Court Opinion

ID: 9676187
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:17:02.98238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:45.131334
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION
Justice COHEN,
concurring.
In this close case, my vote is tipped towards reversal because:
1. There is a constitutional preference for search warrants, all warrantless searches are presumed to be unreasonable, the burden of proof is on the government to justify warrantless searches, and no place is more entitled to privacy than one’s bedroom.
2. While Yaguas had authority over the apartment’s common areas, no evidence showed his actual authority to permit a search of noncommon areas, such as appellant’s bedroom. Even though the State relied completely on Yaguas’s actual or apparent authority, the State did not present Yaguas’s testimony, did not attempt to do so, and did not explain his absence.
3. The combination of living under the same roof as one’s brother-in-law and leaving one’s bedroom door unlocked and opened does not imply that the brother-in-law has authority to search the bedroom’s hidden recesses or allow the government to do so. See Reynolds v. State, 781 S.W.2d 351, 355 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1989, pet. ref'd) (right to privacy is not lost or delegated to child residents by leaving them briefly in charge of defendant’s home).