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Date: 12-16-2020
Case Style:
Amy M. Hedtke v. The State of Texas
Case Number: 02-19-00308-CR
Judge: Mike Wallach
Court: Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
at Fort Worth
Plaintiff's Attorney: Fredrick 'Fritz' Quast
Paul V. Previte
James Stainton
Defendant's Attorney:
OR
Just Call 855-853-4800 for Free Help Finding a Lawyer Help You.
Description:
Fort Worth, Texas - Criminal defense atty represented defendant Amy M. Hedtke with disregarding a police officer’s lawful order charge.
Hedtke and her passenger, her 17-year-old son, were driving from Wichita Falls
to Ellis County for her son’s Boy Scout meeting when City of Rhome police officer
Bryan Pickler stopped Hedtke for speeding, an offense under Chapter 542 of the
Texas Transportation Code. See Tex. Transp. Code Ann. §§ 542.301, 545.351,
545.352. Hedtke stopped her van in the parking lot of a Grandy’s restaurant; she had
already intended to stop there on their trip so that she and her son could get
something to drink and use the restroom. After Pickler took her license and returned
3
to his patrol car, Hedtke got out of her van briefly to take off her coat and then got
back in. While Pickler was in his patrol car, Hedtke’s son got out of the van to go into
the restaurant. Before Hedtke’s son had taken more than a few steps, Pickler ordered
him to return to the van. In response, Hedtke argued with Pickler about whether he
could stop her son from going into the restaurant. Justin Hunter, another Rhome
police officer, arrived and, over Hedtke’s objections, began questioning Hedtke’s son.
Hunter patted down her son during his questioning.
1 At some point Hedtke again got
out of her van to object to the questioning of her son and to record the interaction on
her cell phone. At multiple points in Pickler’s conversation with Hedtke, he ordered
her to return to her van, and when she continued to not comply, Pickler arrested her
for failing to comply with a lawful order of a police officer.
2
Hedtke filed a motion to suppress, arguing that “[t]he officers in this case
engaged in an unlawfully prolonged detention by asking non-consensual unrelated
questions” of her son and attempted to keep Hedtke from being present while they
1
Pickler’s report stated that Hunter patted down Hedtke’s son for officer safety
because the 17-year-old put his hands in his pockets. At trial, the State provided no
evidence to support a reasonable suspicion that Hedtke’s son was armed and
dangerous. See Arizona v. Johnson, 555 U.S. 323, 327, 129 S. Ct. 781, 784 (2009).
However, if any evidence of criminal activity was discovered during the pat down, it
was not discussed at trial, and this case does not involve a challenge to evidence, if
any, that was found in the pat down.
2
In addition to arresting Hedtke for failing to comply with his order, Pickler
also arrested her for failing to report a change of address and failure to register a
vehicle. The prosecutor dismissed those charges.
4
questioned him. She argued that “[e]verything after the officers began to delay the
purposes of the stop by engaging in unrelated questions of the juvenile passenger
should be suppressed as fruit of a Fourth Amendment violation.” After hearing both
sides’ arguments, the municipal judge denied the motion.
The evidence at trial consisted of Hedtke’s testimony, Pickler’s testimony, and
the video of the stop from Pickler’s dashboard camera. The jury found Hedtke guilty
and assessed a fine of $200. The municipal judge rendered judgment in accordance
with the jury’s verdict, and Hedtke appealed to the county court.
The county court affirmed the municipal court’s judgment. The county court
concluded that Texas Transportation Code Section 542.501, which requires persons
to comply with lawful orders of police officers, relates “to instructions given by police
personnel pursuant to a traffic stop for a moving offense, including the face to face
contact with police and the individuals involved” and is not unconstitutionally vague.
The court further concluded that the municipal court’s denial of Hedtke’s suppression
motion was proper because “[t]he extended period of detention was not created by
unlawful or improper actions of the police officer.”
Municipal Appeals
A person convicted of an offense in municipal court of record may appeal to a
county criminal court, or, if the county has no county criminal court, to a county
court at law. Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 30.00014(a). The county court may not retry the
case and instead must determine the appeal on the basis of the errors shown in the
5
municipal court record. Id. § 30.00014(b); Swain v. State, 319 S.W.3d 878, 879 (Tex.
App.—Fort Worth 2010, no pet.). If the county court affirms the municipal court’s
judgment, the defendant may appeal to the court of appeals if the fine assessed against
the defendant exceeds $100 or the sole issue is the constitutionality of the statute or
ordinance on which the conviction is based. Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 30.00027(a).
