Affirmed and Majority and Dissenting Opinions filed April 16, 2020. In The Fourteenth Court of Appeals NO. 14-18-00406-CR ERNESTO VILLARREAL, JR., Appellant V. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee On Appeal from the 400th District Court Fort Bend County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. 15-DCR-069295 DISSENTING OPINION Despite ample jurisprudence from other courts that have examined this issue, the majority concludes the absence of a database record pertaining to vehicle registration is evidence of criminal wrongdoing that authorizes officers to initiate traffic stops, even when the officer knows (1) there are legitimate reasons a registered vehicle may not appear in the database and (2) s/he does not know how often the database is updated. I disagree with the majority’s analysis, conclude the absence of a record under these circumstances is nothing more than the absence of evidence, and believe the majority’s conclusion erroneously diminishes the rights guaranteed to the People by the Texas and United States constitutions. As a result, I dissent. In Duckett v. United States, 886 A.2d 548 (D.C. Cir. 2005), the District of Columbia Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss on materially comparable facts. There, the arresting officer “arbitrarily” entered Duckett’s license plate number and “No information was forthcoming; the only message read, ‘NO RECORD’”. Id. at 549. In the officer’s experience, 90% of the vehicles he stopped after receiving the same message “turned out to be unregistered (a traffic offense).” Id. After stopping the vehicle, the officer smelled (then recovered) marijuana. Id. at 550. Duckett’s vehicle was registered. Id. At the suppression hearing on the possession charge, the Sergeant manager of the Metropolitan’s Police Department testified that the “NO RECORD” return from the National Criminal Information Center database simply meant that the vehicle had not been reported stolen. The arresting officer, however, also queried “a local police database” that “contain[ed] vehicle registration data, downloaded to it from the DMV and updated on a weekly basis.” Id. The fact that the local police database “had no information on a properly registered vehicle . . . was not unusual[.]” Id. The Sergeant testified the absence of such a record could have been caused by either (1) registering a vehicle “after the last weekly update” or (2) “a clerical or computer error of some kind [that] has interfered with the DMV’s download of the information.” Id. Although it was possible that “the plate and its number [were] phony,” the officer conceded this was unlikely based on his “years of experience.” Id. at 551. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals reversed and concluded, “The blank screen response from [the local police database] merely implied that, in all likelihood, either the DMV simply had not yet transmitted the registration 2 information . . . or an error had occurred in the transmission. Neither response implied that the car was unregistered.” Id. The officer “did not receive inaccurate information that Duckett’s car was unregistered; he received no information about the registration status of Duckett’s car ...
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