Recent Texas appellate rulings worth watching

Texas criminal procedure rarely changes overnight. It shifts in slow waves through appellate opinions, most of which never make the news. Here are a few recent decisions that defense attorneys and defendants should be paying attention to.

Tightening the limits of traffic-stop extensions

Several recent panels have reaffirmed that an officer cannot prolong a traffic stop to wait for a K-9 unit without independent reasonable suspicion. This is consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Rodriguez v. United States, and Texas courts are increasingly willing to suppress evidence that comes from a stop that 'went on too long.'

Habeas relief on ineffective-assistance claims

The Court of Criminal Appeals has granted relief in several writs this year where trial counsel failed to investigate available mitigation or misadvised clients on immigration consequences. The lesson is twofold: the post-conviction door is not closed, and the standard for what counts as effective representation continues to evolve.

Search warrants and digital evidence

Warrants for cell phones, cloud accounts, and connected devices are getting closer judicial scrutiny. Overbroad warrants, the ones that essentially ask for 'everything on the device,' are being narrowed or invalidated more frequently.

None of these rulings rewrite the rulebook. But together they remind us that the line between a lawful search and an unlawful one is being redrawn in real time, one case at a time.