Court Opinion

ID: 9767704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:23:57.747163+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:32.547737
License: Public Domain

DAVIDSON, Judge
(dissenting).
If this conviction is to stand, then the Constitution of the United States and that of this state are meaningless and without force and effect in guaranteeing one against unlawful entry and search of his home.
The deceased, a peace officer, together with other peace officers acting under a search warrant which upon its face authorized them to search appellant’s home for narcotics, forcibly entered his home to execute the warrant. While so doing, appellant killed the deceased.
The undisputed evidence shows that the officers were tres*416passers and were acting wholly without authority of law and in open defiance of constitutional guarantees, because the search warrant under which they made the entry into and search of appellant’s home was wholly void and furnished no protection in law for the unlawful invasion thereof.
The search warrant was void for the following reasons:
1. The statute of this state, Sec. 16 of Art. 727b, Vernon’s P.C., which is the sole authority under the laws of this state authorizing the issuance of a search warrant to search a private residence for narcotics, by authority of which the instant search warrant was issued, is void as being repugnant to and in contravention of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, because said statute authorizes the issuance of a search warrant to search a private residence upon belief only and not upon probable cause.
2. The statute, Sec. 16, supra, is void as being repugnant to and in contravention of Art. 1, Sec. 9, of the Constitution of this state for the same reason which renders it repugnant to the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.
3. The search warrant was issued upon an affidavit made and based entirely upon the belief of the affiant and without any facts or circumstances stated therein evidencing probable cause for the search, as required by the constitutional provisions aforesaid and the statute law of this state, Title 6, Code of Criminal Procedure.
4. Under all the facts and circumstances shown, the entry and search of appellant’s home was in violation of due process of law, as guaranteed by the Constitution of this state and of the United States.
My reasoning supporting the above statements will be found in my dissenting opinion in Phillips v. State, No. 30043, (page 463 this volume), 328 S.W. 2d 873, which I here adopt in so far as it is applicable to the conclusions here expressed.
If I be correct in the above assertions and if the search warrant was void, then it furnished to the deceased and the other peace officers executing it no protection whatsoever from the consequences of an illegal search and entry of appellant’s home and- of his arrest. Reed v. Lucas, 42 Texas, 529.
*417The void search warrant and the evidence obtained thereunder and the use made thereof to convict appellant in this case constitute a denial of due process, which, alone, should reverse this conviction.
I respectfully dissent.