Court Opinion

ID: 9639792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:48:05.09154+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:22.048322
License: Public Domain

O’CONNOR, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. The issue here is whether the State carried its burden of proof to support the two warrantless arrests, and whether the confession made after the arrests was tainted by the illegality of the arrests.
On the morning of December 4, 1987, John Aruner Farmah, Jr., appellant, who was driving a two-toned Buick automobile, had car trouble and pulled to the side of the street. Appellant had just purchased the automobile and it was not registered in his name. As he was sitting on the back of the car, Officer Horn of the Houston Police Department (HPD), pulled up behind him. Officer Horn spoke with appellant, returned to his car, and then placed appellant under arrest. Officer Horn handcuffed appellant and put him in the back of his police vehicle.
About 11:30 a.m., the same day, Officer Johnson of the City of West University Place Police Department (WUP PD), arrived at the scene of the arrest. Officer Horn turned appellant over to Officer Johnson, who transported appellant to the police station in the City of West University Place. Officer Johnson did not take appellant before a magistrate.
At the police station, Officer Johnson questioned appellant about the crime. Appellant denied he was involved. Officer Johnson continued with the questions. About two and a half hours later, Officer Johnson took appellant’s photograph and presented it to the victim, along with other photographs. She did not identify appellant. Although the victim was not able to identify appellant, Officer Johnson resumed the interrogation of appellant by informing him that he had been identified. After that, about four hours after the interrogation began, appellant confessed to the crime. At 4:10 p.m. that afternoon, appellant signed a written confession. At the suppression hearing, Johnson testified appellant was not free to leave the WUP PD during the four hours he was held there.
Ms. Lane, appellant’s mother, is a registered nurse at Methodist Hospital. She testified that appellant was discharged in 1986 by the Marine Corps because of mental problems. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. After his discharge, he spent five months in a mental hospital in San Antonio. When he returned to Houston, he lived with his parents. Since his discharge, appellant was required to take the medication Navan for his mental condition. Ms. Lane testified it calms and relaxes him. Once, when he did not take his medication, he had to be hospitalized. Without his medication, Ms. Lane testified, he would be paranoid, that is, afraid of people.
I. The arrests.
In points of error one and two, appellant contends that the trial court erred in overruling the motion to suppress the written confession, because his arrests were unlaw*675ful.1 Appellant argues that the State did not prove that exigent circumstances obviated the need for an arrest warrant. I agree.
I think the connection between appellant and the crime was too tenuous to support a warrantless arrest; there was no reason for the second officer to think appellant was about to escape; and, there was no evidence the second officer did not have time to get a warrant. I would sustain appellant’s first point of error and hold that the State did not carry its burden to prove there was probable cause for either of the two arrests.
A. The standards of review.
The purpose of the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution, and article I, section 9, of the Texas Constitution, is to protect the innocent and guilty alike from arrest based upon suspicion, rather than upon proof of reasonable grounds. Wilson v. State, 621 S.W.2d 799, 803 (Tex.Crim.App.1981). Arrest on mere suspicion collides violently with the right of liberty. Id.
The rule is: A police officer must obtain an arrest warrant before taking a person into custody. Dejarnette v. State, 732 S.W.2d 346, 349 (Tex.Crim.App.1987). A collateral canon to that rule is: A warrant-less arrest is presumed unreasonable. Wilson, 621 S.W.2d at 803-804. There are statutory exceptions to the rule that a police officer must obtain an arrest. Fry v. State, 639 S.W.2d 463, 465 (Tex.Crim.App.1982).2 Only if a warrantless arrest fits within one of the statutory exceptions is it reasonable.
At trial, the burden is on the State to show that a warrantless arrest comes within one of the statutory exceptions to the general rule that such arrests are unreasonable. Beasley v. State, 728 S.W.2d 353, 355 (Tex.Crim.App.1987). If an arrest is illegal, the court must exclude any evidence that resulted from the arrest, unless the State proves the evidence is not tainted by the illegality of the arrest. Id. at 355-56.
If a defendant raises a question about the voluntariness of a statement made to the police, the trial court must conduct a hearing out of the presence of a jury. Tex. Code CRIM.P.Ann. art. 38.22 (Vernon 1979). If the court denies the motion to suppress, the court must make findings of fact to support his order overruling the motion to suppress. Tex.Code CRIM.P.Ann. art. 38.22, § 6 (Vernon 1979).
