Court Opinion

ID: 9764351
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:19:26.643713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:55.688380
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
TEAGUE, Judge.
Bruce K. Eseo and John B. Williams, appellants, were convicted of jointly committing an armed robbery of an employee of a Safeway store located in Austin. On original submission, a majority of a panel of this Court1 affirmed appellant Williams’ conviction, but ordered the conviction of appellant Esco set aside after it found that the police had unlawfully conducted a search of Esco’s attache or brief case.
Neither appellant challenges the panel majority decision. However, the State asserts in its motion for rehearing that the reason the panel majority gave for reversing Esco’s conviction was legally erroneous. We granted the State’s motion to make the determination whether the panel majority correctly reversed Esco’s conviction. After careful review of the facts of the case, as well as the law, we find that the State is correct; the majority of the panel erred in holding that the officers unlawfully searched Esco’s attache or brief case.
We find that a brief recitation of the facts may be helpful to the reader to better understand why we sustain the State’s contention that the search of Esco’s attache or brief case was lawful.
The facts reflect that on May 6, 1978, at approximately 9:00 o’clock p.m., two unidentified white male persons, who were then wearing false beards, sunglasses, and gloves, as well as one being armed with a pistol and the other with a sawed-off shotgun, robbed an employee of a Safeway store located in Austin. After committing the robbery, the robbers fled in a motor vehicle. The police were notified, and thereafter obtained from witnesses descriptions of the robbers and the license plate number of the vehicle the robbers had fled in. A member of the Austin Police Department caused a statewide “BOLO” message to be issued.2
Approximately 5V2 hours later, and 133 miles west of Austin, a Department of Public Safety trooper, who was then working his radar unit from his vehicle which was situated on Interstate 10 near the Segovia cut-off, stopped a motor vehicle because its driver, who was later identified to be appellant Williams, had exceeded the speed limit. Appellant Esco was shown to be the sole passenger in Williams’ vehicle.
While the trooper was discussing with Williams the speeding violation, a deputy sheriff, who had been riding with the trooper, contacted a dispatcher with the Kimble County Sheriff’s Department and gave her the license plate number of Williams’ vehicle, so she could conduct a “wanted and warrants check” on the license plate number.
The dispatcher recalled that she had earlier received a “BOLO” message which referred to the same license plate number the deputy had related to her. After retrieving the “BOLO” message, she informed the *365deputy sheriff of its contents. Soon thereafter, both appellants were arrested by the trooper and the deputy sheriff.
Thereafter, the officers conducted a general exploratory search of the interior of the vehicle, looking for any evidence that might have been related to the robbery that had occurred in Austin. They recovered “from the glove compartment and the interior of the car every item described in the teletyped bulletin, except a shotgun ...” (Panel Majority Opinion, page 362).
The officers then opened the trunk of the vehicle. There, in plain view, they saw a briefcase or attache case, which they opened. Found inside of the case was money, as well as personal papers, which belonged to appellant Esco. The items were seized and, over objection, were introduced into evidence at trial.
The officers never found in the interior or the trunk portions of the vehicle, or inside any containers therein, either a shotgun in its manufactured state, a sawed-off shotgun, a disassembled shotgun, or a disassembled sawed-off shotgun.
From a photograph that is in the record, which partially depicts the attache or brief case, we are able to conclude that the case appears to be of average size, that is, approximately 17 inches in length, 13 inches in width, and almost 3 inches in depth, which we find could be more than sufficient in size to contain an average size disassembled sawed-off shotgun. State’s exhibit number 11, a sawed-off shotgun, which was identified by the complainant, “This looks like the shotgun used by Robber number 2,” was admitted into evidence. We have obtained possession of this exhibit and, using an average size attache case, after disassembling the gun, find it easily fits inside of an average size attache case.
As previously pointed out, we have concluded that the panel majority opinion erred in holding that the officers were without lawful authority to open appellant Esco’s attache or brief ease. Notwithstanding this conclusion, with which we disagree, we find the panel majority opinion did make several holdings with which we agree, namely: “the officers were authorized to arrest appellants solely on the basis of the teletype message”; appellant Esco lacked “standing” to complain of the search of the interior of the vehicle; “Esco [had] a legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of his latched briefcase [that was] located in the trunk of the car”; and the police officers were entitled to open the trunk lid of the vehicle and view the attache or brief case that was then in plain view.
