Court Opinion

ID: 9668450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:14:02.993384+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:45.557842
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
Both constitutions that at once authorize governmental action and prohibit infringement of individual freedom and liberties guarantee the right of a citizen to be “secure” in his “effects”1 and “possessions”2 from unreasonable searches and seizures. Axiomatic is the proposition that the guarantees include the requirement that “normally searches of private property be performed pursuant to a search warrant issued in compliance with the Warrant Clause” and, therefore, in the ordinary case “a search of private property must be both reasonable and pursuant to a properly issued search warrant,” Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 758,3 99 S.Ct. 2586, 2590, 61 L.Ed.2d 235 (1979).
That opinion is chosen for its reiteration of “the general principles applicable to *439claims of Fourth Amendment violations,” id. at 757, 99 S.Ct. at 2589, because the purpose stated by Justice Powell for granting writ of certiorari was “to resolve some apparent misunderstanding as to the application of our decision in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977) to warrantless searches of luggage seized from automobiles,” id., at 754, 99 S.Ct. 2588. United States v. Chadwick is, of course, the case from the opinion of which, written by The Chief Justice, the majority here draws much of the underlying rationale for its result in this cause. In Chadwick the reason for taking the case “was to decide whether a search warrant is required before ... [law enforcement] agents may open a locked footlocker which they have lawfully seized at the time of the arrest of its owners, when there is probable cause to believe the footlocker contains contraband,” 433 U.S. at 3, 97 S.Ct. at 2479. Thus, the purpose in writing Sanders and the reason for taking Chadwick — the questions respectively resolved in each — are not presented in the case at bar, which is to say that neither decision controls the conclusion in our case.4
Accordingly, to uphold what happened here requires reliance on some other authoritative theory. In this connection, not at all clear is the factual basis for the legal analysis made by the majority. Its account of statements and movements by appellant and police officers in the theft division office seems to be leading into a demonstration of probable cause to seize and search the purse of appellant and its contents, but then its exposition turns to an exception to the warrant requirement, namely, a search incident to a lawful arrest—though it was “remote in time or place from the arrest,” Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364 at 367, 84 S.Ct. 881 at 883, 11 L.Ed.2d 777 (1964).
It is that remoteness in time and place that the majority does not come to grips with. Rather, its analysis starts with the *440uncontroverted propositions that the arrest of appellant at the scene was lawful and that a warrantless search incident to an initial arrest is likewise lawful, but it then applies constitutional principles it reads into certain opinions of the Supreme Court— principles that in my judgment are not there — to the situs of the theft division room in the station house, as if the players are still at the scene of the offense. My own examination of the overall situation and reading of the authorities reject that analysis.
Appellant was apprehended and arrested upon probable cause to believe she had committed theft of a steak and a bottle of bath oil.5 Early on, however, it was held that the predecessor to Article 18.16, V.A.C.C.P. (Article 325, C.C.P., 1925), as a “general” statute, did not control the more specific ones regulating searches and only permitted a search “contemporaneously with a legal arrest,” Davis v. State, 113 Tex.Cr.R. 421, 21 S.W.2d 509, 511 (1929); see also Stevens v. State, 159 Tex.Cr.R. 247, 262 S.W.2d 716 (1953);6 cf. Adams v. State, 137 Tex.Cr.R. 43, 128 S.W.2d 41, 44 (1939). Thus, the search of her purse made at the scene of the arrest — fruits of which were not introduced in this case — is not contested. That search of her purse and retrieval of the stolen items not only terminated probable cause for any further search of the purse but it also coincidentally satisfied the twin rationales for any search of it incident to her arrest.7 Accordingly, at the time she was removed from the scene the arresting officer had used up his entitlement to search appellant and her effects or possessions. Compare Texas v. White, 423 U.S. 67, 96 S.Ct. 304, 46 L.Ed.2d 209 (1975).
The search of her purse at the station house, not being contemporaneous with it, was “simply not incident to the arrest” back at the scene. Preston v. United States, supra, 364 U.S. at 367, 84 S.Ct. at 883; Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 591, n. 7, 94 S.Ct. 2464, 2470 n. 7, 41 L.Ed.2d 325 (1974), and the majority err in extending the search incident doctrine from one part of town to another, and then in struggling to determine whether a purse, abstractly, is to be pigeonholed with luggage, under Chadwick and Sanders, or with “items immediately associated with the person” of the accused.8
*441Although she may have had an option, appellant took the purse with her to the station house where surely she would be booked and confined pending release on bail or other proceedings.9 A justifiable intrusion upon her right generally to liberty and freedom of movement had been perfected and her expectation of privacy in the contents of her purse had already been invaded once. Whatever vestiges of privacy remained would soon be lost through routine property inventory preceding confinement. In this thoroughly different context of a state of detention, the officers were entitled to do some of that which was shortly to be effectuated. United States v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800, 804-805, 94 S.Ct. 1234, 39 L.Ed.2d 771 (1974):
“... With or without probable cause, the authorities were entitled at that point not only to search Edward’s clothing but also to take it from him and keep it in official custody.... [Tjhis was the standard practice in this city. * * * The police did no more ... than they were entitled to incident to the usual custodial arrest and incarceration.”
See Pulido v. State, 503 S.W.2d 578, 581 (Tex.Cr.App.1974); Haley v. State, 480 S.W.2d 644, 645 (Tex.Cr.App.1972); see also Korn v. State, 402 S.W.2d 730 (Tex.Cr.App.1966); Johnson v. State, 597 S.W.2d 441 (Tex.Cr.App.1965). Though these cases involved a prebooking inspection, followed by search and seizure, of items of personal apparel being worn by the detainee, the principles that permit those actions also apply to any corporeal property on or about the person, such as a purse, not because it is “immediately associated with the person of the arrestee,” but since it is to accompany the detainee into confinement or be inventoried and held as personal property during confinement. Such is the direct holding in an almost identical fact situation by the courts in Bullwinkle v. California, 105 Cal.App.3d 82,164 Cal.Rptr. 163, 166-167 (Calif. Ct.App.1980), the appeal from which was recently dismissed by the Supreme Court of the United States for want of a substantial federal question, 28 CrL 4131 — that being, of course, a disposition of the case on its merits.10
So, instead of deciding, presumably for all times, that a purse is “immediately associated with the person of the arrestee”— something the Supreme Court has not yet determined — I would uphold what happened here on the Bullwinkle doctrine that the Supreme Court has approved. Thus, not at all for the reasons espoused by the majority, I concur in the judgment of the Court.11

. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides in pertinent part:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause ... and particularly describing ... the persons or things to be seized.”
(All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.)

. Article I, § 9, of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the State of Texas is similar yet interestingly different in some respects:
“The people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from all unreasonable seizures or searches, and no warrant ... to seize any person or thing, shall issue without describing them as near as may be, nor without probable cause...”

.Accordingly, the Supreme Court added, “The mere reasonableness of a search, assessed in the light of the surrounding circumstances, is not a substitute for the judicial warrant..

. The question presented by grant of certiorari in Chadwick was limited to substantially what was stated by The Chief Justice as the reason for taking the case, quoted above; see Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 7, n.3, 97 S.Ct. at 2481 n.3. The answer to the question was given at the conclusion of part (3) of the opinion: “There being no exigency, it was unreasonable for the Government to conduct this search without the safeguards a judicial warrant provides,” id. at 11, 97 S.Ct. at 2483. The remainder of the opinion, part (4), addressed and rejected a Government contention that the rationale of the “automobile exception” was applicable to luggage because of its analogous mobility and, in addition, the Government argument that the search was reasonable “because the footlocker was seized contemporaneously with respondents’ arrests and was searched as soon thereafter as was practicable.” It was while discussing the latter argument that the “explanation” excerpted by the majority opinion herein was made. Essentially, then, that part of the opinion of the Supreme Court is simply a rebuttal, invoking principles established in prior cases, and as such is more dicta innocuously stated than a reasoned holding of Fourth Amendment law. Indeed, though the opinion took no explicit note of the dissenting opinion of Justice Blackmun who, quoting from United States v. Robinson much like the majority here, “would hold that a warrant is not required to seize and search any movable property in the possession of a person properly arrested in a public place,” 433 U.S. at 18-19, 97 S.Ct. at 2487, manifestly the Supreme Court did not agree, nor so hold.
So also the holding in Sanders to dispel apparent misunderstanding of Chadwick is stated at 442 U.S. 766, 99 S.Ct. at 2594:
“In sum, we hold that the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment applies to personal luggage taken from an automobile to the same degree as it applies to such luggage in other locations. Thus, insofar as the police are entitled to search luggage without a warrant, their actions must be justified under some exception to the warrant requirement other than that applicable to automobiles stopped on the highway. Where — as in the present case — the police, without endangering themselves or risking loss of the evidence, lawfully have detained one suspected of criminal activity and secured his suitcase, they should delay the search thereof until after judicial approval has been obtained. In this way, constitutional rights of suspects to prior judicial review of searches will be fully protected.”
Along the way, in note 11, at 442 U.S. 764, 99 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538, to delineate just what it was about, the Supreme Court pointed out:
“Nor do we consider the constitutionality of searches of luggage incident to the arrest of its possessor. See, e.g., United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973).”