On appeal, we review the findings of the trial court to determine if they are supported by the evidence. Green v. State, 615 S.W.2d 700, 707 (Tex.Crim.App.1980). If the findings are supported by the evidence, we review the trial court’s conclusions to see if the court properly applied the law to the facts. Burdine v. State, 719 S.W.2d 309, 318 (Tex.Crim.App.1986).
B. The trial court’s findings.
After the hearing on the motion to suppress, the trial court entered findings of fact that: (1) appellant was in possession of the Buick automobile when he was detained by Officer Horn; (2) when Officer Johnson took custody of appellant, he did not know any facts about appellant’s address, employment or ties to Harris County; (3) Officer Johnson had reason to believe that appellant owned the Buick and met the descriptions of the suspect involved in the sexual assault; (4) neither officer had a warrant; (5) appellant was in Johnson’s custody about four hours before he confessed; (6) appellant made the written confession after Johnson falsely told him that the victim had identified him; (7) the false representation was not made to produce an untruthful confession. On these findings, the trial court held that Officer Johnson had probable cause to arrest appellant because of Johnson’s
*676lack of information concerning [appellant] and distinct possibility that [appellant] would flee once notified that he was a suspect.
The trial court also found that the written statement made by appellant was given after he knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived his rights.
C. The first arrest.
Appellant argues that Officer Horn, the one who made the first arrest, did not have probable cause to arrest appellant without a warrant. I agree. I think the first arrest does not pass constitutional muster for two reasons: (1) the trial court did not make any finding about the first arrest; and, (2) even if it had, there was no evidence to support it.
1. No finding on the first arrest.
The trial court did not make a finding about the first arrest. The majority justifies the first arrest without specifically saying why. The majority cites Tarpley v. State, 565 S.W.2d 525, 529 (Tex.Crim.App.1978), for the proposition that an officer, who does not himself possess probable cause to make a warrantless arrest, may act on information relayed to him by another officer requesting that an arrest be made. I agree with the principle; I disagree that it applies here.
There is no evidence that Officer Horn relied on any information to arrest appellant. All we know about Officer Horn’s actions came from the testimony of appellant: Officer Horn drove up behind his stalled car; got out of his vehicle; talked to appellant; returned to his vehicle; arrested appellant. Nothing in that evidence suggests why Officer Horn arrested appellant.
There was no, repeat no, evidence that Officer Horn relied on any information relayed to him about the Buick automobile with the license number 738 QVE. Officer Johnson testified he did not talk to Officer Horn until he met him at the Westheimer arrest scene. At that time, appellant was already under arrest. Nothing Johnson could have told Horn, after appellant was already under arrest, could justify the initial arrest.
The majority builds inference upon inference to reach its unstated conclusion that Officer Horn relied on information relayed to him from Johnson to make the arrest. It goes this way. Inference 1: When Officer Horn walked back to his car, he used the police radio. Inference 2: When Officer Horn used his radio, he called his dispatcher. Inference 3: When Officer Horn contacted the dispatcher, he asked the dispatcher about a vehicle with license plate number 738 QVE. Inference 4: The dispatcher relayed information from Officer Johnson that he should hold the vehicle with license plate number 738 QVE. Inference 5: Officer Horn arrested appellant, relying on the information relayed from Officer Johnson.
No evidence of probable cause was presented to the court to justify the first arrest. We should follow the same principles we applied in Lewis v. State, 737 S.W.2d 857, 861 (Tex.App. — Houston [1st Dist.] 1987, pet. refd), and hold the first arrest was illegal. If the first arrest was illegal, it cannot be legitimated by a second officer’s arrest. It would not matter, therefore, if there were probable cause for the second arrest. But, because the majority deals with the second arrest, I will also address it.
D. The second arrest.
Did Officer Johnson of the WUP PD, have the authority to make a second war-rantless arrest of appellant? We should determine if the arrest meets all the conditions set out in article 14.04. The majority concentrates only on the second of these conditions.
Article 14.04, Tex.Code Crim.P.Ann. (Vernon 1977), provides that a peace officer may make a warrantless arrest if the officer has satisfactory proof: (1) that a felony was committed by the accused; (2) that the accused is about to escape; and (3) there is no time to procure a warrant.
*6771. Did the accused commit a felony?
The State must prove that a felony was committed and there is probable cause to believe the defendant committed it. