Court Opinion

ID: 9682913
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:19:24.196636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:43.065620
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DOUGLAS, Judge.
Judge Green for the Court correctly disposed of this case on original submission. On rehearing, a majority of this Court now holds without any evidence to support it that appellant and three other men were stopped by the officer. There is no evidence that the officer stopped them because they were already stopped and standing at the intersection of a residential area in El Paso at 10:20 in the morning. Several recent burglaries had been committed in that area.
All the officer did was ask for identification when the heroin from appellant’s pocket fell to the ground.
The language of Mr. Justice White in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, cited in the original opinion, fits this case. He wrote as follows:
“There is nothing in the Constitution which prevents a policeman from addressing questions to anyone on the streets. Absent special circumstances, the person approached may not be detained or frisked, but may refuse to cooperate and go on his way. . . .”
*56In the present case appellant was neither stopped nor detained by the officer. The officer merely asked for identification. He did not ask for incriminating evidence. One’s identification would rarely, if ever, be incriminating. There was no frisk and no search by the officer. He made the arrest after he saw the heroin.
The asking of identification was not unreasonable or unconstitutional. The heroin picked up by the officer was admissible. The cases relied upon by the majority are not in point.
The motion for rehearing should be denied.
Onion, P. J., joins in this dissent.