Court Opinion

ID: 9778467
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:06:05.617263+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:18:34.490486
License: Public Domain

DON WITTIG, Justice,
dissenting.
Our first question today, is whether 0.000? mg of contraband is sufficient evidence to convict appellant of knowing possession of cocaine.1 Our courts have embarked upon a treacherous course slowly and insidiously eroding the liberty interests of its citizens. This erosion is perhaps in reaction to our sometime obsessive though too often justified fear of drugs and crime. It wasn’t so long ago, to be convicted of a crime of possession of contraband, we required the substance to be a usable quántity, visible and measurable. Our courts first discarded the usable quantity standard.2 Eventually, the visible and measurable standard too was discarded.3 Incredibly, a Texan can now be convicted on knowing possession of cocaine, marijuana or other contraband without being able to use it, see it, or measure it! Often, as *226here, the proper charge and conviction would be possession of drug paraphernalia. There exists more than ample evidence for such a conviction. However, today’s majority wants to travel yet another mile down the eroding path of proofs sufficiency. The “other evidence” of knowing possession of contraband requirement is refused.
True, Shults and King require at least the State prove other evidence demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt the accused knowingly possessed the substance.4 In King, the other evidence showed the contraband was in a crack pipe, wet with saliva.5 Additionally, the defendant’s presence was described with the time honored litany: slurred speech, incoherent, glazed eyes, staggering, swaying, and intoxication to a degree that he could harm himself.6 We have no such evidence here. The only unusual characteristic about Victor were facial scratches. This appearance later gave rise to his arrest for a totally unrelated and unproven assault.
Shults involved a balloon and a trace amount of heroin in the accused’s mouth.7 Thus, only possession was proven, not the additionally required element of knowing.8 Our case much more closely mirrors Shults than King. Our appellant was approached the second time and arrested in a corner store shopping in his own neighborhood. The arresting officer, not the complaining witness, believed Victor might have committed a sexual assault earlier that day based on his reddish complexion, and the uncorroborated statement of a passerby. By happenstance, the passerby was the roommate of Victor who, third handedly said Victor came home with a scratched face to his nearby residence thirty-two minutes before the officer responded to the assault complaint. A Terry search some short time earlier revealed nothing and Victor was released from detention in the neighborhood. So, the officer saw Victor at least twice and did not testify to any of the King factors, save Victor had a glass tube, nominated a crack pipe discovered only upon the second more thorough arrest search.
The arresting officer testified his second search recovered a clear glass tube with some steal wool in it “and some residue inside.” This glass tube, the officer and others called a crack pipe.9 The officer opined that in his experience the presence of residue meant that the pipe was used and there was still some residue of crack cocaine. He further testified contradictorily that the residue did not bum but that some of it melts and stays around the edge of the glass. Yet the chemist testified she did not and could not quantify this “residue” because to do so would destroy the sample. However, she knew from experience the weight was less than a gram! The chemist admitted she could have weighed the residue but did not do so. This conclusory statement by the expert that the residue is measurable is unreliable as a matter of law.
Our courts have affirmed cocaine possession cases with measured amounts as little as 0.2 milligrams, about the size of a grain of sugar.10 However, the Daubert *227standard has been adopted by the Court of Criminal Appeals.11 And Daubert tells us to test the scientific reliability by (1) whether the scientific theory or technique can be and has been tested; (2) whether the theory or the technique has been subjected to peer review and publication; (3) the known or potential rate of error in a particular scientific technique; and (4) general acceptance of the scientific theory or technique.12
I venture that eye balling a microscopic trace of cocaine in lieu of measuring hardly passes as science. Accordingly, there is no evidence of a measurable amount, or more technically insufficient evidence.13 At some future point, the courts must come to grips with the basic scientific truth of whether a substance that has been chemically altered by fire is still the same substance. We hardly can say a log we burned in the fireplace is still a log.14 A house burned to the ground is no longer a house. The courts may not abase liberty by creating or sustaining legal fictions to get convictions.
The King court held “Because the amount of cocaine was too small to be measured, this Court’s language is Shults v. State, supra, is controlling.”15 The majority and I may agree on principle, so what facts show appellant knew he had the invisible and unquantified cocaine? Appellant was not staggering, no slurred speech, no wet saliva, no empty syringe and track marks, no indication of intoxication or other King factors. The majority confounds visible cocaine with residue. No cocaine is visible to any witness or on the pipe itself. Unlike Shults, there wasn’t even any white powdery substance, but like Shults there is insufficient evidence to sustain a conviction.16 I would sustain appellants first point of error.
Next, I turn to point of error five concerning the trial court’s denial of the motion to suppress. Because this point is dispositive, I therefore do not address the Federal Fourth Amendment problems. The majority correctly states the generally applicable standard of review and authorities. While the evidence to support probable cause to arrest without a warrant is very weak, at best, there is absolutely no evidence in the motion to suppress hearing to indicate the requirement that Victor was about to escape. To the contrary, both officers testified that a third officer from homicide who was investigating the sexual assault wanted a hold placed on this suspect. Victor was first detained at 12:40 p.m. by Officer Mascheck. The officer determined Victor’s identity, home address and also learned Victor’s plan to go the corner store about a block and a half away. Mascheck released Victor. When, a few minutes later, Mascheck heard of Victor’s 6 a.m. arrival home (also nearby), Officer Mascheck went to the very store where Victor said he was going, and Victor was there. Victor was detained momentarily and arrested without warrant for the alleged sexual assault. His arrest was predicated not on possible escape but because the homicide officer downtown wanted a hold. The majority and I disagree on the allegation of appellant’s so-called violent *228nature. The actual testimony alluded to the violent nature of the sexual assault suspect. This could only be inferred by supposition and speculation. This speculation could only arise if indeed Victor had committed the sexual assault. No evidence was ever adduced he actually assaulted anyone. He presented totally nonviolent to the officers, and all this argumentative language boils down to the stretch to grasp probable cause for the unrelated pipe seizure. Further, when originally asked why the officer did not get a warrant he responded: “Because I didn’t have a statement and that’s not my— it is not part of my duties to get the warrant. It is up to the investigative unit to get the warrant.” So, a man is picked off the streets, without a warrant, by an officer not even empowered by his duties to obtain a warrant.
The article 14.04, of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, requirement that the offender is about to escape is indispensable.17 Nary a question was asked by the State, much less a scintilla of evidence suggested that Victor was about to escape. The State cites Fry v. State.18 There, the accused told the robbery victim that he was packing his stuff up and leaving. The Court concluded: “The statute merely requires a showing that the officer was acting upon satisfactory proof from representations by a credible person that the felony offender ‘is about to escape, so that there is no time to procure a warrant.’ ”19 Here, just opposite occurred. The perpetrator of the alleged sexual assault told his victim he would be back.
The majority and State cite Anderson v. State.20 In Anderson, appellant was not arrested until after being presented before witnesses who made a positive identification. The appellant had pushed a grocery cart with a styrofoam ice chest containing the body of a five-year-old girl. This hot pursuit case, where the identification is made in the perpetrator’s presence, conveyed to him the authorities’ awareness of his involvement according to the court.21 Contrasting our facts, Victor had already been released once and good to his word went to the local corner grocer. While Anderson discusses in part the perpetrator’s awareness, the required proof is still either the officer’s observations or the observations of some credible person communicated to the officer. The factors must include both that the offender is about to escape and the officer is without time to procure a warrant.22
Nowhere in our record exists such a conclusion, opinion or indication whatsoever made by the arresting officer or his companion. The only stated reason for the second stop was to arrest for the unrelated sexual assault and to detain for investigation of the same offense. Further, the majority’s use of the word “pursued” is misleading. Victor earlier walked near a car stopped by police when Officer Mas-check noted Victor’s presence and questioned him the first time. Twenty minutes later, Officer Mascheck went the block or two to the grocery store-hardly a pursuit-at least not in the Anderson sense. While the State in its brief suggests at page 25 that Victor “might have decided he needed to leave the neighborhood for a while,” no evidence is referenced for such an assertion.
Because credibility of the witnesses and the underlying facts are not here at issue *229at least on the escape issue, the majority’s reliance on Romero is misplaced.23
The motion to suppress was erroneously denied. Therefore, I would sustain appellant’s fifth point of error. I concur with the majority on points of error two, three and four.

