Case Name: Jim Dwain MORGAN and William Albert Martin, Appellants, v. The STATE of Texas, State
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1995-08-31
Citations: 906 S.W.2d 620
Docket Number: Nos. 2-93-013-CR, 2-93-014-CR
Parties: Jim Dwain MORGAN and William Albert Martin, Appellants, v. The STATE of Texas, State.
Judges: Before RICHARDS, LATTIMORE and DAUPHINOT, JJ.
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 906
Pages: 620–635

Head Matter:
Jim Dwain MORGAN and William Albert Martin, Appellants, v. The STATE of Texas, State.
Nos. 2-93-013-CR, 2-93-014-CR.
Court of Appeals of Texas, Fort Worth.
Aug. 31, 1995.
Rehearing Overruled Oct. 19, 1995.
David Greenhaw, Odessa, for appellant.
Patrick J. Fleming, Jennifer Setser Ry-mell, Weatherford, for appellee.
Before RICHARDS, LATTIMORE and DAUPHINOT, JJ.

Opinion:
OPINION
RICHARDS, Justice.
Appellants Jim Dwain Morgan and William Albert Martin appeal their convictions in a joint trial by a jury for the offense of possession of marihuana weighing less than two ounces.
Three arguments are advanced on appeal: (1) the trial court erred in not suppressing evidence and allowing its admission at trial; (2) the trial court submitted an improper jury instruction; and (3) the jury selection did not comply with the Texas Government Code.
We affirm.
The critical question presented in appellants' first point of error is whether article I, section 9 of the Texas Constitution provides greater protection than the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution in the context of a police officer's entry into a passenger compartment of a vehicle to gain access to its Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). This case involves a search by a law enforcement officer for the VIN located in the doorjamb of appellants' pickup truck. The testimony established that Texas Department of Public Safety Sergeant Bill Cooper, following a routine traffic stop for a speeding violation, opened the door of the pickup truck in which appellants were traveling, without their consent, in an attempt to obtain the VIN. Sergeant Cooper's action followed his unsuccessful attempt to read the only partially visible VIN located on the dashboard of the pickup.
Appellants contend their rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 9 of the Texas Constitution were violated, and that the trial court erred in failing to suppress the fruit of an unlawful search.
The Fourth Amendment bars only unreasonable searches and seizures. The reasonableness inquiry is driven by a balancing of "the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion." New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 118, 106 S.Ct. 960, 968, 89 L.Ed.2d 81, 93 (1986) (quoting United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 703, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 2642, 77 L.Ed.2d 110, 118 (1983)).
The Supreme Court's plurality opinion in New York v. Class, 475 U.S. at 106, 106 S.Ct. at 960, 89 L.Ed.2d at 81, controls appellants' claimed Fourth Amendment violation. In Class, officers lawfully stopped a vehicle for traffic violations, following which the driver exited the car. While the driver was talking with one officer, the other officer went to the car to record the VIN to complete the traffic citation. When he did not find the VIN on the doorjamb, he reached into the interior of the car to move some papers obscuring the area on the dashboard where the VIN is located on later model cars. As he did so, the officer saw the handle of a gun protruding from under the front seat. The officer arrested the driver and charged him with criminal possession of a firearm.
The Supreme Court agreed with the New York Court of Appeals that the officer's intrusion into the interior of the car constituted a search. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruled the search was reasonable. The Court held the government's interest in requiring and obtaining the VIN is "of the first order," and noted federal law requires that the VIN be placed in plain view. Class, 475 U.S. at 111, 106 S.Ct. at 964, 89 L.Ed.2d at 88. The Court specifically held the occupants of a ear do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in either the VIN located on the dashboard or interior doorjamb when stopped for a traffic violation, and issued what appears to be a bright-line rule authorizing a limited search for the doorjamb-mounted VIN whenever the VIN on the dashboard is obscured:
In this case, we must decide whether, in order to observe a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) generally visible from outside an automobile, a police officer may reach into the passenger compartment of a vehicle to move papers obscuring the VIN after its driver has been stopped for a traffic violation and has exited the car. We hold that, in these circumstances, the police officer's action does not violate the Fourth Amendment.
