Opinion
No. 11-05-00102-CR.
Opinion filed December 14, 2006. DO NOT PUBLISH, See Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b).
On Appeal from the 161st District Court Ector County, Texas, Trial Court Cause No. B-31,302.
OPINION
Walter Williams, III appeals his conviction by a jury of the offense of possession of cocaine weighing less than one gram. Finding allegations with respect to two prior convictions to be true, the jury assessed his punishment at five years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division, and a fine of $3,000. Williams asserts in a single point on appeal that the trial court erred in refusing to suppress the evidence that was discovered as the result of an illegal stop. We affirm. We review a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress evidence for an abuse of discretion. Balentine v. State, 71 S.W.3d 763, 768 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002). In this review, we give almost total deference to the trial court's determination of historical facts and review the trial court's application of search and seizure law de novo. Id. Where, as here, the trial court did not make explicit findings of historical facts, we review the evidence in a light most favorable to the trial court's ruling and assume the trial court made implicit findings of fact supported in the record. Id. An officer may temporarily stop and investigate an individual if the officer has reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts that the detainee is connected to unusual activity with some indication that the activity is related to crime. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21 (1968); Balentine, 71 S.W.3d at 768. The term "reasonable suspicion" requires consideration of the totality of the circumstances confronting the police. Balentine, 71 S.W.3d at 768. Officer Toby Julian and Corporal Mark Ruckman of the Odessa Police Department were driving in their patrol car when they observed Williams driving a vehicle in the opposite direction. Officer Julian testified that, when the patrol car passed Williams, Williams ducked his head like he was trying to hide himself so that he could not see him. Officer Julian, having stopped Williams the night before, knew that his license was suspended at that time. He said that Williams had an SR22 suspension. He indicated that getting the license reinstated would require a $120 fee and approximately six to seven months for the Department of Public Safety to actually get it filed and corrected. Under these circumstances, we find that the officers had a reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts that Williams was involved in criminal activity B driving a vehicle while his license was suspended. Williams urges that the stop was not justified because it was based only on Officer Julian's hunch that his license was still suspended. A "Terry" stop may not be based merely on an inarticulate hunch. Terry, 392 U.S. at 22. After testifying that he had confirmed through a computer check the day before that Williams's driver's license was suspended, Officer Julian presented the following testimony on cross-examination:
Q. And then the second night, the night in question here, you had no idea whether he might have gotten an occupational license or anything like that, did you?
A. I had enough reasonable suspicion that I wanted to make sure his driver's license was still good.
Q. Well, that is not what I am asking you. Listen to the question. You had no idea whether he had gotten an occupational license or anything that same day, did you?
A. No.
Q. You just suspected — you had a hunch that he might still be suspended?
A. Correct.Officer Julian testified that he had both a reasonable suspicion and hunch that Williams was driving with his license suspended. Considering his testimony as a whole, it indicates that he did not have merely an inarticulate hunch that Williams was driving while his license was suspended upon which to base the stop, but the fact that Williams was trying to keep the officer from seeing who was driving, the fact that his license was suspended as of the day before, and the fact that getting such a license reinstated is a complex, lengthy process were articulable facts supporting the officer's reasonable suspicion. Given the fact that the officers had reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts that Williams was driving while his license was suspended, their stop was not violative of the Fourth Amendment. Id. Consequently, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in overruling Williams's motion to suppress. We overrule Williams's sole point on appeal. The judgment is affirmed.