Court Opinion

ID: 9647236
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:27:46.821855+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:46.830513
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge
(dissenting).
The writer is of the opinion that the officers had probable cause to believe that the truck was stolen and that the search was not unreasonable.
Appellant’s sole ground of error is that the court erred in admitting the marihuana obtained from the search. He contends that it was obtained as a result of an illegal warrantless search and seizure in the absence of probable cause and exigent circumstances and in violation of the applicable provisions of the United States Constitution and the laws of Texas.
The record of the evidence at the hearing on appellant’s motion to suppress was admitted by stipulation as evidence at the trial. The police report filed in the case was also admitted into evidence. All evidence was admitted subject to the appellant’s objection.
At about 2:30- a. m. on the morning of Friday, August 31, 1973, Officers Frank Robinson and Stanley Oldham of the Texas Department of Public Safety established a roadblock on Interstate 35 south of New Braunfels. The purpose of the roadblock was to locate escapees from the Hondo jail. All northbound traffic was stopped at the roadblock.
At about 3:35 a. m., appellant was stopped at the roadblock. He was driving a 1968 Ford truck. Upon stopping the appellant, the officers asked him if he could show them his driver’s license. The appellant said that he did not have his driver’s license with him. The appellant was not able to produce any license receipts for the truck. The appellant gave his name as Raul Maldonado and his birth date as 07-06-52. However, when questioned as to the owner of the truck, the appellant said that it belonged to a close friend of his, Jose, but he was unable to supply Jose’s last name or address. Later, while the officers ran a license check, the appellant said that Pedro owned the car, but again was unable to supply a last name.
Apparently due to the combination of the name of the appellant and the birth date, the Department of Public Safety in Austin was unable to give the officers any verification of the appellant’s driver’s license. The officers also ran a check on the license plates and determined that they were registered to a Jose Garcia of Misson. During this interval, the officers frisked the appellant for weapons and walked around the truck to see if it or its contents posed any danger to the police. No one else was in the truck.
At about 4:15 a. m., the officers arrested appellant for operating a motor vehicle without a valid driver’s license and for failure to display license receipts for the truck. The appellant was taken to the Comal County jail by a Comal County deputy. The officers took custody of the truck and had a wrecker from a private garage in New Braunfels tow the truck away. The truck was stored in the garage. The garage was located about three miles from the *243county jail. The officers stayed at the roadblock until about 6:45 a. m.
At about 7:00 a. m. on August 31, 1973, Officer Robinson telephoned Officer Prince, an auto theft investigator with the Department of Public Safety stationed in New Braunfels. Officer Robinson during the course of the call told Officer Prince why he believed that the truck was stolen. While at the roadblock the following was determined about the appellant and the truck: the appellant had no driver’s license with him nor could any record of one be located; the appellant did not have any license receipts for the truck; the appellant could not give the name or address of the owner of the truck; the appellant said that he was going to San Antonio to pick up some furniture, but could give neither the name, address or phone number of his destination; the appellant said that he was traveling north of San Antonio because he was going to visit relatives in Austin, but could not give any names, addresses, or phone numbers of relatives for verification; the license plates were rusted where they were tied on with wire indicating that they had been previously bolted on to this or some other vehicle.
Officer Prince first saw the truck at about 8:15 a. m. on the morning of August 31. The officer testified that he knew that a vehicle identification number was located on the door of that particular model truck, and that he knew where another number was located on the frame; however, he followed what he considered normal procedure and first ran a registration check on the license plates to see if the license numbers matched the number on the door. At this point Officer Prince noticed that the number on the door had fresh paint underneath it. At about mid-morning of the same day, Officer Prince received an answer on the license registration check: the truck had not been reported stolen.
Officer Prince interviewed the appellant at about 9:00 a. m. at the courthouse. The appellant had paid his fines and was no longer in custody. The officer talked with the appellant at the door by the sheriff’s office which led to the parking lot. During this conversation, the appellant said that his name was “Maldon” and that the owner of the truck was a man named Pepi. Officer Prince ran an independent check on the driver’s license of “Raul Maldon”. The answer received from Austin was that there was no “Maldon”, but that there was a Raul Maldonado, and Austin proceeded to give the appellant’s arrest record. However, the department did not give the officer any information as to the appellant’s driver’s license. The appellant also said that he was traveling north of San Antonio on a trip to his relatives in Austin and that he planned to return to San Antonio to pick up some furniture. Again he could not supply any names or addresses in Austin or in San Antonio.
During the morning of the 31st, Officer Prince requested that the sheriff’s department of Hidalgo County visit the address of the truck’s registered owner, Jose Garcia. Officer Prince received a reply from the sheriff’s department in Mission at about 2:00 p. m. that there was such a man and an address, but that he was currently in Michigan.
