Court Opinion

ID: 9654634
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 18:45:22.77391+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:52:45.802050
License: Public Domain

HOWELL, Justice,
concurring.
Believing that the disposition of the instant case is controlled by Gonzalez v. State, 588 S.W.2d 355 (Tex.Crim.App.1979), I concur with the majority opinion. The officers in Gonzalez came to the defendant’s rural home for the purpose of general inquiry. They parked in the driveway and knocked on the front door. Receiving no response, they began inspecting the yard. One officer followed a well-beaten path to a dilapidated outhouse. Immediately outside the outhouse, he saw marijuana “residue” laying on the ground. He then shined his flashlight through the cracks in the outhouse and saw a large quantity of marijuana. Based on the officer’s observation, a warrant was secured and conviction ensued, but it was overturned on appeal.
The Gonzalez court’s distinction of its prior authority, Long v. State, 532 S.W.2d 591 (Tex.Crim.App.1976) is particularly instructive. In Long, the officers also drove to a farmstead for the purpose of inquiry and received no response to their knock at the door nearest the driveway. One of the officers proceeded around the house and knocked on the opposite door where he *161likewise received no response. As he returned around the house to his car, he smelled the odor of marijuana from an open window. A warrant based upon his observation and a subsequent conviction were upheld. The distinction given in Gonzalez:
This Court held that the initial inquiry in Long was not a search.... Had the warden in the instant case seen the contraband as he returned to his car, Long would indicate that there was no illegal search. The warden did not turn to leave after receiving no response to his inquiries.... [IJnstead of leaving, he initiated a search for ... violations.
Gonzalez, 588 S.W.2d at 359-360.
If, as held in Gonzalez, a random walk through the suspect’s yard, pursuant to no response at the door, engaged in for the purpose of uncovering any indications of unlawful conduct, constitutes an illegal search, then one cannot escape the conclusion that it is also illegal for an officer to travel through an unenclosed carport and peer through a small hole or gap in a wood fence for similar purposes. No legitimate distinction can be drawn between Gonzalez and the case at bar. Peering through cracks in a fence is indistinguishable from peering through cracks in an outhouse. In each case, the key element is that neither officer could have obtained the evidence except through a breach of the curtilage. Both officers were in a place where they had no right to be.
The reversal in the subsequent case of Wheeler v. State, 659 S.W.2d 381 (Tex.Crim.App.1982) re-enforces the foregoing view. In Wheeler, the officers, only after several unsuccessful attempts, managed to observe marijuana in defendant’s greenhouse by going onto adjoining property (with that owner’s consent) and by peering through cooling-fan louvers in the greenhouse; which feat was only possible with the aid of very high-powered binoculars. Again, there is no apparent difference between peering through cracks in a fence and peering through cooling-fan louvers. Wheeler was a close decision because the officers did not physically enter the defendant’s premises, but the court strongly inferred that the search would clearly be bad if any unauthorized entry whatever had been made upon the defendant’s premises.
Gonzalez is consonant with the ancient doctrine of trespass ab initio. An officer, or any other member of the public, is authorized by well established community custom, to enter premises by the indicated usual route for the purpose of knocking on the front door, but once he deviates from this purpose, the officer loses his status as an invitee. He has no right to be there and any search whatever becomes illegal. The carport in the present case was completely open, but it was nevertheless an area where the officer had no right to be present. The only reason for walking through the carport was to search for suspected marijuana by means of peering through a small aperture in the fence. Entry into a protected area was integral to the search; no view through the fence could have been obtained without it.
If this case is to be decided upon federal constitutional principles, United States v. Leon, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), urged the dissent, must either be followed or distinguished. I am not satisfied that a federal court trying a violation of federal law would uphold this particular warrant on Leon principles, but the inquiry is unnecessary. Texas law presently controls. The fact that this decision is based upon Texas authority distinguishes Adams v. State, 683 S.W.2d 525 (Tex.App. — Dallas 1984, order for rev. filed). This court there assumed, rather than decided, that Leon was applicable to a conviction occurring in a Texas court. Inasmuch as Adams’ sole contention was that her federal constitutional rights had been violated, it was perhaps necessary to construe and apply Leon. However, the outcome of the case in hand can and should be bottomed on state law alone.
Long, Gonzalez and Wheeler all reiterate and freely recognize the established Texas law. If a warrant is based upon illegally secured evidence, the evidence se*162cured through the warrant must be excluded. Before Leon, this was the unquestioned Texas law. When the United States Supreme Court announces a decision more favorable to the accused than the established Texas law, the Supreme Court must be followed. That rule is presently inapplicable. In all other instances, we must look to the decisions of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for guidance. The dissent does not undertake to predict that the Court of Criminal Appeals will overrule established Texas precedent and will adopt the Leon rule as a part of Texas practice. Any decision by this court based upon Leon as applied to Texas authority would be incomplete without such a finding.
I find no foreshadowing of the rule in United States v. Leon anywhere in the Texas cases. Any question regarding the adoption of the Leon rule in Texas should be left to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.