Our review in such an appeal is limited to those issues considered by the county court.
See Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 30.00027(b)(1).
Discussion
I. Applicability of Section 542.501
In the first part of her first issue, Hedtke argues that the evidence was
insufficient to support the offense for which she was convicted. Section 542.501 of
the Texas Transportation Code provides that “[a] person may not wilfully fail or
refuse to comply with a lawful order or direction of . . . a police officer.”3 Tex.
Transp. Code Ann. § 542.501. Section 542.501 appears in Subtitle C, “Rules of the
3
Section 542.501’s predecessor, former Texas Revised Civil Statutes Article
6701d, § 23, had similar language, providing that “[n]o person shall willfully fail or
refuse to comply with any lawful order or direction of any police officer invested by
law with authority to direct, control, or regulate traffic.” Act of June 5, 1947, 50th
Leg., ch. 421, S.B. 172, sec. 23, 1947 Tex. Gen. Laws 967, 970 (repealed 1995); Hoechst
Celanese Corp. v. Compton, 899 S.W.2d 215, 227 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1994,
writ denied) (quoting article). When transferring this provision to the new
Transportation Code, the legislature did not retain the “invested with authority to
direct, control, or regulate traffic” language, but the legislature indicated that it
intended no substantive change in the law when it adopted the code. Act of May 1,
1995, 74th Leg., R.S., ch. 165, S.B. 971, §§ 1, 24, 25, 1995 Tex. Gen. Laws 1025, 1612,
1870–71.
6
Road.” Per Section 542.001 of that subtitle, “[a] provision of this subtitle relating to
the operation of a vehicle applies only to the operation of a vehicle on a highway
unless the provision specifically applies to a different place.” Id. § 542.001. Subtitle C
defines “highway or street” as “the width between the boundary lines of a publicly
maintained way any part of which is open to the public for vehicular travel.” Id.
§ 541.302. Hedtke argues that because the officer gave her an instruction when she
was standing by her car in a parking lot—not operating her vehicle and not on a
“publicly[-]maintained way”—she could not be guilty of an offense under Section
542.501. She contends that reading the provision to apply outside of the context of
operating a vehicle on a highway “would lead [to] an absurd result, applying the
Transportation Code4 to situations where one is seated inside one’s own home, for
example.” However, for the reasons below, applying the provision here does not lead
to an absurd result.
The legislature could have drafted Section 542.001 to read, “any provision of
this subtitle applies only to the operation of a vehicle on a highway.” It did not.
Instead, it provides that if a provision in Subtitle C relates to the operation of a
4
Hedtke emphasizes Section 542.501’s placement in the Transportation Code.
While Section 542.501 appears in the Transportation Code, its language is broad.
Under different facts, we might be called to decide if it applies to any police officer’s
order in any context, as Hedtke suggests it would if we read it to apply outside of the
context of a vehicle’s operation on a highway. In this case, however, we need not and
do not reach that question. The order at issue here was made during an investigation
of a traffic offense, and as we hold below, Section 542.501 applies to an order given in
that context.
7
vehicle, then in that case, the provision generally applies only to the operation of a
vehicle on a highway and would not apply to the operation of a vehicle elsewhere. By
its own terms, the section does not apply to a provision that does not relate to driving
or otherwise operating a vehicle. Section 542.501 does not relate specifically to the
operation of a vehicle; it relates to the order of a police officer. While this offense may
be committed while a person is driving, it may also be committed, as in this case, after
a person has stopped and exited her vehicle during the course of a lawful traffic stop.
Section 542.001 thus does not apply to limit Section 542.501’s application.
Hedtke further argues that “[c]ities around Texas understand that [Section]
542.501 applies to vehicles being operated on the highway, which is why they have
taken the additional step of more broadly prohibiting disobedience to police orders in
their municipalities.” Hedtke cites to no authority to support her understanding of
cities’ motivations in passing the ordinances to which she refers, and she cites to no
cases to show that courts have agreed with her interpretation. Regardless, however, of
how cities view Section 542.501 or how broadly it applies, Section 542.001 is not a
limit on Section 542.501’s application.
