Court Opinion

ID: 9678343
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:17:13.278789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:03.728170
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
The sole issue in this cause is whether this Court should hold under Article I, § 9, of the Constitution of the State of Texas that officers conducting an inventory of an automobile lawfully taken into custody may open closed containers discovered therein, consistent with the rationale justifying inventory “searches” in general.
The Supreme Court of the United States has held that, although the goals of an inventory “search” may be attained by less intrusive means than actually opening closed containers found in car under inventory, the Fourth Amendment does not require a showing that officers failed to use such less intrusive means available so long as they conducted the inventory under police regulations requiring such opening and were not acting in a bad faith effort to obtain incriminating evidence. See, e.g., Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 107 S.Ct. 738, 93 L.Ed.2d 739 (1987).
The opinion written by Judge Baird correctly identifies the issue, but then spends considerable time and space restating that which under Heitman v. State, 815 S.W.2d 681 (Tex.Cr.App.1991), and Richardson v. State, 865 S.W.2d 944 (Tex.Cr.App.1993), is by now settled, as well as providing an elaborate methodology for determining whether this Court is enabled to construe Article I, § 9, differently. Yet when the opinion comes to implement that examination, it basically pronounces at the end that § 9 protects “a privacy interest in closed containers which is not overcome by the general policy considerations underlying an inventory,” that § 9 provides “greater protection than the Fourth Amendment in the context of inventories,” and that the functions of which “can be satisfied by recording the existence of and describing and/or photographing the closed or locked container.” Maj. opinion at 42.
While ultimately the opinion may be right, in my judgment other considerations and much more analysis is necessary before the Court may confidently say so, e.g., a frank assessment of the conclusion by the Supreme Court that least intrusive means are not required, based on positions taken by other state jurisdictions, views of scholarly commentators; defining just what the privacy interest of the individual is in relation to the governmental interest in inventories, and whether assaying those interests against each other is valid methodology to determine whether least intrusive means should be required. Other considerations may well come to mind after further research and upon more mature deliberation than reflected in the majority opinion.
Therefore, I join only the judgment of the Court.