Court Opinion

ID: 9857972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:10:54.342347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:01:18.939880
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge,
concurring.
While I agree with the Court that the denial of a charge to the jury on the legality of the search and seizure was reversible error, I think that we should go farther to resolve the outstanding issues in the ease.
One issue which the panel addressed was that of whether officers who have arrested the driver of a car may impound the vehicle and inventory its contents without offering the driver the alternative of letting his un-arrested passenger take possession of the vehicle. See Benavides v. State, 600 S.W.2d *519809, 811 (Tex.Cr.App.1980) (“An automobile may be impounded if ... no alternatives are available other than impoundment to insure the protection of the vehicle”). Here the passenger was not arrested and he had a driver’s license, neither of which was the case in Benavides.
The other issue is whether officers may search the interior of a vehicle as a routine incident to a custodial arrest for a traffic violation, even though they have no reasonable belief that the search is necessary to prevent the occupants from reaching a weapon or destroying evidence. The panel held that they may not, following Branch v. State, 599 S.W.2d 324 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). Branch is no longer a viable statement of Fourth Amendment law, for, while this case has been pending on rehearing, the Supreme Court has decided that such searches do not violate the Fourth Amendment. New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981). But Belton does not alter our holding that such a search violates Section 9 of the Texas Bill of Rights. Beck v. State, 547 S.W.2d 266 (Tex.Cr.App.1976) (“All searches incidental to arrest cannot be justified on this theory, for to do so would allow wholesale fishing expeditions whenever a legal [traffic] arrest is made.”). The appellant relied on Section 9 in the trial court and in this Court.
These issues are ripe for decision in this case. If we do not resolve them, the trial court may make the same error in denying the appellant’s motion to suppress evidence on retrial that it made at the first trial. These are important issues which are presented in the facts of this case, and they will not disappear from the courts of this state simply because the Court withdraws the panel opinion and refuses to address them. The ground of error which complains of the denial of the motion to suppress the evidence seized in an illegal search should be sustained.
CLINTON and TEAGUE, JJ., join.