In reversing Esco’s conviction, the majority of the panel held that because it was “unable to find any cause to believe that the [attache or brief] case might contain a shotgun or any other fruit or instrumentality of the robbery committed hours earlier in Austin that the officers had not already seized,” the opening of the case and the seizing of the contents that were inside of the case were both unlawful. We are unable to agree with this holding.
We find that the majority of the panel did not accurately apply the meaning of the legal term, “probable cause,” in a flexible, common-sense manner. Recently, in Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, —, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 1543, 75 L.Ed.2d 502, 514 (1983), the Supreme Court made the following observation: “[Probable cause] merely requires that the facts available to the officer would ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief,’ ... that certain items may be ... useful as evidence of a crime; it does not demand any showing that such a belief is correct or more likely true than false...” Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, —, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 1543, 75 L.Ed.2d 502, 514 (1983).
As the majority panel opinion pointed out, when the officers opened the trunk lid to the vehicle, they had not recovered a “shotgun,” but “had found everything [else that had been] mentioned in Austin’s teletype ...”
We believe that it is reasonable to assume that the term “shotgun,” that was used in the teletyped message, could have referred just as easily to a disassembled sawed-off shotgun as to a shotgun in its manufactured state. By statute, a sawed-*366off shotgun in Texas is a type of ordinance that has a barrel length of less than 18 inches. V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 46.01(10).
Common knowledge teaches that not only can a sawed-off shotgun be a very compact weapon, but at close range, even without carefully aiming it, it can have a devastating effect. In size, it is common knowledge that the combined stock, trigger mechanism, and modified barrel of the average sawed-off shotgun may be less than two feet in length. As to just how small it might become, history teaches us that the infamous Clyde Barrow perfected a “quick draw” with a sawed-off shotgun that was contained in a special holster sewn into his trousers. John Toland, The Dillinger Days (New York: Random House, 1963), at page 39.
Therefore, we find and hold from the facts of this case that the prosecution established that a reasonable person could have believed that a disassembled sawed-off shotgun might have been inside of the attache or brief case. Esco, of course, was free to establish the contrary, but he did not.
Of course, whether the officers had reasonable belief at the time they opened the attache or brief case that the case contained a disassembled shotgun cannot be answered by what they saw in the case after they opened the case, Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963); Adams v. State, 137 Tex.Cr.R. 43, 128 S.W.2d 41 (1939), because such must be answered through the eyes of a reasonable person based upon the facts and circumstances as they existed before the attache or brief case was opened by the officers.
Thus, the fact that a disassembled sawed-off shotgun was not found inside of the case is irrelevant to the question. Instead, the question becomes, whether there was a reasonable probability that the case might contain a disassembled sawed-off shotgun. We answer the question in the affirmative. The opening of the case and the seizure of its contents by the officers were not unlawful.
We acknowledge that neither of the officers articulated that the reason they opened the case was because they were looking for a disassembled sawed-off shotgun. However, the mere fact they did not give the right reason is not controlling. If their decision was correct on any theory of law applicable to the case, it is sufficient as a matter of law. In this instance, the officers did give the wrong reason why they opened the case, but their decision is supported by the theory of law that they had probable cause to open the case without a warrant.
The State’s motion for rehearing is granted and appellant Esco’s conviction is affirmed.
ODOM, J., concurs in the result.
ONION, P.J., and CLINTON, J., dissent.
TOM G. DAVIS, J., not participating.

. This Court no longer has panels; all cases are now decided En Banc.

. In pertinent part, the "BOLO” message stated the following:
ARMED ROBBERY OCCURRED THIS CITY INVOLVING OFF-WHITE 1970 CHEV 78 TX LIC/BGZ610 OCCUPIED BY 2 W/M.S. 6.00, SLENDER BUILD, FALSE BEARDS AND MAKE-UP, ARMED WITH SHOT GUN AND PISTOL...