Finally under this part of her issue, Hedtke points to a Texas Administrative
Code provision to argue that, because she was not operating a vehicle on a public
road at the time that she failed to comply with the officer’s order, insufficient
evidence supports her conviction. See 37 Tex. Admin. Code § 15.89. This Department
of Public Safety (DPS) administrative regulation, which appears in a chapter providing
8
driver licensing rules, concerns moving violations. The regulation first defines
“moving violations” as an act that is “committed in connection with the operation of
a motor vehicle on a public street or highway, which constitutes a hazard to traffic
and is prohibited by state law or city ordinance” and then sets out a “list of traffic
offenses that constitute a moving violation.” Id. While “fail to comply with a lawful
order of a police officer” is not on that list, “disregard police officer” is, see id.; 29 Tex.
Reg. 3776, 3776–77 (2004), adopted by 29 Tex. Reg. 5945, 5945–46 (2004) (including
“disregarded police officer” in prior version in effect in 2015).
5 We read Hedtke’s
brief as arguing that, because Section 15.89 designates disregarding a police officer as
a moving violation, and because that section’s moving violation definition includes
“the operation of a motor vehicle on a public street or highway,” the offense set out
in Section 542.501 necessarily requires the operation of a motor vehicle on a public
road. Although this argument is facially persuasive, it ultimately fails because Section
15.89 does not apply here.
DPS did not adopt Section 15.89 to add the element of “operating a motor
vehicle on a public road” to the listed Transportation Code offenses, and the
legislature did not authorize it to do so.6 Rather, DPS originally adopted Section
5
The list does not mention school crossing guards or escort flaggers. See Tex.
Transp. Code Ann. §§ 542.501(2), (3).
6
Disregarding a police officer is not the only offense currently on the list that
does not necessarily involve operating a vehicle—the list also includes committing
“fraud related to the issuance of CLP or CDL.” See 37 Tex. Admin. Code § 15.89; see
9
15.89 to identify the offenses that would be assessed points under this state’s former
Driver Responsibility Program. See 29 Tex. Reg. 3776, 3776–77 (2004), adopted by
29 Tex. Reg. 5945, 5945 (2004) (codified as 37 Tex. Admin. Code § 15.89), amended by
44 Tex. Reg. 6301, 6301 (2019), adopted by 44 Tex. Reg. 8025, 8025 (2019) (Tex. Dep’t
Pub. Safety, Moving Violations). Through adoption of Transportation Code Chapter
708—the chapter regulating that program—the legislature required DPS to adopt a
list of offenses that would constitute moving violations for purposes of the program.7
also Tex. Transp. Code Ann. §§ 521.454 (making it an offense to knowingly falsely
swear to information in a driver’s license application), 522.021(d) (creating an offense
for knowingly falsifying information or certification required for commercial driver’s
license application).
7
Before DPS adopted Section 15.89, it had already adopted a definition of
“moving violation” for DPS’s administrative hearing process for driver’s license
suspensions, revocations, disqualifications, and cancellations. See 26 Tex. Reg. 1162,
1162 (2001) (codified as 37 Tex. Admin. Code § 15.81) (Tex. Dep’t Pub. Safety)
(defining “moving violation” as “any act committed in connection with the operation
of a motor vehicle on a public street or highway, which constitutes a hazard to traffic
and is prohibited by state law or city ordinance” and excluding violations exempted by
statute), amended by 29 Tex. Reg. 5945, 5945–46 (2004) (Tex. Dep’t Pub. Safety)
(deleting moving violation definition); see also 15 Tex. Reg. 4299, 4299 (1990), adopted
15 Tex. Reg. 5138, 5138 (1990)) (Tex. Dep’t Pub. Safety) (revising a previous, similar
definition). Cf. Tex. Transp. Code Ann. §§ 521.005 (authorizing DPS to adopt rules
necessary to administer chapter 521, which addresses licensing), 521.291 (requiring
DPS to adopt rules to administer the denial, suspension, and revocation of licenses);
9 Tex. Reg. 78, 78 (1984) (Tex. Dep’t Pub. Safety, Renewal Test) (setting out in
former 37 Tex. Admin. Code § 15.59 a similar definition of “moving traffic law
violation” for purposes of driver’s license renewals), amended by 24 Tex. Reg. 10839,
10840 (1999), adopted by 25 Tex. Reg. 1126, 1126 (2000) (Tex. Dep’t Pub. Safety,
Renewal Test) (deleting definition). That definition, however, did not contain a list of
offenses. DPS deleted Section 15.81’s definition when it adopted Section 15.89. See
29 Tex. Reg. 5945, 5945–46 (2004).
10
See Act of June 1, 2003, 78th Leg., R.S. ch. 1325, §10.01, 2003 Tex. Gen. Laws 4884,
4942 (adopting Chapter 708 and, in Section 708.052(c), requiring DPS to designate by
rule the offenses constituting moving violations for that program’s purposes)
(repealed 2019). While the Driver Responsibility Program was in effect, DPS used
Section 15.89’s list after convictions for offenses on the list to determine whether a
person had to pay a surcharge under the program. See id. (creating Section 708.052,
which provided that a person’s driver’s license accumulated points for a conviction
for a moving violation, and Sections 708.053 and 708.054, which required DPS to
assess a surcharge on a person’s license after accumulation of six or more points).
