Court Opinion

ID: 9892860
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-25 06:09:13.587182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:48:47.134538
License: Public Domain

Affirm and Opinion Filed October 18, 2023

                                      In The
                            Court of Appeals
                     Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
                               No. 05-22-00393-CR

                  ANTHONY DAVID MARONEY, Appellant
                                 V.
                     THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

                On Appeal from the 59th Judicial District Court
                           Grayson County, Texas
                       Trial Court Cause No. 073585

                        MEMORANDUM OPINION
                Before Justices Pedersen, III, Garcia, and Kennedy
                         Opinion by Justice Pedersen, III
      A jury convicted appellant Anthony David Maroney of possession of a

controlled substance (methamphetamine) with intent to deliver 4 –200 grams. The

trial court assessed his punishment at sixty years’ confinement in the Texas

Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division. In a single issue, appellant

contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress evidence

discovered in the warrantless search of a safe seized from his vehicle. We affirm the

trial court’s judgment.
                                             Background

        Appellant was detained after police observed a traffic violation and confirmed

an outstanding warrant for his arrest. When officers were checking the identification

of appellant’s passenger, they smelled burnt marijuana. The officers then searched

the car for contraband; they opened a number of duffel bags, a fanny pack, a

shopping bag, and other containers found in the car. Inside a leopard-print bag in the

rear cargo area of the vehicle, police found a locked safe. An officer took the safe to

the police station, where he opened it. The safe contained a number of watches, drug

paraphernalia, and the methamphetamine for which appellant was charged.

        Appellant made his motion to suppress on a number of grounds, including

“opening of closed containers” and “breaking into of a safe.”1 The trial court denied

the motion at the close of evidence.

        This appeal followed.

                                               Discussion

        In a single issue, appellant challenges the warrantless search of the locked safe

found in his vehicle. He argues that he had an elevated expectation of privacy in the

    1
      When appellant, appearing pro se, urged his motion, the trial court asked him to identify the search
he was challenging. Appellant stated:
        I was referring to the prolonged detention; following that, the warrantless search; following
        that, the warrantless detention and search and arrest of [the passenger]; the opening of
        closed containers; and the -- the breaking into of a safe; the illegal impoundment of a
        vehicle and the warrantless inventory.

                                                    –2–
safe and therefore the police should have obtained a warrant before opening it and

retrieving its contents.

      Both the United States and Texas constitutions protect against unreasonable

searches and seizures by government officials. U.S. CONST. amend. IV; Tex. Const.

art. I, § 9. A defendant alleging a Fourth Amendment violation bears the initial

burden of producing some evidence that rebuts the presumption of proper police

conduct. Amador v. State, 221 S.W.3d 666, 672 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). He meets

that burden by establishing that the search or seizure occurred without a warrant. Id.

The burden then shifts to the State to prove that the search or seizure was reasonable

under the totality of the circumstances. Id. at 672–73. Pursuant to the Fourth

Amendment, a warrantless search is per se unreasonable unless it falls within a

warrant exception. Marcopoulos v. State, 538 S.W.3d 596, 599 (Tex. Crim. App.

2017). One such exception applies to the warrantless search of an automobile when

it is readily mobile and the official has probable cause to believe that it contains

contraband. Id. Under both federal and Texas law, “[ I]f probable cause justifies the

search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies the search of every part of the vehicle

and its contents that may conceal the object of the search.” United States v. Ross,

456 U.S. 798, 825 (1982); see also Neal v. State, 256 S.W.3d 264, 282 (Tex. Crim.

App. 2008). The question of whether a specific search or seizure is “reasonable”

under these standards is subject to de novo review. Kothe v. State, 152 S.W.3d 54,

62 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004).

                                           –3–
      In this case, appellant does not dispute that his car was readily mobile or that

the police had probable cause to search it. Nor does he dispute the general rule that

the automobile exception allows the police to open any containers found in the

vehicle that could conceal the object of the search. But he contends that the right to

search items located within a vehicle is limited; he cites the example of a cell phone,

and he asks this court to make a similar exception to the general rule for a safe.

      Appellant argues that the legal reasoning for the automobile exception does

not apply here because the safe was not inherently mobile as his car was. He points

to the fact that the officer took the safe back to the station when appellant was already

in custody. Thus, he argues, the officer had time to obtain a warrant without a risk

of losing the ability to search the safe. However, the automobile exception does not

require exigent circumstances. Neal, 256 S.W.3d at 283 (rejecting defendant’s

challenge to warrantless search of truck based on his argument that “there was no

concern that the evidence in the truck would be destroyed or lost because appellant

[was] already in police custody”).

      Appellant relies on two cases for his argument that a safe is comparable to a

cell phone and should be exempt from an automobile search. He cites State v.

Martinez, 570 S.W.3d 278 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019), where the Texas Court of

Criminal Appeals referred to a person’s “legitimate expectation of privacy in the

contents of his cellular phone, because of its ability to contain a large amount of data

                                          –4–
involving intimate details of an individual’s life, including medical information.” Id.

at 291 (citing State v. Granville, 423 S.W.3d 399, 408 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014)).

Appellant argues that a safe, likewise, can be used to store intimate details of an

individual’s life such as “wills, financial information and other private documents

over which a person would have an expectation of privacy.” We note at the outset

that Martinez does not involve the automobile exception for a warrantless search. In

addition, Martinez does not speak simply to the amount of data kept in a cell phone.

Its scope is limited to the “expectation of privacy in blood that is drawn for medical

purposes.” Id. (“There are private facts contained in a sample of a person’s blood

beyond simple confirmation of a suspicion that a person is intoxicated. These private

facts are those that a person does not voluntarily share with the world by the mere

drawing of blood and may be subject to Fourth Amendment protection.”). We find

no authority applying this limited example of a heightened expectation of privacy to

any documents, let alone to a container that might hold documents.

      Appellant also cites to Chung v. State, 475 S.W.3d 378 (Tex. App.—Waco

2014, pet. ref’d), where the Waco court rejected the State’s argument that the

defendant’s cell phone could be searched without a warrant pursuant to the

automobile exception. The court expressed “grave doubts that a cell phone is a

‘container’ that could be searched pursuant to the automobile exception.” Id. at 387.

Moreover, although a dog alert gave police probable cause to search the defendant’s

vehicle in Chung, neither the defendant nor the cell phone were in the vehicle at that

                                         –5–
time. Id. In contrast, appellant’s safe is without question a “container,” and both it

and appellant were inside the vehicle at the time officers obtained probable cause

necessary to the search.

      Appellant has not identified any authority, and we have found none, that

would support exempting a safe from the search permitted in the automobile

exception. We reject his invitation to place a new limit on that well-settled exception.

We conclude the opening of the safe by police in this case was reasonable and was

not a violation of the Fourth Amendment or the Texas constitution. We overrule

appellant’s single issue.

                                     Conclusion

      We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

                                            /Bill Pedersen, III//
                                            BILL PEDERSEN, III
220393f.u05                                 JUSTICE

Do Not Publish
TEX. R. APP. P. 47

                                          –6–
                            Court of Appeals
                     Fifth District of Texas at Dallas
                                 JUDGMENT

ANTHONY DAVID MARONEY,                       On Appeal from the 59th Judicial
Appellant                                    District Court, Grayson County,
                                             Texas
No. 05-22-00393-CR          V.               Trial Court Cause No. 073585.
                                             Opinion delivered by Justice
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee                 Pedersen, III. Justices Garcia and
                                             Kennedy participating.

    Based on the Court’s opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is
AFFIRMED.

Judgment entered this 18th day of October, 2023.

                                       –7–