I was able to as they say patch the problem in order to pass inspection. Although there is a few things that dont make much sense.

So we will first start with how i patched it, i ran a wire from the ground of the lights on the drivers side and used that for the lights on the passenger side eliminating the wire that went back to engine compartment for ground for that side. This caused the lights on both sides to work perfectly. And i would agree that it has to be something with the ground but let me explain the weird in the best way i can, maybe someone here can look at it and say yep here is what is wrong.

So the first thing i did was using a digital multimeter i went from the ground of the brake/tail light to the ground of the backup light on the passenger side, zero ohm, ok thats perfect and right in line with what the shop manual says.

So then i went to the driver side performed the same test and got the same result. Perfect again.

So then i went from both grounds on the drivers side to both grounds on the passenger side, again zero ohms perfect.

And finally i connected a wire to the battery negative and tested from that to the 4 points and again got zero ohms. Perfect

Found a note on the one print that says you can tie the grounds together, and this is where it got weird. i ran a wire from the drivers side to the passenger side, when i stepped on the brake the fuse for the brake switch (located at brake pedal) blew, replaced fuse, stepped on brake pedal again, blew again.

This was when i eleiminated the ground wire at the passenger said tail lights and that is when all the lights started working perfectly

I can not explain why the meter says all grounds were good but you tie them together and it blows a fuse that is not even on that circuit or at least i can not seem to find a common correlation to the issue. But either way at least right now it is fixed and working and got the truck thru inspection

 

I'm not knocking your testing skill, you seem to understand pretty well what you're doing and most routines tell you to do what you did. The problem with ohm testing is, there's not test of load carrying ability. A wire as thin as your hair will have 0 ohms, but it has no amperage carrying ability. Isolating the circuit and load testing it with a load at least half of what the wire can handle is ideal. Not always easily done. I use a halogen headlamp as they somewhere in the 5 amp area, safe for most circuits in the automotive world.

You more confirm my thoughts on a bad ground, not that you don't believe it either but you may be getting on track to the location. What occurs on a bad is ground what i refer as a backfeed. You're lights are work, are they working correctly.

Basic explanation
You have your + supply (headlamp switch control) and your - ground in between you have your light. Normal scenario on of head light illuminates no issues
Add brake lights, separate switch control circuit, separate lamp element, same shared ground. headlight switch illuminated tail element, brake switch control illuminates brake element, both return on the same single ground no issues.
Add corroded/broken ground taillight does not work at all, brake switch activated power to the brake element but there's no ground, that voltage from the taillight that is share the ground BEFORE the brake with feed voltage back through the brake element and up to the brake switch to another ground source in the circuit/system. This will cause both lights to illuminate. but at roughly half the normal brightness. or maybe the taillight works fine but it cant handle the load of the brake light also so they go dimmer when the brake light is applied due to that poor ground

Its a little more complicated then that, especially when dealing with all these computer controlled lighting circuits but hopefully you understand what I'm trying to explain is probably going on. When that back feed happens power goes where it can find ground, through computers, switches anything. Backwards though fuses can blow if the amperage exceeds the fuse.

This is why its very common to find a 1-2 amp fuse on the GROUND side of computer modules. In general terms ground has no amperage, but when a backfeed happens you can be getting real amperage through the ground side, this can burn out computers real quick, but s simple 1 amp fuse will isolate the ground side from these threats.