI regardless of whether he had failed to maintain a single lane. Read opinion.
Concurrence (Slaughter, J.):
“I agree with the Court’s statutory interpretation of Texas Transportation Code Section 545.060(a) and its ultimate conclusion upholding the trial court’s ruling granting Appellee’s motion to suppress. But, I write separately to observe that this situation appears to be a classic case of reasonable mistake of law by the officer who pulled Appellee over. … [H]ad the State raised the mistake-of-law issue in the trial court, it appears that the court would have erred by granting Appellee’s motion over that argument. Because the State did not raise any alternative argument based on mistake of law, this Court cannot now reverse the trial court’s ruling on a basis not presented to it.” Read concurrence.
Dissent (Keller, P.J., joined by Yeary and Keel, JJ.):
“Is it legal for a car to straddle a lane for ten minutes, with each half of the car in a different lane, as long as doing so is not unsafe? Under the Court’s opinion, the answer is ‘yes,’ but under the statute, the answer is clearly ‘no.’” Read dissent.
Dissent (Yeary, J., joined by Keller, P.J. and Keel, J.):
The dissent concluded that Transportation Code §§545.060 and 542.301 “makes clear that a person commits an offense by violating either the requirement that the person (a)(1) drive as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane, or the prohibition that they (a)(2) not move from the lane when that movement cannot be made safely.” Read dissent.
Commentary:
In a portion of Leming, a four-judge plurality of the Court of Criminal Appeals construed §545.060(a) as creating two separate offenses: (1) changing marked lanes when it is unsafe to do so; and (2) failing to remain entirely within a marked lane of traffic so long as it is practical to do so, regardless of whether deviation from the marked lane is, under the particular circumstances, unsafe. As a plurality opinion on that issue, though, Leming was not binding precedent on the intermediate courts of appeals. Consequently, many intermediate appellate courts declined to follow that holding, creating a fractured landscape on the matter for years. With this opinion in Hardin, the CCA formally and authoritatively settles the debate—§545.060(a) establishes a single offense, not two. Definitely bring this opinion to the attention of any patrol officers with whom you work and advise them that merely swerving or drifting from one lane to another, alone, is insufficient to warrant a traffic stop for the offense of failure to maintain a single lane; rather, the officer must also be able to articulate why that swerving or drifting was unsafe. However, as the CCA notes, even if an officer does not believe that swerving or drifting from lane to lane, or even weaving within a single lane, is unsafe under the circumstances, the officer may certainly still stop the vehicle if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the driver is committing another offense, such as DWI or reckless driving.
Texas Courts of Appeals
Felts v. State
No. 01-21-00545-CR 10/27/ 2022
Issue:
Does due process requires the same level of specificity in a notice to revoke a deferred disposition in municipal court as a motion to revoke either community supervision or deferred adjudication supervision?
Holding:
No. The notice provisions for revocation of community supervision in Code of Criminal Procedure Articles 42A.108 (revocation of deferred adjudication community supervision) and 42A.751 (revocation of community supervision or “probation”) do not apply to revocation from a municipal court deferred disposition, which are governed by CCP Article 45.051. Read opinion.
Commentary:
This opinion will largely be of interest only to persons who prosecute Class C misdemeanor offenses in municipal or justice courts and regularly work with Chapter 45 of the CCP. However, because a defendant may appeal a municipal or justice court’s judgment to a county court at law, this decision would also be a worthwhile read for misdemeanor prosecutors in county courts who ever encounter these appeals. And not just for this holding, but for other tidbits, as well, including the reminder that a defendant is not deprived of due process by the absence of a court reporter for his municipal or justice court trial when he fails to request one.