. We hold that this search was sufficiently unintrusive to be constitutionally permissible in light of the lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy in the VIN and the fact that the officers observed respondent commit two traffic violations. Any other conclusion would expose police officers to potentially grave risks without significantly reducing the intrusiveness of the ultimate conduct — viewing the VIN— which, as we have said, the officers were entitled to do as part of an undoubtedly justified traffic stop.
We note that our holding today does not authorize police officers to enter a vehicle to obtain a dashboard-mounted VIN when the VIN is visible from outside the automobile. If the VIN is in the plain view of someone outside the vehicle, there is no justification for governmental intrusion into the passenger compartment to see it.
Class, 475 U.S. at 107, 119, 106 S.Ct. at 962, 968-69, 89 L.Ed.2d at 86, 94.
We find this language as indicating the Court intended to issue a bright-line rule. This interpretation finds additional support in light of Justice Powell's concurring opinion:
I join in the Court's opinion but write to emphasize that, because of the unique and important governmental interests served by inspection of the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), an officer making a lawful stop of a vehicle has the right and duty to inspect the VIN. Where the VIN is not visible from outside the vehicle or voluntarily disclosed by the driver, the officer may enter the vehicle to the extent necessary to read the VIN.
Id. at 120, 106 S.Ct. at 969, 89 L.Ed.2d at 94 (Powell, J. concurring).
Justice Brennan dissented on this issue, reasoning that congressional laws requiring manufacturers of automobiles to include VINs at various locations should, in no way, control an appellate court's Fourth Amendment analysis. Id. at 124, 106 S.Ct. at 971, 89 L.Ed.2d at 97. As noted in Justice Latti-more's dissent in the instant case, Justice Brennan makes a powerful argument as to why the Fourth Amendment should be held to prohibit police conduct such as that occurring in the instant ease. While it is tempting to find Justice Brennan's thoughtful analysis to be correct, as a lower appellate court we must be ever mindful that we are constrained to follow the law as decided by the Supreme Court, without regard to our own personal views. Given the Supreme Court's ruling in Class addressing this very issue, we hold there was no Fourth Amendment violation in the instant case.
We now turn to whether the Texas Constitution affords additional protections than that afforded by the Fourth Amendment. In Autran v. State, 887 S.W.2d 31 (Tex.Crim.App.1994), the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals determined that the Texas Constitution provides greater protection than does its federal counterpart in the area of police inventory searches of closed containers found in automobile searches. Among the factors considered by the court of criminal appeals and listed as helpful, though not dispositive: (a) textual examination of the constitutional provisions; (b) the Framers' intent; (c) history and application of the constitutional provision; (d) comparable jurisprudence from other states; and (e) the practical policy considerations behind the constitutional provision. Id. at 37.
The first factor — textual examination of the constitutional provisions — shows only slight grammatical differences in what otherwise appears to be identical guarantees. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.
U.S. Const, amend. IV.
Article I, section 9 of the Texas Constitution states:
The people shall be secure in their persons, papers and possessions, from all unreasonable seizures or searches, and no warrant to search any place, or to seize any person or thing, shall issue without describing them as near as may be, nor without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation.
Tex. Const, art. I, § 9.
We find no discernable difference between the rights guaranteed in each respective provision as they relate to the issue presented in this appeal. As to the second and third factors — the Framers' intent and the history and application of constitutional provisions— we similarly find no discernable differences in either intent or historical application. See Matthew W. Paul and Jeffrey L. Van Horn, Heitman v. State: The Question Left Unanswered, 23 St. Maey's L.J. 929, 936 (1992). As to the third factor — comparable jurisprudence from other states — we note that in the nine years following the Supreme Court's decision in Class, no state appellate court has pronounced its constitution affords more protection than the Fourth Amendment concerning police searches for VINs.
We are left then with only the question of the practical policy considerations for dispa rate treatment of the two constitutional provisions.
