Court Opinion

ID: 9671858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:44:02.604883+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:12.666094
License: Public Domain

DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting.
Because the majority relies on the law of the State of New York in upholding the search in the instant case without showing that the law of Texas would compel a similar or identical result, I respectfully dissent.
The United States Supreme Court upheld the search in New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 106 S.Ct. 960, 89 L.Ed.2d 81 (1986) after the officers had lawfully stopped a vehicle that was speeding and had a cracked windshield, both violations of New York law. The officer could not complete the traffic citation without recording the vehicle identification number (VIN). Additionally, while federal regulation, 49 C.F.R. § 571.115 (1984), requires that manufacturers place the VIN in plain view of someone outside the automobile, New York statute authorizes officers to demand that drivers reveal their VIN. The federal regulation addresses the manufacturer. New York statute addresses the vehicle owner.1 In Class, the driver exited the vehicle. The officer, therefore, reached into the interior of the car to move some papers which obscured the VIN on the dashboard. As he did so, he saw the handle of a gun protruding from under the front seat. The Supreme Court agreed that the officer’s intrusion into the interior of the car constituted a search, but also found that the government’s interest in obtaining the VIN was “of the first order.” Id. at 118, 106 S.Ct. at 968, 89 L.Ed.2d at 93. The Court further found that the officer’s actions in moving the papers on the car’s dash to reveal the VIN were “no more intrusive than necessary” to locate the VIN. Id.
In the case sub judice, the majority does not suggest that any Texas law required the officers to record the VIN when the pickup truck in which Appellants were travelling was stopped for suspicion of driving while intoxicated. The record does not reflect that the officers suspected the pickup was stolen. The record reflects no compelling interest in seeking out the VIN. Consequently, if there was no compelling governmental interest in recording the VIN, there was no need to intrude into the vehicle to search it out.
Even accepting arguendo a conclusion that there was a need to record the VIN, the least intrusive manner of moving the fabric which partially covered the VIN was to ask the passenger, who was still seated in the car, to pull back the fabric so that the officer could clearly view the VIN. The majority suggests that the officer is not required to ask the passenger to move the obstruction and that even if the officer had asked the passenger to do so, he would have discovered the damning odor when the passenger rolled down the window. The Supreme Court emphasized the intrusion in Class was not unlawful because “[t]he search was focused in its objective and no more intrusive than necessary to fulfill that objective.” Id. The Court points out that if the driver (there was no passenger) had stayed in his vehicle and acceded to the officer’s request to remove the papers obscuring the VIN, the officer would not have been justified in intruding into the passenger compartment. Id. at 115, 121, 106 S.Ct. at 966, 970, 89 L.Ed.2d at 91, 95.
In the case sub judice the officer’s search was more intrusive than necessary. No intrusion was necessary because the passenger remained in the vehicle. Nor is there any evidence, as the majority suggests, that he *635would have had to roll down his window in order to talk to the officer. Even if he had rolled down the window, the suggestion of inevitable discovery of the odor marijuana does not salvage the search. The inevitable discovery rule has never been adopted by Texas.
The majority is correct. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the VIN. There is, however, a reasonable expectation of privacy in the interior of one’s vehicle. Similarly, a person may have no reasonable expectation of privacy in one’s facial features. Walking into your own home does not give the government the right to search the home merely because you have no expectation of privacy in your facial features.
Because the majority assumes a compelling governmental interest in revealing the VIN and because the majority does not discuss a less intrusive means of discovering the VEN, I respectfully dissent.

. The record does not reflect any request by the State that judicial notice be taken of the federal regulation or that the trial judge did so without request.
Even though the record is silent on this issue, for purposes of this dissent, I assume 49 C.F.R. § 571.115 (1984) was properly before the trial court.