COURT OF APPEALS

SECOND DISTRICT OF TEXAS

FORT WORTH

NO. 02-11-00357-CR

DILLON MICHAEL ERCK APPELLANT

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS STATE

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FROM THE 43RD DISTRICT COURT OF PARKER COUNTY

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MEMORANDUM OPINION1

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After the trial court denied Appellant Dillon Michael Erck’s pretrial motion to 

suppress, he pleaded guilty, pursuant to a plea bargain, to the first-degree felony 

offense of possession of a controlled substance, gamma hydroxybutyric acid, in 

the amount of 200 grams or more but less than 400 grams. See Tex. Health & 

Safety Code Ann. §§ 481.102(9), .115(e) (West 2010). The trial court sentenced 

him to ten years’ confinement and a $2,000 fine, but the court suspended the 

 

1See Tex. R. App. P. 47.4.
2

confinement portion of Erck’s sentence and placed him on community 

supervision for ten years. In a single point, Erck challenges the denial of his 

motion to suppress. We will affirm.

Police officers received an anonymous tip that the occupants of a duplex in 

Weatherford were possessing and using marijuana. The tipster gave officers the 

duplex’s location and description and the license plate number for a “suspect 

vehicle” at the residence. Officers confirmed the identity of the occupants—Erck 

and two other males—the location of the home, and the presence of the vehicle. 

Officers also collected a black plastic bag of trash that had been set out for 

garbage collection on the curb in front of the duplex. Officers found two small 

plastic baggies containing a useable amount of marijuana and mail addressed to 

the duplex’s address inside the trash bag. Officers obtained a search warrant 

that day and, upon executing the warrant, found a plastic baggie of marijuana 

and gamma-hydroxybutyric acid. 

Erck filed a motion to suppress, arguing that the search warrant was not

supported by probable cause. At the suppression hearing, the State introduced 

in evidence the search warrant, the supporting affidavit, and the officer’s return 

and inventory. Erck argued at the hearing that the anonymous tip combined with

a single trash search was insufficient to support probable cause. 

Erck’s argument on appeal is that “he had an expectation of privacy in the 

contents of the seized trash bag, such that the trial court’s ruling on the 
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suppression issue was legally incorrect.” This argument does not comport with 

the argument he made to the trial court.

A reviewing court should not address the merits of an issue that has not 

been preserved for appeal. Wilson v. State, 311 S.W.3d 452, 473 (Tex. Crim. 

App. 2010) (op. on reh’g). To preserve a complaint for our review, a party must 

have presented to the trial court a timely request, objection, or motion that states 

the specific grounds for the desired ruling if they are not apparent from the 

context of the request, objection, or motion. Tex. R. App. P. 33.1(a)(1); Lovill v. 

State, 319 S.W.3d 687, 691–92 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009). Error, if any, in the 

admission of evidence allegedly obtained as a result of an illegal search and 

seizure is waived if a proper objection is not made at the time the evidence is 

introduced. Dinkins v. State, 894 S.W.2d 330, 355 (Tex. Crim. App.), cert. 

denied, 516 U.S. 832 (1995). 

Here, Erck did not assert his expectation-of-privacy argument in his 

suppression motion, at the suppression hearing, or in his brief to the trial court 

that he filed after the hearing.

2

In his motion, Erck generally asserted violations 

of his constitutional and statutory rights “under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and 

Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 9 of 

the Texas Constitution, and under Article 38.23 of the Texas Code of Criminal 

Procedure,” but as the court of criminal appeals has held, arguments that are 

 

2At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court asked both sides to provide 

briefing on the suppression issue. 
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global in nature and contain little more than citation to constitutional and statutory 

provisions do not preserve error. See Swain v. State, 181 S.W.3d 359, 365 (Tex. 

Crim. App. 2005), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 861 (2006); see also Resendez v. State, 

306 S.W.3d 308, 313 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (stating that suppression motion’s 

citation to article 38.22 insufficient to preserve for appeal the specific violation of 

a subsection of article 38.22 claimed by appellant on appeal). Erck focused

specifically on the alleged lack of probable cause in his motion and post-hearing 

brief and in his arguments at the suppression hearing. The trial court’s findings 

of fact and conclusions of law did not address any expectation of privacy 

associated with the trash bags. Because Erck’s appellate argument was not 

preserved at the trial level, we overrule his sole point.3 See Tex. R. App. P. 

33.1(a)(1); Swain, 181 S.W.3d at 365. We affirm the trial court’s judgment

PER CURIAM

PANEL: WALKER, MCCOY, and GABRIEL, JJ.

 

3

Furthermore, Erck concedes on appeal that the Supreme Court’s opinion 

in California v. Greenwood controls this case and supports the trial court’s ruling, 

but he argues that we should nonetheless reconsider this issue. See 486 U.S. 

35, 40, 108 S. Ct. 1625, 1628–29 (1988) (holding that Fourth Amendment

protection not implicated in search of garbage left on curb for trash collector 

because a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in those 

items). Even if we were to reach the merits of Eric’s complaint, we are bound by 

the Supreme Court’s holding in Greenwood. See State v. Guzman, 959 S.W.2d 

631, 633 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998) (explaining that when we decide cases involving 

the United States Constitution, we are bound by United States Supreme Court 

case law interpreting it).
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DO NOT PUBLISH

Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)

DELIVERED: November 1, 2012