A state appellate court's mere disagreement with a Supreme Court's ruling on an issue of constitutional law is not a sufficient ground to "find" a state constitutional protection. We recognize that the public in general and law enforcement personnel in particular, would be ill served by "Balkanization" of rules of law. In McGambridge v. State, 778 S.W.2d 70, 75-76 (Tex.Crim.App.1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 910, 110 S.Ct. 1936, 109 L.Ed.2d 299 (1990), the court of criminal appeals noted that consistency is the objective of any legal standard and that by establishing "conclusive rule[s] . immune from the vagaries that invariably accompany diverse factual encounters," law enforcement authorities are provided with distinct and definable boundaries beyond which they cannot legitimately venture. Id. at 76. Therefore, while we may personally disagree with the Supreme Court's determination that following a legitimate traffic stop a police officer may "search" the doorjamb of an automobile if the VIN on the dashboard is obscured, thereby opening to inspection areas of the car not otherwise open to public view (or smell), we cannot deny that in Class, the Supreme Court has unequivocally pronounced such searches reasonable. Having found no compelling rationale on which to justify interpreting the Texas Constitution as providing any greater protection than our federal constitution in the area of law enforcement searches to locate VINs, we overrule point of error one.
In point of error two, appellants complain that the trial court erred in advising the jurors, in its written jury instructions, that a police officer has the right to open the door of a vehicle to obtain the VIN if the VIN located on the dashboard is obscured. The instruction at issue provided:
Now, therefore, bearing in mind the foregoing instructions, if you find from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the motor vehicle in question was stopped by the officer in a bona fide stop for a traffic offense or, for a reasonable suspicion that the driver was driving while intoxicated, and that during the temporary detention and investigation for said suspected driving while intoxicated offense or traffic offense, the motor vehicle identification number in the dash area of the vehicle was in fact obscured, and that officer Cooper opened the vehicle door to obtain the motor vehicle identification number and did smell the odor or marijuana coming from the interior of the vehicle, or after so opening said door, was given consent by the owner of the vehicle, then you may consider the evidence obtained by the search of the vehicle. However, if you do not so find beyond a reasonable doubt or if you have a doubt that officer Cooper's view of the motor vehicle identification number was obscured or that he smelled the odor of marijuana, or that if he did not smell the odor of marijuana, that he was not given consent to search the vehicle by the owner, then you will wholly disregard all evidence recovered in the search of the vehicle, and not consider it as any evidence whatsoever.
Appellant argues "it was up to the jury, under Article 38.23, to determine whether the officer should be allowed to view a VIN number." We disagree.
Article 38.23 states that if an issue is raised regarding whether evidence was legally obtained, the trial court must instruct the jury that if it believes, or has a reasonable doubt, that the evidence was obtained legally, then it shall disregard such evidence obtained. A defendant is entitled to this request only when the evidence presented raises an issue of fact as to probable cause, or some other issue, such as consent to search. Tex.Code CRIM.PROC.Ann. art. 38.23(a) (Vernon Supp.1995); Reynolds v. State, 848 S.W.2d 148 (Tex.Crim.App.1993). Pursuant to article 38.23, the trial judge in the instant case, in pertinent part, instructed the jurors that if they believed the VIN in the area of the dashboard was partially obscured and that the officer opened the door to obtain the VIN contained therein, the evidence obtained as a result of the search could be considered.
As discussed in the previous point of error, in Class, the Supreme Court ruled that, as a matter of law, a police officer was entitled to search the doorjamb if the VIN on the dash board is not visible from outside the automobile:
The VIN, which was the clear initial objective of the officer, is by law present in one of two locations — either inside the doorjamb, or atop the dashboard and thus ordinarily in plain view of someone outside the automobile. Neither of those locations is subject to a reasonable expectation of privacy. The officer here checked both those locations, and only those two locations....
We note that our holding today does not authorize police officers to enter a vehicle to obtain a dashboard-mounted VIN when the VIN is visible from outside the automobile. If the VIN is in the plain view of someone outside the vehicle, there is no justification for governmental intrusion into the passenger compartment to see it.
