Opinion
No. 05-07-00387-CR
Opinion issued July 15, 2008. DO NOT PUBLISH. Tex. R. App. P. 47
On Appeal from the County Court at Law No. 1, Collin County, Texas, Trial Court Cause No. 001-86252-06.
Before Justices MORRIS, FITZGERALD, and LANG.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
A jury convicted Jack Jewell Wimberly of driving while intoxicated. He now complains in two issues on appeal that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress. We affirm the trial court's judgment. The background of the case and the evidence adduced at trial are well known to the parties, and therefore we limit recitation of the facts. We issue this memorandum opinion pursuant to Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 47.1 because the law to be applied in the case is well settled. At the suppression hearing and at trial, a Texas Department of Public Safety officer testified that she visually observed appellant's truck speeding then confirmed he was speeding with radar. The officer testified that appellant had exceeded the sixty-mile-per-hour speed limit for that location on the highway, but she had not recorded his precise speed because she was only going to give him a warning. The officer turned on the flashing lights of her patrol car and initiated a traffic stop of appellant's truck. In his first issue, appellant complains the trial court should have granted his motion to suppress because the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop him. He claims that the law required the State to put on evidence of his actual speed in order to establish reasonable suspicion. Reasonable suspicion to detain a person exists if a police officer offers specific, articulable facts, that, when combined with rational inferences from those facts, would lead the officer to reasonably conclude that the person actually is, has been, or soon will be engaged in criminal activity. See Castro v. State, 227 S.W.3d 737, 741 (Tex.Crim.App. 2007). We review the trial court's reasonable suspicion determination by considering the totality of the circumstances, giving almost total deference to the trial court's determination of historical facts, and reviewing de novo the trial court's application of the law to facts not turning on credibility and demeanor. See id. Here, the officer testified that appellant's truck had exceeded the speed limit. She had visually observed appellant speeding and determined his speed using radar. The officer's testimony was sufficient to establish reasonable suspicion to stop appellant, despite the fact that she did not recall appellant's specific speed. Deferring to the trial court's determination of historical facts, we conclude the court did not err in denying the motion to suppress. We resolve appellant's first issue against him. In his second issue, appellant complains that "there was no evidence presented at the suppression hearing that the offense took place in Collin County." In order to preserve a suppression issue for appeal, a defendant must make a timely objection that states the specific ground of objection, if the specific ground is not apparent from the context. A general or imprecise objection may be sufficient to preserve error for appeal only if the legal basis for the objection is obvious to the court and to opposing counsel. See Buchanan v. State, 207 S.W.3d 772, 775 (Tex.Crim.App. 2006); see also Tex. R. App. P. 33.1. At appellant's suppression hearing, his counsel argued only that there had been "no warrant" in the case. When the trial court denied the motion to suppress, appellant did not offer further argument for why the suppression motion should be granted. Appellant's written motion to suppress also did not contain any complaint about whether the State could prove the speeding offense had occurred in Collin County. No evidence in the record before us indicates that the legal basis for appellant's complaint on appeal was obvious to the trial court and opposing counsel at the suppression hearing. We therefore conclude appellant has forfeited this complaint. We resolve his second issue against him. We affirm the trial court's judgment.
Appellant argues that "[i]n reviewing the entire record there was no testimony that the offense was committed in Collin County" and requests that this Court dismiss the case or enter a "finding of not guilty." The entire reporter's record for the case is not before us, however, as appellant chose to limit his complaints to those relating to the denial of the motion to suppress. We therefore address appellant's second issue only as it relates to any alleged error of the trial court in failing to grant the motion to suppress.