Griffin v. State

Because traveling across the yellow line into oncoming traffic is a traffic violation in itself and does not require the additional element of an unsafe maneuver by the driver as does Texas Transportation Code '545.060, that behavior presents reasonable suspicion that a traffic offense had been committed and a subsequent detention is proper.

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OPINION

An Upshur County jury convicted William Avery Griffin of possessing more than four but less than 200 grams of heroin. His punishment was enhanced by a prior conviction, and he was sentenced to twenty years’ detention and fined $1,000.00. In a single point of error, Griffin contends that the trial court erred by failing to grant his motion to suppress the heroin.

The testimony at the suppression hearing revealed that on September 30, 1999, Agent Ron Benge, of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Task Force in Tyler, received a tip from an undisclosed informant that James Carswell and Griffin would be traveling in an aqua and silver S-10 pickup, license plate CT6-997, from Dallas to Gilmer and would be carrying heroin. Benge testified that the informant had provided reliable tips to him on prior occasions. Benge was in an unmarked car and could not stop the pickup, so he contacted Sergeant Mark Case, a Gilmer police officer who was in a marked police vehicle, and informed him of the tip so that Case could make the stop. Acting on Benge’s tip, Case waited by South Highway 155 for the two-tone pickup to pass. When Case saw the vehicle, he followed it for some distance and saw the vehicle’s left tires cross the yellow center stripe. The vehicle then returned to its lane, signaled, and made a left turn from a designated left turn lane. Case testified that the vehicle’s failure to maintain a single marked lane raised suspicions in his mind that the driver might be intoxicated. Case testified that he then stopped the vehicle based on both the information provided to him by Benge and the apparent traffic violation.

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