Good Luck With All That

There's a story in tomorrow's Messenger about three twenty-somethings being stopped in Rhome and found to be in possession of marijuana. ("Oh, the humanity!!!!).

If that blurb above is correct, every single one of them should walk away free. You don't have to signal when exiting a highway. An illegal stop means all evidence found as a result of the stop can't be used against them.

But this reminds me of an interesting conversation with a Wise County prosecutor I had a few years back. The law is clear in this case. It's an illegal stop. No question about it. Once the file comes across a prosecutor's desk, should he kill the case or should he file it and hope the defendant comes in without a lawyer and is willing to accept a plea bargain? I think it's a no brainer: He should kill it. After all, that's what a conservative would do who honors the constitution.

Edit: The court case I relied upon is this one.  But the commenters are correct in that I assumed the boys were westbound on 114.  (The turn they would have made if eastbound on 114 is a slight loop but probably would require a turn signal.) But I bet they were westbound since the Rhome cops love that area more.

Edit: Hmmm. It does say southbound access road so they have to be eastbound. Dang it.  But that leaves us with two situations. One (as mentioned above) is the right hand turn at the 114 bridge/287 which puts you on the service road for about 25 yards and then dumps you onto southbound 287 (which is also 114 for about a quarter of a mile.)  Or the Messenger could be talking about the boys being on 287 at that point and then exiting to the right at the "Dallas 114" sign. The first one (probably) requires a turn signal. The second does not.