Chapter 708 did not, however, instruct DPS to define what Chapter 542 provisions
relate to the operation of a vehicle for purposes of proving the offenses in that
chapter, and the legislature did not otherwise instruct DPS to create the list to identify
or alter the elements required to prove up the listed offenses.
DPS also uses Section 15.89’s definition and list for another purpose—
regulating driver licensing. For example, Transportation Code Chapter 521 requires
DPS to suspend a person’s license if the person has been convicted of a certain
number of moving violations, and it further requires DPS to adopt rules for
administering the chapter. Tex. Transp. Code Ann. §§ 521.291; 521.292(a)(3), (a)(8),
(b). For that purpose, DPS originally adopted Administrative Code Title 37, Sections
15.81–.87, including the “moving violation” definition formerly found in Section
15.81 (which did not contain the moving violation offense list). See 26 Tex. Reg. 1162,
11
1162 (2001). While DPS adopted Section 15.89 to administer the Driver
Responsibility Program, DPS also used this new section to administer suspensions
under Chapter 521. See Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 521.292; 29 Tex. Reg. 3776, 3776–
77 (2004) (noting the new section was adopted for the Driver Responsibility Program
and providing that moving violations that are not assessed points under the program
may still be considered for purposes of Section 521.292(a)(3)), adopted by 29 Tex. Reg.
5945, 5945 (2004). DPS continues to use Section 15.89 for licensing regulations. See
Tex. Transp. Code Ann. §§ 521.223(f), 521.046(a), 521.292. However, DPS’s use of
Section 15.89 for regulating licensing does not change our analysis; Hedtke is not
appealing the suspension or revocation of her driver’s license, and whether DPS could
consider revoking or suspending her license based on her conviction is irrelevant for
our purpose here.
Section 15.89 still has relevance for specific non-licensing purposes, but those
purposes are also not relevant here. When the legislature ended the Driver
Responsibility Program—several years after Hedtke’s offense and conviction—it also
adopted Transportation Code Section 542.304, which requires DPS to adopt rules
designating “offenses involving the operation of a motor vehicle that constitute a
moving violation of the traffic law” for purposes specified in that section.
8 See Act of
8
Section 542.304 requires that the rules adopted by DPS for purposes of that
section include in the moving violations list a violation of the traffic law of Texas,
another state, or a political subdivision of Texas or another state, except as otherwise
specified in that section. Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 542.304.
12
May 23, 2019, 86th Leg., R.S., ch. 1094, H.B. 2048, §§ 11, 15. Even if that statute had
been adopted before Hedtke’s arrest, none of those purposes are at issue in this case.9
In summary, we cannot conclude that the legislature authorized DPS, through Section
15.89, to add an element to the offense in Section 542.501 such that a person does
not commit an offense by failing to comply with a police officer’s lawful instruction
during a traffic stop unless the person is driving on a public road at the time. We
overrule the first part of Hedtke’s first issue.
In the second part of Hedtke’s first issue, she argues that the trial court erred
by denying her motion to include in the jury charge an instruction based on Section
542.001. She asserts that without the requested instruction, the jury was not charged
that provisions in Chapter 542 relating to a vehicle’s operation apply only to a
vehicle’s operation on a highway and that she would not have been convicted if the
jury had been properly charged. Given our resolution of the first part of her issue, we
overrule the remainder of her first issue.
9
Those specified purposes are: (1) former Code of Criminal Procedure Article
102.022(a) (charging a fee for certain convictions for moving violations);
(2) Education Code Section 1001.112(a-2) (regarding parent-taught driver education);
(3) Government Code Section 411.110(f) (considering criminal history information in
employment decisions by the Department of State Health Services or the Health and
Human Services Commission); and (4) Health and Safety Code Sections 773.0614(b)
(regarding certification of emergency medical services personnel) and 773.06141(a)
(regarding emergency medical services provider licenses). See Tex. Educ. Code Ann.
§ 1001.112; Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 411.110; Tex. Health & Safety Code Ann.