. As the majority noted, Victor was sentence to 16 years in the prison based on this evidence.

. The usable standard was eliminated in Cantu v. State, 546 S.W.2d 621, 622 (Tex.Crim.App.1977).

. See King v. State, 895 S.W.2d 701, 703 (Tex.Crim.App.1995); cf. Thomas v. State, 807 S.W.2d 786, 789 (Tex.App.-Houston [1 st Dist.] 1991, no pet.).

. King, 895 S.W.2d at 703; Shults v. State, 575 S.W.2d 29, 30 (Tex.Crim.App.1979).

. 895 S.W.2d at 703.

. Id. at 702.

. 575 S.W.2d at 30.

. Id.

. Exhibit one admitted before the jury, the glass tube, was an open ended small piece of glass with steal wool toward one end. This "crack pipe” looks very much like a glass tube one would use in testing for clorine or Ph in a fish tank or swimming pool. Although discolored by a smoke like substance, there is no apparent contraband visable to the naked eye. The State candidly admits at page 8 of its brief that Officer Mascheck never expressly testified that the residue (much less contraband) was visible.

. See Mayes v. State, 831 S.W.2d 5, 8 (Tex. App.-Houston[lst Dist.] 1992, no pet.) (O'Connor, J. dissenting).

. See Nenno v. State, 970 S.W.2d 549, 561 (Tex.Crim.App.1998); Kelly v. State, 824 S.W.2d 568, 573 (Tex.Crim.App.1992).

. See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993); Jordan v. State, 928 S.W.2d 550, n. 7 (Tex.Crim.App.1996)

. See Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Havner, 953 S.W.2d 706, 711 (Tex.1997).

. Similarly, is an empty beer can or wine bottle in the family car sufficient to convict a minor for possession? If a passerby flicks a marijuana ash in your car, are you guilty of possession of a controlled substance?

. 895 S.W.2d at 703.

. Somewhere our drug laws must recognize and adhere to the ancient maxim: de minimis non curat lex. Cf. United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 123-26, 104 S.Ct. 1652 (1984); Richardson v. State, 109 Tex.Crim. 148, 4 S.W.2d 79, 81 (App.1928).

. Honeycutt v. State, 499 S.W.2d 662, 665 (Tex.Crim.App.1973).

. 639 S.W.2d 463, 476 (Tex.Crim.App.1982).

. Id.

. 932 S.W.2d 502, 506 (Tex.Crim.App.1996).

. Id.

.Id. (citing West v. State, 720 S.W.2d 511, 517-518 (Tex.Crim.App.1986)). The implicit term “observation”, I make explicit for clarification. Perhaps it should be “observation or circumstance” to cover both direct and circumstantial evidence.

. 800 S.W.2d at 543.