In the
Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
at Fort Worth
No. 02-26-00028-CR
NANCY MICHELLE MCDONALD, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS
On Appeal from County Criminal Court No. 3
Tarrant County, Texas
Trial Court No. 1881435
Before Sudderth, C.J.; Womack and Walker, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Sudderth
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Around 2:00 one morning, Officer Roger Vega stopped a car driven by
Appellant Nancy Michelle McDonald and discovered that she was driving while
intoxicated with a prior similar conviction. See Tex. Penal Code §§ 49.04(a), .09(a).
McDonald appeals her conviction for that offense, arguing in her sole appellate issue
that Vega’s stop was unconstitutional—and that the trial court should have granted
her motion to suppress its fruits—because Vega’s “intention” in pulling her over was
to investigate her presence in a deserted parking lot, and her presence in the lot did
not support a reasonable suspicion that she was engaging in criminal activity.
But Vega testified that, while his primary reason for pulling McDonald over
was to investigate her presence in the deserted parking lot, he also saw her commit a
traffic violation. And although McDonald minimizes this testimony as neither
credible nor reflective of Vega’s true motivations, Vega’s credibility was for the trial
court to decide, and his subjective motivations were not controlling—reasonable
suspicion is an objective standard. Because the trial court did not abuse its discretion
by objectively determining that Vega had reasonable suspicion to stop McDonald, we
will affirm.
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I. Background
Vega was parked near a group of automobile businesses around 2:00 a.m. when
he saw McDonald’s car1 pull onto the roadway from a parking lot behind him. Vega
later testified that the parking lot was associated with a business that was not open at
2:00 a.m. and that several businesses in the area had reported “break-ins of vehicles”
in their lots between midnight and 3:00 a.m. So, as McDonald’s car drove past Vega’s
parked location, he began to maneuver his vehicle onto the roadway to follow her and
investigate. By the time Vega pulled onto the roadway, McDonald was starting to
turn right onto a nearby street, and according to Vega’s later testimony, McDonald
failed to activate her turn signal until she was within 20 feet of the turn. Vega thus
initiated a traffic stop.
But when he did so, Vega did not mention the turn-signal violation. Instead,
he informed McDonald that he was stopping her “because [she] came out from
behind a business that was closed.” Regardless, Vega quickly discovered that
McDonald was intoxicated and arrested her.
McDonald was charged with driving while intoxicated with a prior similar
conviction, id., but she claimed that her traffic stop was unlawful and moved to
suppress its fruits. At the suppression hearing that followed, Vega was the sole
witness. He testified to McDonald’s delayed activation of her turn signal, but he
1
McDonald did not own the vehicle, but because she was driving it, we refer to it as hers for ease of reference.
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admitted that he had neither referenced the turn-signal violation when he stopped
McDonald nor mentioned it in his police report. And he conceded that his primary
rationale for stopping McDonald had been to investigate her presence in the closed
business’s parking lot.
Nonetheless, Vega’s dashboard-camera video provided some support for his
memory of the turn-signal violation. Although the video did not record much of
McDonald’s pre-stop driving, it captured her car momentarily passing Vega’s parked
location as he maneuvered onto the roadway. Vega testified that his parked location
had been less than 100 feet from McDonald’s upcoming right turn,2 and as McDonald
drove past that location in the video, her turn signal was not activated.3
The trial court considered all of this evidence and denied McDonald’s motion
to suppress. In its order, it explained that McDonald had “initiated her turn signal
approximately 20 feet from a right turn,” that this was a Transportation Code
2
The suppression evidence also included a map and photograph of the area, and although the exhibits did not identify precise distances, they were consistent with Vega’s estimation that his parked location was less than 100 feet from McDonald’s upcoming right turn.
3
By the time Vega had maneuvered onto the roadway such that McDonald’s car came back into the frame of his dashboard camera, McDonald was actively turning right with her turn signal activated.
4
violation, that Vega had “articulated that he [had] witnessed this offense,” and that
“Vega’s testimony was credible.”4
Not long after this ruling, McDonald pleaded guilty and was convicted of
driving while intoxicated with a prior similar conviction.5 See id. But when she did so,
she preserved her right to appeal the suppression ruling.
II. Standard of Review
We review a trial court’s denial of a motion to suppress for an abuse of
discretion. Cortez, 543 S.W.3d at 203–04. Legal questions are considered de novo, as
are application-of-law-to-fact questions that do not turn on witness credibility or
demeanor. State v. Hardin, 664 S.W.3d 867, 871–72 (Tex. Crim. App. 2022); Cortez,
543 S.W.3d at 203–04; Stature v. State, No. 02-23-00304-CR, 2024 WL 3458078, at *2
(Tex. App.—Fort Worth July 18, 2024, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for
publication); State v. Torrez, 490 S.W.3d 279, 282–83 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2016,
pet. ref’d). But we give almost total deference to the trial court’s resolution of
4
The trial court also made findings regarding Vega’s reasonable suspicion to conduct a stop based on McDonald’s presence in the closed business’s parking lot. However, because an observed traffic violation is sufficient on its own to support an officer’s reasonable suspicion to conduct a traffic stop, Baker v. State, No. 02-18-00364-CR, 2020 WL 1949012, at *2 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Apr. 23, 2020, pet. ref’d) (mem. op, not designated for publication), and because we can affirm on any legal basis supported by the record, State v. Cortez, 543 S.W.3d 198, 203 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018), we need not address the other potential grounds for Vega’s reasonable suspicion.
5
McDonald was sentenced to 365 days’ confinement probated for 2 years with certain agreed-upon probation terms and fines.
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historical facts and application-of-law-to-fact questions that turn on witness credibility
and demeanor. Hardin, 664 S.W.3d at 871–72; Cortez, 543 S.W.3d at 203; Stature, 2024
WL 3458078, at *2; Torrez, 490 S.W.3d at 282–83. The trial court—not this court—is
the sole judge of the witnesses’ credibility. Stature, 2024 WL 3458078, at *4; Lewis v.
State, No. 02-16-00415-CR, 2018 WL 1192464, at *2 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Mar. 8,
2018, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication); Torrez, 490 S.W.3d at
282–83.
III. Discussion
McDonald asserts that the trial court erred by denying her motion to suppress
because Vega lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct a warrantless traffic stop.6
Generally, an officer may conduct a warrantless traffic stop without running
afoul of the Fourth Amendment7 if the stop is objectively reasonable, i.e., if the
officer has reasonable suspicion. See U.S. Const. amend. IV; Hardin, 664 S.W.3d at
6
Although McDonald does not enunciate the effect of the trial court’s ruling on her decision to plead guilty, because her appellate complaint fails on its merits, we need not consider harm anyway. See Tex. R. App. P. 47.1.
7
McDonald also alleges violations of several other constitutional and statutory provisions. But McDonald’s appellate argument mentions these provisions exactly once—in a conclusory statement that they have all been violated—without separately discussing or analyzing them. Because she has not adequately presented these alleged violations for our review, we need not consider them. See Tex. R. App. P. 38.1, 38.9; see also Murphy v. State, 112 S.W.3d 592, 596 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (holding appellant inadequately briefed state constitutional challenge when he failed to argue that the state constitution “provide[d], or should provide, greater or different protection than its federal counterpart”).
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872; Cortez, 543 S.W.3d at 204. An officer has reasonable suspicion if, based on the
totality of the circumstances, he is aware of specific, articulable facts that would
support a reasonable conclusion that the detained person is, has been, or soon will be
engaging in criminal activity. Hardin, 664 S.W.3d at 872; Cortez, 543 S.W.3d at 204;
Stature, 2024 WL 3458078, at *2; Torrez, 490 S.W.3d at 283. Consequently, an officer
necessarily has reasonable suspicion if he observes a person commit a criminal traffic
violation. Baker, 2020 WL 1949012, at *2; Lewis, 2018 WL 1192464, at *2; see Hardin,
664 S.W.3d at 872.
One such traffic violation is the failure to “signal continuously for not less than
the last 100 feet of movement of the vehicle before . . . turn[ing]” right or left. Tex.