§§ 773.0614, .06141; Act of May 23, 2019, 86th Leg., ch. 1094, H.B. 2048,
§ 1 (repealed 2019) (amending Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art 102.022 to delete reference
to Driver Responsibility Program).
13
II. Constitutional challenge
In her second issue, Hedtke asserts that if Section 542.501 applies to more than
just vehicles operated on a highway, it is unconstitutionally vague because it fails to
give sufficient notice of the behavior to which it applies. We disagree.
A statute is impermissibly vague if “it fails to give a person of ordinary
intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what conduct is prohibited.” Watson v.
State, 369 S.W.3d 865, 870 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012) (quoting State v. Holcombe,
187 S.W.3d 496, 499 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006)). However, when a court analyzes a
statute under a vagueness challenge and, as here, no constitutionally-protected speech
or conduct are involved, the reviewing court “need only scrutinize the statute to
determine whether it is impermissibly vague as applied to the challenging party’s
specific conduct.” Bynum v. State, 767 S.W.2d 769, 774 (Tex. Crim. App. 1989). The
party challenging the statute has the burden to establish that the statute is
unconstitutional as applied to that party; that it might be unconstitutional as applied
to others is not sufficient. See Vuong v. State, 830 S.W.2d 929, 941 (Tex. Crim. App.
1992). We must look at an appellant’s conduct alone and then examine whether that
conduct was clearly prohibited by the statute. Cain v. State, 855 S.W.2d 714, 718 (Tex.
Crim. App. 1993).
As we have noted, Section 542.501 is worded broadly. Because of its wording
and its placement in Chapter 542 of the Transportation Code, we conclude that it
gives a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know that it applies
14
to at least an officer’s order given during a stop for an investigation of an offense
under Chapter 542. Thus, regardless of whether the statute is vague when applied in a
different context, it is not vague when applied to the facts here. During a stop for an
investigation of Hedtke’s speeding, Hedkte failed to follow an order of a police
officer. Her conduct was clearly proscribed by Section 542.501. Because Section
542.501 is not too vague to apply to Hedtke’s conduct, she cannot complain that it is
too vague to apply to a different situation not before us. See Watson, 396 S.W.3d at
870; Bynum, 767 S.W.2d at 774. We overrule Hedtke’s second issue.
III. Motion to suppress
In her third issue, Hedtke argues that the trial court erred by denying her
motion to suppress and that, because remedying the error would eliminate the factual
basis for her conviction, this court should render a judgment of acquittal. She asserts
that the scope of the stop was not reasonable because her son had not committed a
traffic offense and that “the officers’ forced encounter with Hedtke’s son . . .
prolonged the detention, as Officer Pickler abandoned the reason for the stop, and
initiated a suspicionless [sic] seizure of” her son. She concludes that “[b]y
impermissibly extending the stop, Officer Pickler violated the Fourth Amendment,”
and, therefore, all evidence of what happened after that point, including testimony
concerning the officer’s orders to her to get back in her van, should have been
suppressed.
15
We apply a bifurcated standard of review to a trial court’s ruling on a motion to
suppress evidence. Amador v. State, 221 S.W.3d 666, 673 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007);
Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997). We defer almost totally to
a trial court’s rulings on questions of historical fact and application-of-law-to-fact
questions that turn on evaluating credibility and demeanor, but we review de novo
application-of-law-to-fact questions that do not turn on credibility and demeanor.
Amador, 221 S.W.3d at 673; Estrada v. State, 154 S.W.3d 604, 607 (Tex. Crim. App.
2005); Johnson v. State, 68 S.W.3d 644, 652–53 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). We must
uphold the trial court’s ruling if it is reasonably supported by the record and is correct
under any theory of law applicable to the case. State v. Steelman, 93 S.W.3d 102,
107 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002).
“A traffic stop made for the purpose of investigating a traffic violation must be
reasonably related to that purpose and may not be prolonged beyond the time to
complete the tasks associated with the traffic stop,” but an officer may ask a vehicle’s
occupants “about matters unrelated to the purpose of the stop, so long as the
questioning does not measurably extend the duration of the stop.” Lerma v. State,
543 S.W.3d 184, 190 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). The officer investigating the traffic stop
“may request certain information from a driver, such as the driver’s license, vehicle
registration, and proof of insurance,” and the officer may run a computer check on
that information and check for outstanding warrants against the driver. Id. at 190, 193.