The appellant was returned to jail at about noon. Officer Prince requested that the sheriff’s department hold the appellant until they could contact the owner of the truck. At that time, Officer Prince had not yet received the information from Hidalgo County that the owner was in Michigan.
Officer Prince went to San Antonio while waiting for a reply from Hidalgo County. Upon learning that the owner of the truck was in Michigan, he returned to New Braunfels with Officers Hierholzer and Wood of the Department of Public Safety and the Texas Rangers, respectively. The purpose of this second trip to the truck was to check the hidden identification numbers on the truck. This final investigation of the truck took place at about 3:00 or 3:30 p. m., August 31, 1973.
*244During this investigation, Officer Prince matched the vehicle identification number on the door with the police number under the hood and the confidential vehicle identification number on the frame. All of these numbers matched the numbers listed with the license plate records. However, Officer Prince noticed that the police number did not appear to be die-stamped together because the numbers were placed on the body of the truck in an uneven manner.
The truck was a Ford stake-bed or grain-bed truck with only three sides to the bed. When looking from the rear to the front of the truck, the officer could see completely into the bed. While walking around the truck, Officer Prince noticed that the depth of the bed was different on the outside than it was on the inside of the truck. The outside of the truck was green while the inside of the truck had recently been painted black. Upon noticing the difference in depth, Officer Prince crawled up into the bed of the truck and saw that there was a false front compartment. Marks on the freshly painted sidepanels led the officer to believe that the false front had been raised in the past.
Officer Prince brought the false compartment to the attention of the other officers. Together the officers loosened the nails holding down the plywood top and raised up the top. Under the plywood was a layer of plastic paper. They lifted up the paper and found what they believed to be marihuana. The officers returned to the courthouse at about 5:00 p. m. and charged the appellant with possession of marihuana. The record reflects that 650 packages of marihuana were found in the false compartment.
The legality of the search does not turn on the existence of probable cause to believe that the truck contained contraband, but the probable cause to believe that the truck was stolen. It makes no difference whether appellant was or was not under arrest at the time the search was made.
As stated by the United States Supreme Court in Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), with respect to the search of a vehicle, it is not the validity of the arrest of the occupants that justifies a search of a vehicle, but the probable cause to believe that the contents or the status of the vehicle violates the law. The legality of the search of the truck does not depend upon the grounds of arrest against the appellant nor necessarily upon the probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained contraband.
Probable cause to believe that the object of a search violates the law or contains evidence of a crime is an essential element of any search. Whether a warrantless search is based upon probable cause depends upon the facts and circumstances of the particular case. The test is whether the person conducting the search or making the arrest has facts and circumstances within his knowledge or of which he has reasonably trustworthy information to warrant a reasonable and prudent man in the belief that a particular person has committed or is committing a crime and that such a search would produce evidence pertaining to a crime. Hooper v. State, 516 S.W.2d 941 (Tex.Cr.App.1974).
After the officers stopped the appellant’s truck on the highway and questioned him, they had probable cause to believe that the car was stolen: the appellant was unable to produce a valid driver’s license or any license receipts for the truck; the officers were unable to get any verification on the appellant’s driver’s license; the license plates on the truck appeared to have been previously on another vehicle; the appellant was unable to give the name of the owner of the truck with any certainty, nor was he able to give any address for the owner; the appellant was unable to give any names or addresses pertaining-to his destinations either in Austin or in San Antonio.
In Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970), the United States Supreme Court sanctioned a war-rantless search of an automobile at the po*245lice station subsequent to an arrest on the highway where there was probable cause to search the automobile on the highway. As in Chambers v. Maroney, supra, probable cause to think the vehicle searched was stolen still existed when the truck was taken into police custody and stored in the garage in New Braunfels. As in Gomez v. State, 470 S.W.2d 871 (Tex.Cr.App.1971), it was necessary in the present case to remove the truck from the highway in order to carry on the investigation of the truck in a less dangerous location. In the present case, the arresting officers were under orders to conduct a roadblock, the purpose of which was to capture escaped prisoners. The officers were justified in not being distracted by continuing the investigation of the appellant’s truck and needed to remove the truck away from the possible disruption at the roadblock. In any event, it was necessary to store the truck in a safe place while the appellant was in jail. The search of the truck was not invalid because the officers moved the truck to a garage for further investigation.
The officers would have been remiss in their duty in permitting appellant to drive the truck without a license.