. It is assumed but not decided that this statutory grant of authority to prevent the consequences of theft does not condition its exercise upon the degree of the offense with respect to punishment. See Lewis v. State, 598 S.W.2d 280, 284 (Tex.Cr.App.1980).

. The interesting contention by the dissenting member that old Article 325, supra, authorized issuance of a search warrant to seize stolen property failed to carry the day.

. Therefore, not raised here is the question of an on-the-scene search of the purse solely incident to arrest of appellant, and we need not decide it. The majority implies at page 2 of its opinion that a warrantless “search incident” of the purse was permissible in that it was an “object ... immediately associated with the person” of appellant, citing only United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973). But that problem was neither presented nor resolved in Robinson for the only search done there was “a full search of the person” of Robinson, a purseless male, as language in the opinion makes as plain, i.e., 414 U.S. at 221-222, n. 2; 224; 225; 229, 94 S.Ct. at 470-471, n. 2; 471; 472; 474, as its actual holding at 235 that “in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a ‘reasonable’ search under that Amendment.” Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U.S. 260, 94 S.Ct. 488, 38 L.Ed.2d 456 (1973), decided the same day, reiterates that quoted holding of Robinson and goes on to conclude, “We hold, therefore, that upon arresting petitioner for the offense ... and taking him into custody, Smith was entitled to make a full search of petitioner’s person incident to that lawful arrest.” Gustafson was a male, without a purse.
Furthermore, in each case the search of the person of each arrestee was conducted contemporaneously with and at the scene of the arrest — not a place and time remote from it. Here, after he took custody of appellant in the office of the store manager, the arresting officer did not indicate any interest whatsoever in her purse. Against her pleas for private settlement of the matter he transported her to the station house, explaining that “standard procedure” dictated he must take her in.

.In this connection, the majority selectively quotes from Arkansas v. Sanders to characterize luggage, unlike a purse, as “repository for personal items when one wishes to transport them.” However, I believe, with Judge Van *441Graafeiland and the Second Circuit in U. S. v. Markland, 635 F.2d 174, 28 CrL 2337 (CA2, 1980), that a given container may or may not be like “a suitcase, briefcase, purse, or similar repository of personal effects ‘inevitably associated with the reasonable expectation of privacy,’ see Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. at 762, 99 S.Ct. at 2592.” The phrase is taken from Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 13, 97 S.Ct. at 2484: “... [L]uggage is intended as a repository of personal effects,” with respect to which expectations of privacy normally inhere. The critical point is that the principal privacy interest attaches to the contents more than to their repository, as is made clear by Chadwick, supra, in note 8, at 13-14, 97 S.Ct. at 2484, 2485.

. A male, said to be her boyfriend, had intervened on her behalf in the manager’s office; once it was made clear that appellant was to be taken in there is nothing in the record to suggest she could not have turned her purse over to the boyfriend.

. Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 344, 95 S.Ct. 2281, 2289, 45 L.Ed.2d 223 (1977).

. The instant offense occurred November 8, 1979 — well after the Controlled Substances Act had been effectively amended to designate “cocaine” as one. See Crowl v. State, 611 S.W.2d 59 (Tex.Cr.App.1980).