NEW DWI CASE LAW:
Texas Courts of Appeals
Martinez v. State
No. 01-20-00760-CR 6/14/22
Issue:
Can two curb strikes, combined with other circumstances surrounding a suspect’s driving, give an officer reasonable suspicion that the suspect might be drunk, even if dashcam footage is ambiguous?
Holding:
Yes. The Court noted that two courts of appeals in unpublished opinions have found curb strikes to be sufficient reasonable suspicion to support a drunk driving stop, and another court of appeals has concluded that a driver’s near miss of a curb may give rise to a reasonable suspicion that a driver may be intoxicated. The Court also concluded that the “dashcam footage is not the kind of indisputable visual evidence that would allow us to disregard [the officer’s] testimony that he saw Martinez strike the curb twice. Admittedly, the footage does not show that Martinez struck the curb. But the footage also does not refute that he did so.” Read opinion.
Commentary:
This is a decision that could be helpful to prosecutors in traffic-stop cases, especially where a curb strike is involved or when a prosecutor is confronted with non-conclusive video evidence that allegedly is different from an officer’s testimony. Since the dash-cam video footage in this case did not clearly refute the officer’s testimony, the trial judge was free to find in favor of the officer’s testimony, and the court of appeals was free to defer to the trial judge’s determination.