Court Opinion

ID: 9779064
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:34:53.499244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:20.397261
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority says, “If the facts support the conclusion that the appellant was in custody when he was placed under arrest. ... the Court of Appeals reached the proper conclusion.” P. 66.1 But when we treat an offense based on a statutorily defined element of “custody,” resort to decisions construing the meaning of “seizure” in the Fourth Amendment is not likely to solve the problem. Since the majority is content to do just that and, in the doing, comes to an erroneous conclusion, I respectfully dissent.
“It is quite plain that the Fourth Amendment governs ‘seizures’ of the person which do not eventuate in a trip to the station house and prosecution for crime —‘arrests’ in traditional terminology. It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that person.”
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1877, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).2 Where the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment is not implicated, a less intrusive “seizure” is to be tested against its “general proscription against unreasonable searches or seizures.” Id., at 20, 88 S.Ct., at 1879. See, e.g., Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106, 98 S.Ct. 330, 54 L.Ed.2d 331 (1977) (ordering driver stopped for traffic violation out of car is a “seizure” but permissible).
United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.d 497 (1980), and Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983), as well as Russell v. State, 717 S.W.2d 7 (Tex.Cr.App.1986), upon which the majority opinion in this cause relies, are progeny of Terry v. Ohio, supra. Their principal contribution to Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has been to develop a standard by which courts may determine whether particular police conduct constitutes a “seizure.” That is, “only if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed he was not free to leave,” Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554, 100 S.Ct., at 1877; Royer, 460 U.S. at 502, 103 S.Ct., at 1326; Russell, at 10.
But whether a person was “seized” is merely a threshold inquiry in determining a claim that an intrusion upon his liberty or privacy occurred without particularized and objective justification required in the circumstances to render the “seizure” reasonable. Therefore, a “seizure” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment does not necessarily equate with “custody” within the meaning of V.T.C.A. Penal Code, § 38.07. So, federal decisions relied on by the majority do not dictate our construction of a state statute in which the critical component is “custody,” not “seizure.”3
The Court of Appeals did find that Officer Reed “effected a warrantless arrest ” of appellant, and that appellant “committed the offense of felony escape when he ran *68from Sergeant Reed after first being taken into custody.” Those two conclusions of law are central to the rationale of the court in overruling the point of error advanced by appellant. Morris v. State, 696 S.W.2d 616, 618, 619. (Tex.App.—Houston [14th] 1985). They are also essential elements of the felony offense of escape under § 38.07, supra (as originally enacted). In context of the facts here appellant must have escaped “from custody” while in the status of being “under arrest.” See Snabb v. State, 683 S.W.2d 850 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1984), no PDR history. Let us examine his status.
The uniform definition of “arrest” in Texas is that prescribed by Article 15.22, V.A.C.C.P., viz:
“A person is arrested when he has been actually placed under restraint or taken into custody by an officer_ar-resting without a warrant.”
Accordingly, Smith v. State, 153 Tex.Cr.R. 230, 219 S.W.2d 454 (1949), teaches, “The mere fact that an officer makes the statement to an accused that he is under arrest does not complete the arrest.” 219 S.W.2d, at 456. So the fact that Officer Reed may have “advised” appellant he was “under arrest” is not determinative of his actual status.
The “point of arrest” is “at the moment that a person’s freedom of movement is restricted or restrained.” White v. State, 601 S.W.2d 364, 366 (Tex.Cr.App.1980); Maldonado v. State, 528 S.W.2d 234, 237 (Tex.Cr.App.1975); Hardinge v. State, 500 S.W.2d 870, 873 (Tex.Cr.App.1973); Woods v. State, 466 S.W.2d 741, 743 (Tex.Cr.App.1971).
Officer Reed did not place appellant under restraint of handcuffs; he had none. So far as this record shows, he did not place appellant under other personal restraint or otherwise restrict his freedom of movement. Compare White v. State, supra, at 365 (officer chased after, caught and tackled suspect and then at the point of a pistol placed him in spread-eagled position against stock trailer). Indeed, that appellant was able to jump up and run out of the office clearly demonstrates that his freedom of movement had not been restricted.
Appellant invokes the rationale of Snabb v. State, supra, while the State seeks to discredit it. The majority resolves the dispute by the simple expedient if overruling Snabb, although it analyzes § 38.07 in light of germane cases and applies the law to somewhat similar facts.
The issue here is “custody” as defined by our statute, not “seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The majority should address state law in deciding the contested issue. Ample precedents in this jurisdiction support appellant’s position. He was not arrested in that he had not been placed under the restraint required by Article 15.22, supra.
The judgment of the Houston (14th) Court of Appeals should be reversed. Because it is not I respectfully dissent.
MILLER, J., joins in this opinion.

. All emphasis is mine throughout if not otherwise noted.

. The Fourth Amendment governs all seizures of the person, "including seizures that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest, [citations omitted].” United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, at 878, 95 S.Ct. 2574, at 2578, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975).

. Indeed, endeavoring in his brief to uphold the reason for the decision of the Houston (14th) Court of Appeals, the assistant district attorney never once alludes to the Mendenhall-Royer standard. Instead, he addresses the statute and such statutory definitions of revelant terms that are ingredients of the offense of escape, only to critique "the Legislature’s woeful lack of clarity in defining these basic terms” — "arrest” and “custody” in § 38.01(2). They are, he concludes, "circular in part.” State's Reply Brief, at p. 9. Accordingly, he develops yet another theory which, as I understand its opinion, the majority notices at page 64, but does not adopt.