No. 04-04-00413-CR
Delivered and Filed: August 24, 2005. DO NOT PUBLISH.
Appeal from the County Court at Law No. 2, Guadalupe County, Texas Trial Court No. Ccl-03-2274 Honorable Frank Follis, Judge Presiding. Reversed and Rendered.
Sitting: Catherine STONE, Justice, Sarah B. DUNCAN, Justice, Karen ANGELINI, Justice.
Opinion by: SARAH B. DUNCAN, Justice.
Daniel Camacho Arteaga appeals the judgment convicting him of violating section 521.457(a)(2) of the Texas Transportation Code by driving while his driver's license was suspended. We agree with Arteaga that the evidence is legally insufficient to support his conviction and therefore reverse the trial court's judgment and render a judgment of acquittal.
Factual and Procedural Background
Arteaga's license expired on November 2, 1992. See Arteaga v. State, No. 04-96-00650-CR, at 3 (Tex.App.-San Antonio Aug. 6, 1997, no pet.) (not designated for publication). Before Arteaga's license expired, it had not been suspended or revoked. Since Arteaga's license expired, the State has purported to suspend it at least twice, first in 2001 and again in 2002. In November 2003, Arteaga was arrested for and charged with driving with a suspended license. After a bench trial, the trial court rendered a judgment convicting Arteaga of the charged offense. Discussion
Arteaga argues the evidence is legally insufficient to support his conviction because there is no evidence that, at the time of the alleged offense, he had a license or privilege to drive and therefore no evidence that he was driving while his license or privilege was suspended. We agree. Section 521.457(a)(2) of the Texas Transportation Code provides that "[a] person commits an offense if the person operates a motor vehicle on a highway during a period that the person's driver's license or privilege is suspended or revoked under any law of this state." Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 521.457 (a)(2) (Vernon Supp. 2004). In construing an earlier version of this provision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that it required the State to prove "either": (1) the defendant "had an unexpired license which was suspended at the time of the alleged offense"; or (2) the defendant's "privilege to drive was suspended at or before the time his license expired by its own terms, and that because of an unbroken chain of successive suspensions, that privilege remained suspended from the expiration date to the time of the alleged offense." Allen v. State, 681 S.W.2d 38, 40 (Tex.Crim.App. 1984) (citing Preble v. State, 402 S.W.2d 902 (Tex.Crim.App. 1966); Cathy v. State, 402 S.W.2d 743 (Tex.Crim.App. 1966)). In Allen, the court reversed the conviction because the State failed to prove either alternative. It failed to prove the first alternative because it failed to prove that Allen's license was "unexpired" at the time of the alleged offense; indeed, it was "undisputed that [Allen's] license expired by its own terms on January 12, 1977, over four years before the alleged offense occurred on August 9, 1981, and was not renewed." Allen, 681 S.W.2d at 40. And the State failed to prove the second alternative because Allen's "subsequent DWI convictions . . . could not have operated as automatic license suspensions, since [he] no longer had a license to be suspended." Id. at 41. So it is here. The State failed to prove the first alternative because it failed to prove that Arteaga's license was "unexpired" at the time of the alleged offense; and it failed to prove the second alternative because it failed to prove that, at or before Arteaga's license expired by its own terms on November 2, 1992, it had been suspended. The State argues, however, that Arteaga's conviction should be affirmed because Allen was effectively overruled by the 2003 amendments to section 521.457. We disagree. Contrary to the premise of the State's argument, the reasoning in Allen rests not upon a statutory rule but upon a rule of logic: once a license has expired, there is nothing to revoke. See id. at 40-41 (citing Bryant v. State, 163 Tex. Crim. 544, 294 S.W.2d 819 (1956)). If the State believes a different outcome is warranted, it should take its argument to the Legislature; our duty lies in the interpretation of the law not in its promulgation. See State v. Mancuso, 919 S.W.2d 86, 87 (Tex.Crim.App. 1996). ("It is the duty of the Legislature to make laws, and it is the function of the Judiciary to interpret those laws."). Because the evidence is legally insufficient to support Arteaga's conviction, we reverse the trial court's judgment and render a judgment of acquittal.