16
“There is no per se rule that an officer must immediately conduct a computer
check on the driver’s information before questioning the occupants of the vehicle,”
but “[o]nce the computer check is completed, and the officer knows that the driver
has a current valid license and no outstanding warrants and that the car is not stolen,
the traffic stop investigation is fully resolved.” Id. at 190–91. Nevertheless, the officer
may continue questioning an occupant of the vehicle if the officer has developed
reasonable suspicions that the occupant is involved in criminal activity. Id. at 191.
“[T]raffic stops are often dangerous to police officers,” and “an officer may need to
take some negligibly burdensome precautions to complete the investigation safely.” Id.
at 193–94 (citing Rodriguez v. United States, 575 U.S. 348, 356, 135 S. Ct. 1609, 1615–
16 (2015)). “When a stop involves one or more passengers, the possible sources of
harm to an officer increase.” Lovett v. State, 523 S.W.3d 342, 348 (Tex. App.—Fort
Worth 2017, pet. ref’d) (citing United States v. Robinson, 846 F.3d 694, 698 (4th Cir.
2016) (en banc) (op. on reh’g)). “Police officers have an immediate interest in taking
steps to assure themselves that someone with whom they are dealing is not armed
with a weapon that could be used against them unexpectedly and fatally.” Id. “The
legitimate and weighty interest in officer safety, therefore, may outweigh a ‘di minimis’
intrusion on the occupant’s Fourth Amendment rights, such as requiring a driver and
passenger to exit the vehicle during the stop.” Lerma, 543 S.W.3d at 194.
Because of its angle, the video from Pickler’s dash camera shows only the back
of the van and an area by the driver’s door and does not show either the driver’s door
17
itself or the passenger side of the van. Thus, Hedtke’s son’s encounter with the
officers does not appear on the video, and Hedtke can only be seen interacting with
the officers when she walks to the back of the van after the officers had apparently
already begun talking with her son. Pickler left his car’s radio playing music, and most
of the conversation Hedtke had with the officers cannot be heard over the music.
Neither Hedtke nor Pickler testified about the substance of the questions, and neither
Hedtke’s son nor Hunter testified at the trial. Hedtke acknowledged that she did not
know what questions her son was asked. Accordingly, the record does not show
whether Hunter asked questions in pursuit of a criminal investigation unrelated to the
traffic stop. Asking Hedtke and her son to return to the van was a “negligibly
burdensome precaution[ ] to complete the investigation safely,” see Lerma, 543 S.W.3d
at 193–94, and the only evidence before the jury was that it was Hedtke’s declining to
comply and her continuing to argue with the officers that prolonged the stop, not any
other unrelated investigation by the officers.
Hedtke cites to St. George v. State, 237 S.W.3d 720, 725–26 (Tex. Crim. App.
2007), for the proposition that officers in a traffic stop cannot compel a passenger to
answer questions and that the Fourth Amendment is violated if officers do not have
reasonable suspicion for a passenger’s questioning that extends the traffic stop
beyond its legitimate ends of checking for a valid license, insurance, warrant-check,
and issuing a citation. However, Hedtke did not seek to suppress statements her son
made during questioning, and while the Court of Criminal Appeals held in St. George
18
that the officers had prolonged the traffic stop by their nonconsensual questioning of
the car’s passenger, in that case the officers began questioning the passenger after they
had issued a warning citation to the driver and the purpose of the stop had concluded.
Id. at 726. The facts here are unlike those in St George. The dash cam video shows that
Pickler got in his patrol car to check Hedtke’s information but almost immediately got
out again to tell Hedtke’s son to get back in the van. Hedtke then began to argue with
Pickler about whether he had the authority to stop her son from going into the
Grandy’s. He spoke with her for several minutes before getting back in his patrol car.
At some point, Hunter arrived on the scene; the dash cam video does not show when
that occurred. The video also does not show exactly when Pickler again got out of his
patrol car to speak to Hedtke, who was talking to one of the officers (the video does
not show which). What the video does show is that Hedtke’s disagreement with the
officers began when Pickler was checking her information and continued until her
arrest. No testimony or other evidence showed that Pickler concluded the traffic stop
investigation before arresting her, much less that he concluded the traffic stop before
he or Hunter spoke with her son. Further, because there is no evidence of what
questions were asked of Hedtke’s son, no evidence shows that the questions asked of
Hedtke’s son were unrelated to the traffic stop.
Based on our review of the evidence, the county court correctly concluded that
the record reasonably supports the municipal court’s determination that Hedtke was
19
not detained beyond the scope of the initial traffic stop. We overrule Hedtke’s third
issue.
Outcome: Having overruled Hedkte’s three issues, we affirm the county court’s judgment.
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: