CONSENSUS CASES

 

INVENTORY PER DEPARTMENT POLICY

Its been the better part of a year since the Dallas Court of Appeals announced its decision in an important vehicle-search case without citation in additional cases, which could mean that the decision has been heard. The defendant who won on appeal was arrested by the Grand Prairie Police Department, and the Dallas County District Attorney conducted the prosecution.

An officer with the Grand Prairie Police Department pulled over the defendant after seeing him roll through a stop sign. The defendant had several valid warrants out for his arrest, so the officer placed him in custody and handcuffed him. Because there was no one else in the car, the officer decided to order that the car be impounded and began to inventory its contents.

As a general rule, police officers can "inventory" the contents of a car. https://askcompetentlawyer.com/civil-litigation/ Officers can inventory in order to protect the property of the driver, to protect themselves against allegations of theft, and to protect themselves from anything dangerous in the car. The importance of the inventory justification has grown after the Supreme Court limited the "incident to arrest" justification for vehicle searches in 2009.

The general rule does not apply if a police officer has not properly ordered an impoundment pursuant to department policy. The impoundment was not proper in this case because department regulations required the police to release the vehicle to an available person, if possible, in lieu of impoundment. Since the defendant's son arrived to take possession of the car, the police had no right to continue with the inventory search. Pursuant to the department policy, it did not matter that the defendant's son could not produce proof of insurance.

SAFE VEHICLE MOVEMENT

Another common-scenario case from the fall of 2012 that has not received attention in other cases on appeal involved the University of Texas-Arlington Police Department. The Fort Worth Court of Appeals held that the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office should not have prosecuted, since the traffic stop that lead to the defendant's DWI arrest was illegal.

Under the Fourth Amendment of the United States constitution, police officers must at least have reasonable suspicion of a traffic offense in order to make a lawful traffic stop. If a police officer makes an unlawful traffic stop, he violates the defendant's rights under the Fourth Amendment, and any evidence he discovers can be suppressed during trial.

The defendant was pulled over after the officer saw the tire of her car touch the yellow line that divides the lanes. It was 3:16 a.m., and the officer suspected that the defendant had been drinking. She was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated.

The defendant successfully motioned to suppress the evidence gathered by the officer after the traffic stop, and the Fort Worth Court of Appeals agreed that the trial court ruling was correct. Looking at the traffic code, the Court of Appeals determined that only "unsafe" movement between lanes was prohibited by the sections relied upon by the prosecution. The prosecution had provided no evidence showing that the defendant's movement was "unsafe," such as considering any other traffic.

The question of safety is central to the traffic code. Many violations expressly or implicitly require a safety concern. While traffic offenses do not require any particular state of mind, they are not just technical acts, as some officers might forget.