CCP Art 14.03(d) and State v Kurtz 152 S.W.3d 72 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004)

October 28, 2008, 12:30

Facts:

Officer hears a loud noise that sounds like a crash and looks down the road to see a car cross a median, driving on four flat tires towards his police cruiser. The car is crossing a bridge and comes to a dead stop in the middle of the bridge, just before the city limits of the municipality for which the officer works. The driving facts all occur in another city, same county, within the presence of the officer. But, the subject, now defendant, does not enter the municipality for which the officer works. The officer detains (reasonable suspicion not pc of intoxication) the suspect and subsequently arrests him for DWI.

In State v. Kurtz, the CCA ruled that a municipal police officer's jurisdiction was geographically bounded by his city's limits. In 2005, the legislature revised the statute(g) in an attempt to abrogate the common law doctrine, if I read it correctly.

Question: for a Chapter 724 license suspension proceeding is the stop an unlawful siezure? The same criminal case law applicable to a motion to suppress hearing is applicable.

Thoughts?
Thanks,

Gary
Staff Attorney, DPS-1B

[This message was edited by GMcDonald on 10-28-08 at .]

October 28, 2008, 14:43

AlexLayman

Its an interesting question and even if the drunk guy can't be prosecuted I'm happy the officer intervened for safety's sake.

What if a bunch of fire trucks needed to get across that bridge but this drunk guy was obstructing the traffic? Is there any community care-taking role for the officer that justifies an investigating an erratic driver on a bridge? Isn't this driver a potential safety hazard to himself and others entering/leaving the jurisdiction via the bridge? Is it unreasonable to worry that someone stopping on a bridge might be suicidal and further that suicidal people may recklessly endanger others because, what do they care, they are about to bite the big one anyway.

Alternatively could parking a disabled vehicle on the bridge be a crime that creates some sort of traffic disruption which impacts traffic and safety within the officer's municipality... by a domino effect or something ... and somehow this creates a "hot pursuit" situation that would then trigger the exigent-circumstances exception to the warrant requirement as discussed by the US Supreme Court in Steagald v. U.S., 451 U.S. 204, 218 (1981).