Following a jury trial, Rudy Pincherli appeals his conviction of trafficking in cocaine,1 contending that 1 the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict, 2 the trial court erroneously denied his motion to suppress in light of an allegedly unlawful detention and search during a traffic stop, and 3 the trial court erroneously charged the jury as to a the definition of trafficking, b the jury’s consideration of evidence of the defendant’s statements, and c the form of the verdict. Discerning no reversible error, we affirm. “On appeal from a criminal conviction, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to support the verdict, and the defendant no longer enjoys a presumption of innocence; moreover, an appellate court determines evidence sufficiency and does not weigh the evidence or determine witness credibility.” Punctuation omitted. Eady v. State .2 So viewed, the record shows that in January 2002, a sheriff’s deputy spotted Pincherli on Interstate 20 driving very closely to the vehicle in front of him. The deputy executed a traffic stop and, upon approaching Pincherli’s vehicle, noticed that Pincherli was nervous, breathing hard, and shaking, with his neck visibly pulsing. The deputy also noticed that Pincherli’s vehicle, a Dodge pickup truck, had a Texas license plate on the rear, but not on the front, which he found unusual since he correctly believed that Texas law required a front plate. See Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 502.404 a 2002. The deputy informed Pincherli why he had been pulled over and requested Pincherli’s driver’s license and registration; Pincherli produced his license and the vehicle’s insurance information.
The deputy asked how much longer he had to drive and Pincherli answered “four hours.” The deputy then told Pincherli to wait as he returned to his patrol car and radioed for backup, which arrived in three to four minutes. As the deputy waited, he asked Pincherli to step outside of his truck, inquiring as to who owned the truck, because the insurance information did not match Pincherli’s license. Pincherli explained that he was not the owner of the truck. The second deputy arrived, and after the first deputy confirmed that Pincherli understood why he had been stopped, they asked Pincherli for consent to search the truck. After Pincherli said “go ahead,” the second deputy asked again in Spanish, and Pincherli again said “go ahead.”
