OPINION
A jury fоund appellant, Pablo Infante Magana, guilty of possession with intent to deliver cocaine, weighing at least 400 grams, and the trial court assessed his punishment at twenty years in prison. We determine (1) whether delay in obtaining a Spanish-speaking officer to explain the consеnt to search form, after appellant was stopped for a traffic offense, rendered appellant’s consent the suppressible fruit of an unlawful detention, and (2) whether prosecutorial argument improperly struck at appellant over the shoulders оf his counsel. We affirm.
Facts
On May 5, 2003, Narcotics Division Officers of the Houston Police Department were conducting surveillance on appellant and his household. Officers observed appellant drive to a gas station in a red Ford Expedition and meet with Angel Alvarez and Misaеl Flores, a confidential informant. After the three men conversed, Alvarez got into appellant’s vehicle and they drove away. Appellant stopped at an audio store, and then drove Alvarez back to the gas station at which they had met. *672 Appellant went tо a drive-through window at a bank before returning home.
Once back at his home, appellant went inside and his wife came outside and began cleaning. Shortly thereafter, appellant emerged from the home, carrying a black trash bag that he deposited into his trash can by the curb. About half an hour later, appellant left the home carrying a maroon knapsack, which he placed in the back of the Expedition before driving away.
Appellant drove to a fast-food restaurant and picked up Alvarez. Appellant then proceeded to the feeder road of highway 59, where Officer Gurley, driving an unmarked police car, observed appellant commit traffic violations, including failing to signal a lane change and making an unsafe lane change. Officer Gurley requested that Officer Arnold, driving a mаrked patrol car, stop appellant’s vehicle for the traffic violations.
Officer Arnold stopped appellant at approximately 3:20 p.m. Officer Arnold asked appellant, in Spanish, to produce his driver’s license. At about 3:25 p.m., Officer Arnold asked appellant, in English, if he would consent to a search of his car. Appellant did not appear to understand. Nevertheless, appellant appeared to be cooperative, so Officer Arnold began filling out a written consent form, one side of which is in Spanish.
Whilе Officer Arnold was still filling out the form, Officer Lerma arrived and took over filling out the consent form. Once Officer Lerma had completed the form, he verbally read the form’s text in Spanish to appellant and advised him that he had a right to refuse consent. After asking appellant if he could read Spanish, and when appellant answered affirmatively, Officer Lerma asked appellant to sign it. Appellant signed the form and stated that he understood what he was doing. The consent to search authorized a search of both appellant’s vehicle and home.
Officer Lerma then conducted a search of the vehicle and recovered the maroon knapsack from the back of the Expedition and examined its contents. Ultimately, it was determined that the knapsack contained four kilograms of cocaine. Plastic wrappers and a hollowed-out drive shaft were recovered in the search of appellant’s home.
Motion to Suppress
In his first point of error, appellant contends that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress because his detention was unconstitutionally prolonged.
A trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress evidence will not be set aside unless there is an abuse of discretion.
Villarreal v. State,
A traffic stop is a detention and must be reasonable.
Davis v. State,
Appellant concedes that his traffic stop was justified when it began and when Officer Arnold requested his driver’s license. Howevеr, appellant argues that the stop became unreasonable when Officer Arnold turned his attention from the traffic stop to acquiring consent to search appellant’s vehicle and home. Appellant urges this Court to hold that it was unreasonable for Officer Arnold to detain him for approximately fifteen minutes while filling out a consent form and waiting for a Spanish-speaking officer to arrive. We disagree with appellant’s characterization of the “prolonged detention” as being 15 minutes while waiting for a Spanish-speaking offiсer to arrive. We agree only that the record shows that the Spanish-speaking officer arrived before Officer Arnold had finished filling out the consent form. More importantly, appellant had not refused to give consent, but appeared to be cooperаtive, albeit not fully understanding the request for consent because of the language barrier.
Logic compels the conclusion that, if an officer may request consent after a completed traffic stop, as long as the person stopped is allowed to go if he rеfuses consent, an officer may certainly request consent during a traffic stop, as long as the stop is not prolonged beyond its normal duration, if he refuses consent. Here, appellant did not refuse consent. We hold that appellant’s consent was not the fruit of an unlawful, prolonged detention.
Appellant relies on
Herrera v. State,
We disagree with the ruling in Herrera for two reasons. First, the Spanish-speaking officer asked Herrera during a lawful *674 traffic stop for consent to search his car and apartment, аnd Herrera gave his consent. Although the Spanish-speaking officer immediately asked for consent upon arriving, his presence was also necessary to complete the initial traffic stop investigation. Neither was the traffic investigation unduly prolonged to obtain сonsent because Herrera readily consented upon being asked. Any further detention was to effectuate the search pursuant to consent. It needed no other justification. Second, the issue is not whether the officer asks for consent in the middle of the stop оr after the stop is complete, but whether the consent was voluntary under all the circumstances.
In
Spight,
this Court specifically refused to adopt a bright-line approach, such as that utilized in
Herrera,
that it is unreasonable per se for an officer to request consent to seаrch after the traffic investigation has concluded.
Spight,
In this case, appellant does not challenge the voluntariness of his consent. Accordingly, we hold that appellant’s consent to search given during a valid traffic stop justified the officer’s search of appellant’s vehicle and seizure of the four kilograms of cocaine.
We overrule appellant’s first point of error.
Jury Argument
In his second point of error, appellant contends that the trial court erred in overruling his objection to the State’s closing argument. Specifically, appellant contends that, by arguing that it was a “coincidence” that the facts of appellant’s testimony amounted to a legal defense, the State implied that defense counsеl had manufactured evidence to create a legal defense and had offered perjured testimony-
The law provides for, and presumes, a fair trial, free from improper argument by the State.
Long v. State,
The State may not use closing argument to strike at a defendant over the shoulders of his counsel or accuse that counsеl of bad faith.
Fuentes v. State,
In the present case, appellant relies on such cases as
Gomez v. State,
We have no disagreement with appellant’s cаses, but significant differences exist between the arguments in the above-cited cases and the argument in this case. Here, the prosecutor’s comments were directed at the veracity of appellant and his defensive theories, not at defense counsel himself. Fоr example, in context, the prosecutor repeatedly asked the jurors what were the odds of appellant’s testimony regarding various defensive theories being true. A prosecutor is allowed to argue that the witnesses in the case are not worthy of belief.
See Satterwhite v. State,
We overrule appellant’s second point of error.
Conclusion
We affirm the judgment of the trial court.