Court Opinion

ID: 9766266
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:38:46.689814+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:20.839269
License: Public Domain

ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
MORRISON, Judge.
In a scholarly manner appellant has attacked our original opinion because we failed to discuss his contention that all evidence as to the Tierra Grande books were introduced over his obj ection that they were tainted under the “fruits of the poisonous tree” doctrine so ably announced years ago by the Supreme Court of the United States in Silverthorne Lumber Company v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319. His contention is bottomed upon the assertion that the subpoena duces tecum issued by the Court of Inquiry which made it possible for the prosecution to secure possession of copies of such records was an illegal process because the Court of Inquiry itself was conducted in an unconstitutional manner.
The answer to this contention seems to be that both our Civil Courts and this Court have had this question before them and have failed to agree with him.
While it is true that this writer on Motion for Rehearing in McClelland v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 373 S.W.2d 674, expressed his trepidation over the propriety of the manner in which the Court of Inquiry was conducted, and Chief Justice Bell and Justice Coleman expressed their concern over the same matter in McClelland v. Briscoe, Tex.Civ.App., 359 S.W.2d 635, no court has held that such- procedure reaches constitutional dimensions.
Silverthorne, supra, was a case of search without a warrant and by virtue of an invalid subpoena. Here we have a subpoena duces tecum (itself a process authorized by statute) issued by the Justice of the Peace who was acting pursuant to his authority after having convened the Court of Inquiry which was authorized by Article 886, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P., a statute of this State which was first enacted by the Legislature in 1876.
It is not within the province of an appellate court to declare unconstitutional all that appears to them to be unfair and not wise exercise of the powers of government. In the case of Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 52 S.Ct. 581, 76 L.Ed. 1167, the Supreme Court of the United States said:
When the subject lies within the police power of the state, debatable questions as to the reasonableness are not for the courts but for the Legislature, which is entitled to form its own judgment, and its action within its range of discretion cannot be set aside because compliance is burdensome.”
The writer has perused with care the record made before the Honorable Sam Davis on Appellant’s motion to quash the indictment, made a part of the record in this case, and is of the same opinion as he expressed in McClelland v. State, supra, and here now expresses the thought that the Legislature should provide needed relief by either eliminating the statute which author*636izes the Court of Inquiry or providing some procedural safeguards for the conduct of proceedings before the same. But we have not been able to bring ourselves to hold that the conduct before us here is comparable with that denounced in Silverthorne, supra.
Appellant’s contention as to the failure of the court to place McClelland on trial first is without merit because the court was without the power to direct the order of trial in McClelland’s case, as he had already transferred the case against Mc-Clelland to another county and could not prevent a continuance in appellant’s case by then ordering McClelland’s case first. Henderson v. State, 104 Tex.Cr.R. 495, 283 S.W. 497.
The appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.