Case Name: Louis Wallace SMITH, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1974-03-27
Citations: 507 S.W.2d 779
Docket Number: No. 47765
Parties: Louis Wallace SMITH, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 507
Pages: 779–785

Head Matter:
Louis Wallace SMITH, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
No. 47765.
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
March 27, 1974.
Rehearing Denied April 24, 1974.
Melvyn Carson Bruder and Barry P. Helft (Court appointed on appeal only), Dallas, for appellant.
Henry Wade, Dist. Atty., and W. T. Westmoreland, Jr., Asst. Dist. Atty., Dal las, Jim D. Vollers, State’s Atty., and Buddy Stevens, Asst. State’s Atty., Austin, for the State.

Opinion:
OPINION
ODOM, Judge.
Appellant was convicted, in a trial before a jury, of burglary. Punishment, enhanced under the provisions of Article 63, Vernon's Ann.P.C., was assessed at life imprisonment.
Appellant initially contends the trial court erred in admitting over objection in-culpatory statements made to police officers at the time of arrest.
The record reflects that at 2:40 A.M. on December 21, 1971, two Dallas police officers on patrol observed appellant coming out of a hole in the shattered glass door of a service station in Dallas. Appellant fled on foot but was discovered in about twenty minutes lying face down in a nearby creek bed. He was immediately placed under arrest and questioned by one of the officers, without first having been given warnings in accordance with Miranda v. Arizona, 483 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694.
Appellant was asked what he was doing at the gas station, and answered that he was prying on the cigarette machine. This statement was made when appellant was under arrest, had not been warned of his right to remain silent, and was in direct response to questioning by the officer inquiring into the offense. Neither the close juxtaposition in time to the arrest nor the excited, nervous state of appellant can change that fact.
Article 38.22, 1(f), Vernon's Ann.C.C.P., which provides in part:
"Nothing contained herein shall preclude the admissibility . of any statement that is res gestae of the arrest or of the offense,"
is simply not relevant. The statement is not held inadmissible for failure to comply with Article 38.22, supra, but rather for constitutional reasons.
Although it was said in Miles v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 488 S.W.2d 790, that the res gestae rule is independent of, superior to and cannot be limited by the rules relating to confessions or admissions after arrest (see also Jones v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 458 S.W.2d 654; Spann v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 448 S.W.2d 128; Fisk v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 432 S.W.2d 912), the only reasonable reading of this statement is that it refers to statutory and common law rules of evidence regarding the admissibility of confessions. Certainly no one would suggest that the res gestae rule is superior to and cannot be limited by constitutional requirements ! Yet that is precisely what is at issue in this case: the requirements of Miranda and the United States Constitution, not the requirements of Article 38.22, V.A.C.C.P.
Of course it has also been said, in Jones, supra, and elsewhere, that the admission of res gestae statements is not limited by Miranda, supra. In Hill v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 420 S.W.2d 408, for example, it was said:
"Further, we do not interpret the rule laid down in Miranda v. State of Arizona [supra] as excluding res gestae statements such as the one made under the circumstance here described." (Emphasis added.)
Obviously this court was not saying that any statement that is res gestae, regardless of how that rule may be formulated, is admissible regardless of the requirements of Miranda. Quite the contrary, it was held that on the facts of that case Miranda did not require exclusion of the admitted statement. The initial question is not whether the statement is res gestae, but rather, whether Miranda requires exclusion. If Miranda does not require exclusion, then the next question is whether some other rule, such as Article 38.22, supra, will require its exclusion, or such, as res gestae, will permit its introduction. In the instant case, haying concluded that Miranda requires exclusion, the inquiry regarding admissibility ends, and the rule of Article 38.22, 1(f), supra, is of no relevance.
Not having been warned of his rights, the direct and responsive answer to in-custody interrogation was inadmissible.
We further observe that Ricondo v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 475 S.W.2d 793 is not in point. In that case, the deceased, who made the complained of statement, had been beaten for two and a half hours, made the statement within minutes after the beatings ended as soon as he saw he was talking to a guard, and died within an hour after the statement. It was stated that on the facts of that case "This clearly appears to be a statement where the event is speaking through the person rather than the person speaking about the event." By no stretch of the imagination can it be said that in the instant case the event was speaking through the appellant. We do not intend to enshrine or give special significance to this phrase of the event speaking through the person, but it does express well how different the facts in Ricondo, supra, are from those before us here.
Miles v. State, supra, was decided on the basis of Article 38.22, Sec. 1(f), supra, not on Miranda, and specifically stated, "The officer's question was neither leading nor suggestive of an answer."
Additionally, in response to the dissenting opinions, we note that, even if Miranda were not at issue, the challenged statement was not res gestae of the arrest. The closeness in time to an arrest is not alone sufficient to render a statement ref. gestae thereof. If this were so, there would be no need to give Miranda warnings until booking at the station house, and thorough interrogation immediately upon arrest without warnings would be the most likely occasion to obtain admissable oral statements. But answers to interrogation following upon the heels of an arrest are not sufficient to constitute res gestae. "The statement must be the natural and spontaneous outgrowth of the main fact," Hamilton v. State, 138 Tex.Cr.R. 205, 135 S.W.2d 476. But in this case the statement simply was not spontaneous, nor even an unrea-sponsive answer to a non-incriminatory type of question.
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded.
. As to the many rules collected under that one name, see "Custodial Interrogation and Res Gestae under Miranda," 22 Baylor L.Rev. 89 (1970), (4 rules) ; "Res Gestae in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals: A Method To Their Madness?" 50 Texas L.Rev. 119 (1971), (6 rules) ; "A Suggested Classification of Utterances Admissible on Res Gestae," 31 Yale L.J. 229 (1922), (7 rules).
. See tlie facts in Dominquez v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 506 S.W.2d 880 (1974) for a good example of a situation where the statement is res gestae of the arrest. Also, Howell v. State, 171 Tex.Cr.R. 545, 352 S.W.2d 110, is an excellent example of a spontaneous statement made in the absence of any questioning by the officer, and is wholly unlike the facts of the instant ease.