Transp. Code § 545.104(b); see Baker, 2020 WL 1949012, at *3 (reiterating that
“[f]ailure to continuously signal a turn at least 100 feet in advance of [a] turn is a
criminal offense in Texas”); Lewis, 2018 WL 1192464, at *2 (similar). And Vega
testified that he witnessed McDonald fail to signal at least 100 feet before turning
right; he estimated that she had activated her turn signal “less than 20 feet” before
turning. This traffic violation alone provided an objective basis for Vega’s reasonable
suspicion to conduct the traffic stop. See Baker, 2020 WL 1949012, at *2–3 (holding
officer had reasonable suspicion based on his witnessing the defendant fail to signal at
least 100 feet before turning); Lewis, 2018 WL 1192464, at *2 (similar, holding officer
had reasonable suspicion based on his witnessing the defendant fail to signal before
turning).
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Indeed, McDonald “does not contest that a violation of this [S]ection of the
Transportation Code, on its own, creates reasonable suspicion” to conduct a traffic
stop. But she argues that (1) the traffic violation was not Vega’s true motivation for
pulling her over and that (2) Vega’s testimony that he saw such violation was not
credible because it conflicted with other evidence in the record.
But the reasonable suspicion analysis is not controlled by the detaining officer’s
motivations—it “is an objective standard that disregards any subjective intent of the
detaining officer and looks solely to whether an objective basis for the stop exists.”
Stature, 2024 WL 3458078, at *2; Baker, 2020 WL 1949012, at *2.
And as for Vega’s credibility, that was for the trial court to decide as “the sole
trier of facts and judge of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given
their testimony.” Stature, 2024 WL 3458078, at *4; Lewis, 2018 WL 1192464, at *2;
Torrez, 490 S.W.3d at 282–83; see Miller v. State, 393 S.W.3d 255, 263 (Tex. Crim. App.
2012) (noting that, “[w]hen there are factual disputes regarding testimony or the
contents of a videotape, the trial court’s findings of historical fact are afforded almost
total deference”). Although McDonald emphasizes Vega’s failure to mention the
turn-signal violation at the time of the stop, failure to document it in his police report,
and failure to fully capture it on his dashboard-camera video, none of these failures
conclusively disproved Vega’s testimony that he saw the traffic violation occur. Cf.
Miller, 393 S.W.3d at 263 (distinguishing between “factual disputes”—which are
entrusted to the trial court’s discretion—and “conclusive evidence”—which a trial
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court has no discretion to reject—such as an “agreed stipulation of evidence or
‘indisputable visual evidence’”). The trial court “observed the demeanor and
appearance of [Vega] and was able to resolve any inconsistencies” in his testimony.8
Stature, 2024 WL 3458078, at *4 (holding trial court did not err in denying suppression
motion and rejecting challenge to officer’s credibility based on inconsistencies in
officer’s report). And the trial court expressly found that, “[t]hough missing the mark
of perfection, . . . Vega’s testimony was credible.”
Because the trial court found that Vega credibly “articulated that he [had]
witnessed th[e turn-signal] offense,” Vega had reasonable suspicion to stop
McDonald, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying McDonald’s
motion to suppress.
We overrule McDonald’s sole issue.
8
McDonald also highlights that Vega estimated she had entered the roadway less than 100 feet before she turned right, “which ma[de] it impossible to abide by Section 545.104(b) of the Transportation Code.” But this is a critique of the statute— not of Vega’s reasonable suspicion that McDonald violated it. See Stature, 2024 WL 3458078, at *3 (noting that the turn-signal requirement in “Section 545.104 does not provide for circumstances in which failing to signal a lane change [or turn] is permissible”); see generally Tex. Transp. Code § 545.104. Moreover, the ultimate question is not “[w]hether . . . [McDonald] committed a traffic violation . . . [but] whether [Vega] had a reasonable suspicion that [she had] committed one.” Torrez, 490 S.W.3d at 285 (emphasis removed); see Stature, 2024 WL 3458078, at *2 (clarifying that “reasonable suspicion does not depend upon showing that an actual offense was committed”).
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IV. Conclusion
Having overruled McDonald’s sole issue, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
See Tex. R. App. P. 43.2(a).
/s/ Bonnie Sudderth
Bonnie Sudderth
Chief Justice
Do Not Publish
Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)
Delivered: September 3, 2026
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