Court Opinion

ID: 9632755
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:24:14.804843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:59:54.563596
License: Public Domain

HUDSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I take exception with the majority’s characterization of the police conduct in this case as “reminiscent of vigilantes.” To the contrary, the police pursued the only prudent course which would at once stabilize a potentially dangerous situation and guarantee the safety of both police officers and civilians. Because the exigent circumstances under which the investigation proceeded justified a protective sweep of appellant’s home, I respectfully dissent.
Law enforcement is a dangerous profession. According to statistics gathered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, over fifty-nine thousand police officers were assaulted in the United States in 1998.1 Sixty-one of these officers died of their injuries. See id. The most hazardous assaults, of course, are those made with firearms. Of the 682 police officers killed in the line of duty from 1989 through 1998, ninety-two percent died from gunshot wounds.2 Moreover, the most likely time of day for an officer to be slain is between 8:01 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. See id. at 5.
Here, the record shows that shortly after midnight on December 30, 1998, police were dispatched to appellant’s home to investigate numerous reports of men “partying, drinking, and discharging firearms into the air.” The gunfire was audible one mile away from the residence. Eight to twelve officers converged upon appellant’s residence where they encountered up to twenty men standing outside two mobile homes. The ground was littered with beer cans and bottles and approximately 100 spent shotgun shells and rifle cartridges. As police entered appellant’s yard, they observed one of the revelers exit a mobile home. Upon seeing the police, he turned and tried to reenter the residence. Police detained the man and immediately entered the home to check for armed suspects.
As they entered the mobile home, the police instantly observed a holster and assorted ammunition on the kitchen counters and in the living room. One of the lower cabinet doors was standing open and four boxes of rifle ammunition, two boxes of pistol ammunition, and a rack of shotgun shells were visible. Proceeding through the home, police discovered a Colt AR15 rifle and a Mossberg pistol grip shotgun— both barrels were hot to the touch. In a bedroom closet, police observed a plastic bag containing the cocaine at issue here.
The Supreme Court has recognized that “in dealing with the rapidly unfolding and often dangerous situations on city streets the police are in need of an escalating set of flexible responses, graduated in relation to the amount of information they possess.” See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9-10, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).
*20When an officer is justified in believing that the individual whose suspicious behavior he is investigating at close range is armed and presently dangerous to the officer or to others, it would appear to be clearly unreasonable to deny the officer the power to take necessary measures to determine whether the person is in fact carrying a weapon and to neutralize the threat of physical harm.
Id. at 24, 88 S.Ct. 1868. As a logical extension of the Terry doctrine, it is now well established that a police officer may, to ensure his safety, search all areas from which an attack could immediately be launched against him so long as he possesses articulable facts that would warrant a reasonably prudent officer in believing the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to him. See Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 334, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990).
Here, the police had good reason to be wary. They were dispatched, late at night, to investigate a disruption involving the frequently lethal combination of firearms and alcohol. Despite a show of force by the police, they still found themselves outnumbered two to one. The lawn litter provided instant confirmation that guns had been repeatedly discharged and much alcohol had been consumed. The police could not know, of course, whether any of the revelers had outstanding warrants, criminal records, violent dispositions, a hatred for law enforcement officers, or weapons on their persons. The police were further discomforted by the appearance of a man exiting one of the mobile homes who, upon seeing the police, tried to immediately reenter the home for an unknown purpose. The man’s intentions could have been innocent, but he could also have been attempting to retrieve a weapon or alert other persons of the police presence.3
In the face of these circumstances, the police pursued the only reasonable course of action. They quickly stabilized the situation by conducting a protective sweep through the mobile homes and ordering all those present to assume a non-threatening posture against a fence until the precise nature of the disturbance could be further determined. While a “protective sweep” is normally incident to an arrest made inside a home, I believe the unusual facts of this case justified the temporary intrusion. Both the United States Supreme Court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals have recognized that, in limited situations, an immediate search without a warrant is reasonable. See Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978); Colburn v. State, 966 S.W.2d 511, 519 (Tex.Crim.App.1998); Brimage v. State, 918 S.W.2d 466, 500 (Tex.Crim.App.1994).4
The majority asks too much of police officers when it insists they should have conducted their investigation in a potentially lethal fire zone that could be swept by one or more armed individuals from inside the mobile homes.5 Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Forward to Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 1998 (supplement to Uniform Crime Reports (1998)).

. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 1998, at 4.

. In 1998, twenty-six percent of the fatal assaults upon police officers occurred while the police were investigating disturbances. See Federal Bureau of Investigation, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 1998, at 29. Ambushes accounted for another sixteen percent of the fatal assaults upon police officers. See id. Here, the police were investigating a disturbance involving firearms where the circumstances rendered them extremely vulnerable to an ambush.

. This exception, known as the Emergency Doctrine, or the Exigent Circumstances Doctrine, allows an immediate, warrantless search where a police officer has reasonable cause to believe that, if the search were delayed to obtain a warrant, serious bodily harm or death might result. See Colburn, 966 S.W.2d at 519. "The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency.” Mincey, 437 U.S. at 392, 98 S.Ct. at 2413.

.The motion to suppress was decided upon opposing affidavits as authorized by Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 28.01, § 1(6) (Vernon *211989). The State submitted the affidavit of Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Joseph Quinn. When describing the circumstances surrounding the discovery of cocaine, Deputy Quinn simply states: "On the shelf in the bedroom closet I observed a clear plastic baggie containing a clear plastic baggie [sic?] containing a white powdery substance believed to be cocaine.”
A "protective sweep” is not a full search of the premises. See Reasor v. State, 12 S.W.3d 813, 816 (Tex.Crim.App.2000). "It extends only to those spaces where a person may be found and may last only so long as necessary to dispel the reasonable suspicion of danger.”
Id. Certainly, a closet is a place where a person might hide. The affidavit does not state whether the cocaine was in plain view on the closet shelf or was discovered after a more intrusive search. However, appellant’s motion to suppress complains only of the entry into the home, not the particular areas searched therein. Moreover, none of the affidavits offered in support of appellant’s motion make any reference to the cocaine, the closet, or the shelf on which it was discovered. Thus, there is nothing in the record to suggest the cocaine was hidden or concealed from view once the closet door was opened.