Class, 475 U.S. at 118-19,106 S.Ct. at 968, 89 L.Ed.2d at 98-94.
Given the Supreme Court's pronouncement that a search by a police officer of the doorjamb of an automobile for a VIN during a traffic stop is reasonable unless the VIN is not visible from the outside of the automobile, the trial court's jury instruction was proper.
Point of error two is overruled.
In point of error three, appellants complain the jury array in their ease was drawn only from lists of registered voters rather than citizens of the county holding valid Texas drivers' licenses or personal identification cards.
The record reflects the potential jurors for the new term of court beginning January 1, 1993, were drawn from a jury wheel on December 10,1992. At that time, Parker County did not have a certified list of potential jurors as required under section 62.001 of the Texas Government Code. The computer tape listing the potential jurors was received by Parker County from the Secretary of State; however, the tape was rejected by the district judge because it was not certified by the Secretary of State. Tex.Gov't Code Ann. § 62.001(g) (Vernon Supp.1995). The new properly certified tape was not tendered to Parker County in time to draw the names of the prospective jurors from the citizens of the county who held valid Texas drivers' licenses or personal identification cards before the new term of court.
Appellants' challenge to the jury panel was not supported by written affidavit as required by article 35.07 of the Texas Code Criminal Procedure. In addition, appellants did not set forth in writing the specific grounds for the challenge. Under controlling case authority from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, we are required to hold this issue has not been preserved for appellate review. Esquivel v. State, 595 S.W.2d 516, 523 (Tex.Crim.App.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 986, 101 S.Ct. 408, 66 L.Ed.2d 251 (1980).
Had the issue been preserved we would still be constrained to rule against appellants. In order to be entitled to a reversal for noncomplianee with the jury selection procedures set forth in the Texas Government Code an appellant must show that the noncompliance compromised the fairness of his trial. Lewis v. State, 815 S.W.2d 560, 563 (Tex.Crim.App.1991), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 920, 112 S.Ct. 1296, 117 L.Ed.2d 519 (1992). Appellants do not complain the noncompliance compromised the fairness of the guilt/innocence stage of the trial. Instead, admitting no evidence in the record supports their theory of harm, appellants argue it is "unlikely" a cross-section of all the persons in Parker County holding drivers' licenses would have assessed the punishments assessed in their cases: 120 days' confinement and a fine of $1,500.00 for appellant Morgan and twenty-one days and a fine of $500.00 for appellant Martin. We find that theory far too speculative to convince us that the noncompliance compromised the fairness of the trial. Finally, we note appellants failed to show they were forced to accept objectionable jurors, a prerequisite for a demonstration of harm. Esquivel, 595 S.W.2d at 523.
Point of error three is overruled and the trial court's judgments are affirmed.
. In New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), in acknowledging that its bright-line decision that the passenger compartment of a vehicle and any containers found therein could he searched if such search was incident to the lawful arrest of the occupant, would apply to fact situations beyond that specifically addressed in that case, the Court noted the importance of formulating a clear rule of law so as to apprise police officers of the scope of their authority.
In her dissenting opinion Justice Dauphinot suggests our opinion improperly "assumes a compelling governmental interest in revealing the VIN" and does not discuss a "less intrusive means" of discovering the VIN. We believe the Supreme Court's opinion in Class, which provided a clear rule authorizing such searches, addressed both concerns. Under the rule set forth in Class, there is no requirement for an officer to request the passenger in the vehicle to move the obstruction from the driver's side dashboard. Moreover, we note that were we empowered to modify the Supreme Court's ruling so as to require a police officer, prior to inspecting the doorjamb VIN, to first request any passenger in the car to clear the dashboard VIN, such a rule would have no clear application in the instant case. That is because the "seizure" of which appellants complain is the odor of the marihuana emanating from the interior of the vehicle following the opening of the car door to inspect the VIN. Had the officer asked the passenger to roll the window down and then requested him to remove the obstruction of the VIN on the other side of the car, the result would have been the same — the odor, no doubt, would have escaped from the window. Appellants do not contest that once the officer smelled the marihuana, he lacked probable cause to search the car.