Court Opinion

ID: 9669185
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:42:08.932655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:53.349556
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
Because the majority erroneously sustains the search of the person of Hector Ramirez, appellant, that was made by Reynaldo Martinez, a Brownsville police officer, inside of the Lighthouse Bar, located “on skid row” in Brownsville, I must dissent.
In light of what the majority upholds in this Orwellian year of 1984, I find the following comment rather interesting: “One hopes the year 2000 will ... find the courts manning [the search and seizure] barrier against whatever form unreasonable governmental intrusion then takes... As for [Art. 1, Section 9, of the Texas Constitution], it should remain as the important bulwark against unreasonable governmental intrusion that it is.” The Constitution of the State of Texas: An Annotated and Comparative Analysis, at page 35. After reading what the majority upholds today, I shudder to think what it will sustain in the year 2,000.
Art. 1, Section 9, of the Texas Constitution, expressly provides in no uncertain terms: “The people shall be secure in their persons ... from all unreasonable seizures or searches...”
Even though it is only unreasonable searches and seizures that are forbidden by Art. 1, Section 9, as a practical matter, this Court in the past has equated reasonableness with the requirements of probable cause for a warrant. One exception to this rule of construction, that is inapplicable to this cause, is that where the detaining police officer has specific and articulable *483facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant suspicion on his part that the suspect is armed and about to engage in criminal conduct, then the officer has the right to physically seize the suspect and conduct a protective frisk for weapons without a warrant. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). The majority, unfortunately, creates today another exception to the warrant requirement.
The facts that relate to the issue are undisputed.
A lay person, who was unknown to Officer Martinez, approached Martinez and told him that an individual was in a nearby bar in possession of a gun. He did not articulate to Martinez how he knew the individual had a gun in his possession. Thus, it is just as reasonable to assume that the information was based upon hearsay as it is to assume that the information was from personal knowledge. Martinez did not question the person as to why he had concluded that an individual in the bar had possession of a gun. However, the person did give Martinez a physical description of the person he said was in possession of a gun in the bar.
Armed only with this information, Martinez went inside of the bar, where he eventually saw a person, who was later identified as appellant, who matched the physical description that the unknown person had given Martinez.
At that moment in time, appellant was merely sitting at a table, doing nothing of a criminal nature, nor acting out of the ordinary. Prior to this occasion, Martinez did not know appellant.
Martinez “ordered” appellant to stand up, and appellant obeyed that command, after which Martinez saw a bulge in appellant’s right pants pocket. Martinez then frisked appellant and found a gun on his person, for which appellant was prosecuted for possessing. See V.T.C.A., Penal Code, Section 46.02(a) and (c). His punishment, enhanced, was assessed at life imprisonment.
The majority holds that “Under the facts of this case [Martinez’] actions that resulted in the finding of the weapon were justified.” I strongly disagree with this conclusion.
In arriving at its conclusion, the majority relies upon Terry v. Ohio, supra. Its reliance, however, is misplaced.
Terry v. Ohio, supra, mandates that before a lawful stop and frisk are permissible, the following must first be established: the detaining police officer must have specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant suspicion on his part that the suspect is armed and about to engage in criminal conduct. If the police officer has satisfied these requirements, he may then, but only then, physically seize the suspect and conduct a protective frisk for weapons.
In this instance, Martinez was not armed with specific and articulable facts that would lead a reasonable and cautious person to believe that appellant was armed with a gun. Martinez was possessed only with a conclusory statement from an unknown person when he “ordered” appellant to stand up. From that moment forward, appellant had been “seized,” if not arrested, by Martinez.
By allowing a bare, uncorroborated con-clusory statement by an unknown and unidentified person to constitute the “articula-ble suspicion” required by Terry v. Ohio, supra, to become the law of this State, the majority subjects all of our citizenry to warrantless searches by police officers based on nothing more than unsupported and uncorroborated statements by unknown persons.
Terry v. Ohio, supra, did not hold or approve of arrests or seizures of persons being made by the police for mere purposes of making an investigation. Nor did Terry v. Ohio, supra, hold that the good faith belief of the police officer justified an arrest or seizure of a person for mere purposes of making an investigation. Nor did Terry v. Ohio, supra, hold that an officer’s *484inarticulate hunch justified unwarranted intrusions upon a citizen’s constitutionally guaranteed right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
The majority, however, has now engraft-ed onto our law what the Supreme court did not hold in Terry v. Ohio, supra. To this novel, but frightening holding, I respectfully dissent. Orwell, have you read what the majority has written?