Court Opinion

ID: 9769290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:43:39.866005+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:59.892574
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge
(dissenting).
The facts in this case show that the appellant was arrested for driving his car on the wrong side of the road. An officer testified that he swerved his patrol car to the shoulder of the road to avoid a head-on collision with the car appellant was driving and, “Well, when he was passing us it was a complete — not a complete, but he leaned way over in the seat as if to push something back or to place something down there.” After appellant’s car was stopped, officers looked in the door and recognized two capsules as black mollies, the common name for amphetamines, lying on the floorboard in plain view.
The officers took the black mollies and a brown package beside them. The brown package contained other black mollies and a cellophane package of white powder later ascertained to be heroin.
Here the appellant was the driver of the car. The contraband was found on the floorboard near the front seat where he had made a movement as if to place something down.
The evidence was so closely connected with the appellant that no charge on circumstantial evidence was required. See Oltiveros v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 474 S.W.2d 221, and the dissenting opinion in Ramos v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 478 S.W.2d 102. Even if such a charge on circumstantial evidence should have been given, such failure would not have been such as to affect the result of the trial. See Article 36.19, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P.
The judgment should be affirmed.
MORRISON, J., joins in this dissent.