Court Opinion

ID: 9645588
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:29:11.285647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:29.591870
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
Orwell and the assertive and aggressive majority of the Supreme Court of the United States, are you listening?
Today, an assertive and aggressive majority of this Court, by using the provisions of a parking statute, Art. 6701d, Section 96(a), V.A.C.S., which requires that all motor vehicles stopped or parked upon a two-way roadway shall be so stopped or parked with the right-hand wheels parallel to and within eighteen (18) inches of the right-hand curb or edge of the roadway, is able to hold that the warrantless arrest of the appellant was based upon probable cause, thus causing the incidental search of his motor vehicle to be lawful. Henceforth, “any citizen [of this State] may be arrested for any petty parking violation and then [be] subjected to a [full scale and complete] search of his person and vehicle, entirely at the discretion of the officer in the field [for committing that violation].” (My emphasis.) (Clinton, J., dissenting opinion that was filed in this cause.)
Even though perhaps, but only perhaps,the present aggressive and assertive majority of the Supreme Court, in its quest to cause the Fourth Amendment to somehow vanish from the Bill of Rights to the Federal Constitution, would not hold that an unlawfully parked, but lawfully occupied by its driver, motor vehicle would give a police officer probable cause to order the driver to remove himself from the vehicle and to make a warrantless arrest, and then, pursuant to the arrest, the lawful right to conduct a full scale and complete warrantless search of the driver and the motor vehicle, cf. Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979), nevertheless, I would hold that for this type violation of the law, a petty parking traffic violation, as this Court is permitted to do, see Harrington, “The Texas Bill of Rights and Civil Liberties,” 17 Texas Tech. Law Review (No. 5, 1986), that under the Texas Constitution a warrantless arrest *106and warrantless search based upon a petty, minor traffic violation, here, violation of a parking1 statute, is against the public policy of this State, and is unjustified, unwarranted, and impermissible if the defendant signs the promise to appear as provided in Section 148 of Art. 6701d, V.A.C.S. My view comports with what the Uniform Vehicle Code and Model Traffic Ordinance § 16-201-206 (rev. 1971) (Supp.1972), recommends; what the American Law Institute has recommended, see ALI Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure § 3.02(4) (Tent.Draft No. 2, 1969); and what the A.B.A. Standards Relating to Pretrial Release § 2.1 (Tent.Draft March 1968) has recommended. Also see State v. Hehman, 90 Wash.2d 45, 578 P.2d 527 (Wash.Sup.Ct.1978).
Neither my staffs manual research nor my own independent manual research, nor even our access to the more technologically enlightened ways of doing research, has revealed a single case where any court in this nation, State or Federal, even the Supreme Court of the United States, has ever held, as this Court does today, that a police officer can make a custodial arrest of an individual who does nothing more than violate a parking statute or ordinance, and then, pursuant to the arrest, conduct a full scale and complete search of both the driver and vehicle. This lack of authority is understandable, given the fact that most rational appellate court judges divide traffic violations into two groups: “First there is the group of violations, of which double parking is an example, where a notice of violation is issued and the driver is permitted to go on his way. The presumption is that drivers who double park or have a defective taillight are not necessarily a hazard on the road or to the community and are not necessarily considered dangerous criminals. This is considered to be a ‘routine traffic stop’ ... The second group of violations includes such offenses as driving without a license [, driving while license is suspended,] or driving while intoxicated. These offenses are usually considered moving violations. In these instances the violator may not be permitted to drive away and may therefore be subject to custody arrest ...” Farrington, “Police May Conduct Full Search Incident to Custody Arrest for Traffic Violation,” Vol. 1, No. 3, January, 1974, Search and Seizure Law Report.
In this instance, the facts are obviously clear that the appellant’s transgression fell within the first category.
Given what the majority opinion states in Vicknair v. State, — S.W.2d-(Tex.Cr.App., No. 036-84, delivered this date), that failure to have all of the items on a motor vehicle that is subject to being inspected in good working order, or which items require any kind of adjustment, will give rise to probable cause to arrest and search a motorist and his motor vehicle, this opinion, that holds that a violation of a parking statute will give rise to probable cause to arrest and search a motorist and his motor vehicle, is really not all that shocking. Thus, at first blush, in light of Vicknair, supra, the majority opinion appears unremarkable.
What is so striking and remarkable about the majority opinion, however, is its studied air of unreality and its total and complete lack of sensitivity of, if not total outright ignorance of, the provisions of the Texas Constitution and the statutes of this State that govern warrantless searches and seizures. Today’s majority opinion is thus actually troubling less for the law it creates than for the constitutional and statutory law of this State that it ignores or refuses to accept.
Harrington, see supra, has expressed the belief that “[T]he last page [on the law of warrantless searches and seizures] remains to be written [by the Court of Criminal Appeals].” Given what an aggressive and assertive majority of this Court has now laid down to be the law regarding warrant-less arrests, searches, and seizures of drivers and their automobiles, at least for the present and near future, I am not so sure Harrington is correct.
However, this is not to state that there will not in the future be any dissenting opinions by me in this area of the law, because I honestly believe that such dissenting opinions as this one, and the one *107that Judge Clinton has written in this cause, will at least let those out there in the hinterlands who still believe in the respective Bills of Rights, as well as the statutory laws of this State, know that the flames of liberty and freedom have not yet been totally extinguished by all members of the Court of Criminal Appeals. Some of us do care!!!
Therefore, at this time, I will do no more than echo Judge Clinton’s fulminating, but thought provoking, concluding comment that he makes in the dissenting opinion that he files in this cause: “I must dissent to another crippling blow to constitutional protections underlying liberty interests held so dear by citizens in a free society.” I close by saying that hopefully in the not too far distant future a majority of this Court will regain its Texas constitutional and statutory sanity when it comes to applying the law applicable to warrantless arrests, searches and seizures of motorists and their motor vehicles, and will rule accordingly, rather than doing police officers’ work as it does in this cause.