In the past, this Court has upheld war-rantless searches where the removal of the vehicle to the police station and subsequent search were part of a “series of events constituting one continuous happening.” Taylor v. State, 421 S.W.2d 403 (Tex.Cr.App.1967); Borner v. State, 521 S.W.2d 852 (Tex.Cr.App.1975). In the present case, the search of the false compartment was the culmination of a continuous effort on the part of Officers Robinson and Oldham and later Officer Prince to ascertain the ownership of the truck. The investigation was extended over a period of time because of the delay entailed in contacting the various law enforcement departments in San Antonio, Austin and Mission while trying to track down the owner of the license plates. The officers did not stray from their goal of locating the owner during the entire length of the transaction. We held that the search was part of a continuous happening and comes under Taylor v. State, supra, and Borner v. State, supra.
In Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967), the United States Supreme Court summarized the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment as follows: “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment — subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States, supra, at 357, 88 S.Ct. at 514. One such exception to the warrant requirement is the long-established exception for the search of vehicle which is readily capable of being moved along the highway. Carroll v. United States, supra; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 93 L.Ed. 1879 (1949). Another exception is the exigent circumstances exception, Chambers v. Maroney, supra, 399 U.S. at 51, 90 S.Ct. 1975. This case comes under both exceptions to the warrant requirement.
In Stoddard v. State, 475 S.W.2d 744 (Tex.Cr.App.1972), this Court invalidated a search of an automobile following the arrest of its owner because no exigent circumstances existed which would have excused the failure to obtain a warrant to search the automobile. In Stoddard v. State, supra, the appellant had been arrested in his office and put in jail. After he was in custody, the police searched his car where it was parked some distance from the appellant’s office. There was no indication that Stoddard’s car was stolen.
Unlike Stoddard v. State, supra, this ease does present exigent circumstances excusing the officers from obtaining a search warrant for the search of the truck that appellant had been driving. Absent any showing of bad faith on the part of Officer Prince, the Comal County Sheriff’s Department could not detain the appellant in jail indefinitely without filing some charges against him. Upon his release from jail, *246the appellant would either have possession of the keys to the truck when his personal effects were returned to him or the keys would be in the truck at the garage (the record was unclear as to the location of the keys). At least during business hours when the garage was open to the public, the appellant would have had access to the private garage where the truck was stored. In addition, the report from Hidalgo County that the owner of the plates on the truck was in Michigan and was not available for immediate clarification of his relationship, if any, to the truck, made it all the more pressing for the officers to proceed with the cheek of all the vehicle identification numbers on the truck.
Beside the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement, there is also the moving vehicle exception. Although the present ease does not involve the search of a car on the highway as did the landmark case of Carroll v. United States, supra, it does share many of the elements which led to the carving out of such an exception. As pointed out by Justice Blackmun in the recent Supreme Court case of Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 94 S.Ct. 2464, 41 L.Ed.2d 325 (1974), a search of an automobile is less intrusive than a search of a home, there is a lesser expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle because it is not a “residence or [a] repository of personal effects.” Cardwell v. Lewis, supra, at 590, 94 S.Ct. at 2469. The Court also noted that people riding in automobiles do not have much capacity for escaping public scrutiny since the contents and occupants of the vehicle are largely in plain view.
In Cardwell, supra, the appellant was convicted for murder based upon, among other things, the matching of paint scrapings and tire tread from his car with paint and tire marks found at the scene of the crime. A warrantless search was made of the exterior of the appellant’s car after the appellant’s arrest and some time after the police had probable cause to believe that such a search would yield evidence of the murder.
In Cardwell, supra, the police took paint scrapings from the bumper of the automobile and an imprint of the tire tread. Nothing in the interior of the car was searched. Similarly in the present case, the police did not search the interior of the vehicle where the appellant would have enjoyed a greater expectation of privacy. In this case, the police only looked for the vehicle identification numbers placed on the exterior of the truck and studied the bed of the truck which was only closed on three sides. The false compartment was virtually in plain view.
As was done with the case in Cardwell, supra; this case could be distinguished from Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971), on the ground that the search in Coolidge, supra, necessitated the entry upon private property for the seizure of the vehicle which was searched while in this case no such invasion of private property was necessary because the truck was seized on the public highway.
The question remains of the scope of the search. The scope of any search is limited to the circumstances which made its initiation permissible. Haynes v. State, 475 S.W.2d 739 (Tex.Cr.App.1972); Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969). The search in the present case was initiated in order to find evidence which would indicate whether or not the truck was stolen. It was not unreasonable on the part of the officers to think that evidence possibly hidden in the false compartment would indicate whether or not the truck was stolen. The compartment could easily have held cans of paint used to change the color of the truck, or its previous license plates or other sets of plates to change the identity of the truck, or the compartment could have contained papers concerning the ownership of the truck. The search of the false compartment did not exceed the scope of the search initiated to determine whether or not the truck was stolen.
No error is shown. The judgment should be affirmed.