Nnamani v. State
Decision Date | 17 November 2016 |
Docket Number | NO. 02–15–00429–CR,02–15–00429–CR |
Citation | 558 S.W.3d 659 (Mem) |
Parties | Michael NNAMANI, Appellant v. The STATE of Texas State |
Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Anthony Simpson, for Michael Nnamani.
David L. Richards, Debra A. Windsor, for The State of Texas.
For Majority, see 2016 WL 6803384.
Essentially, the majority is put in the position of holding that a police officer may detain a motorist for the sole purpose of attempting to secure a confession of wrongdoing. But what about the transportation code sections requiring an officer who stops a motorist for speeding to release the motorist immediately upon the motorist's signing a promise to appear?5 The law is well-established that "the detention must be temporary and last no longer than necessary to effectuate the purpose of the intrusion."6 And how long is that, when the purpose of the detention is to secure a confession? Until the motorist confesses? Or does the transportation code control, limiting the interrogation period to the time necessary for the motorist to sign his agreement to appear to answer to the suspicion of traveling at an unknown unreasonably high speed? If the motorist was detained for the purpose of securing a confession, was the motorist free to leave without responding to questions? That is, was the officer obligated to inform the motorist of his rights under Miranda ?7 Is this conduct truly consistent with the original intent of the framers of our constitution?
Straddling a lane, as the officer described it here, did not constitute a traffic offense.9 And the officer clearly stated that he did not stop Appellant because he saw him speeding; that is, the officer did not stop Appellant because he saw Appellant commit a traffic offense in his presence. Rather, the officer suspected that Appellant might be speeding. The scholarly majority has ably explained the often misunderstood distinction between probable cause and reasonable suspicion. If the officer observed Appellant commit a traffic offense, then the officer had probable cause to detain him.10 If the officer had only reasonable suspicion to detain Appellant, then the stop was perforce for the purpose of further investigation of the criminal activity that the officer suspected.11
Further, if the officer pulled Appellant over based only on a generalized suspicion that Appellant might be violating a traffic law, but the officer had no specific, articulable facts upon which to base a conclusion that he saw Appellant commit a traffic offense, then the record does not support the validity of the stop.12 An inarticulate hunch or intuition will not support a seizure.13 The officer had the opportunity to check Appellant's speed against his own speedometer to verify whether Appellant was violating the traffic law before stopping him but did not do so.
An officer who testifies to an unsupported general conclusion that a car was following another vehicle too closely has not testified to sufficient facts to justify a detention for a traffic violation.14 Similarly, the officer's testimony here that Appellant might have been speeding or might have been violating the traffic law requiring maintaining a single lane to the extent possible and not driving outside his lane unsafely was insufficient to justify a detention for a traffic violation.
Based on the record before this court, I cannot agree with my conscientious colleagues that the record as it stands...
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