Court Opinion

ID: 9677072
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:42:57.172018+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:53.631162
License: Public Domain

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the ultimate outcome, but I write separately in regard to Appellant’s second point. When the police directly or indirectly obtain evidence by violating the law, the evidence must be suppressed.12 But the police did not engage the services of an unlicensed person to act as an arson investigator.13 Further, Powell did not violate the statute.14
The evidence shows that Ms. Poole hired investigator R.D. King, the father of her husband’s nephew’s wife, to investigate her son’s death. In response to a call from King, Powell went to the fire scene and met with Mr. Poole. He walked through the house and did analyses to try to determine the cause and source of the fire. Before that, he had met with fire marshals Wallace and Bowery and examined photographs of the fire scene, concluding that two separate fires had been burning in the room at about the same time. In both instances, Powell simply provided his expertise to help persons lawfully investigating the fire to understand what they were seeing.
I would hold that Powell was not engaged in the investigation business in violation of the statute.15 He was a retired Florida deputy fire marshal, and employed as a teacher at the time of his assistance, who provided his expertise to both the fire marshals and to the investigator hired by Ms. Poole. As such, he was not working as an investigator as contemplated by the statute.16 Powell’s role was similar to that of a serologist who performs blood tests to assist the police in investigating a possible criminal offense, and it was similar to that of an art expert who assists the police in determining whether a painting is authentic or a fake. Such experts are not required to be licensed investigators or law enforcement officers. They provide their expertise to assist law enforcement or licensed investigators, and there may be other licensing requirements peculiar to their field of expertise that would go to their qualification as an expert. But providing expertise to an investigator does not make a person an investigator and does not mean that person is engaged in the investigation business.
With these observations, I concur in the majority’s thoughtful opinion.

. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.23 (Vernon 2005).

. See Tex. Occ.Code Ann. § 1702.101 (Vernon 2004).

. See id.

. See id.

. See id.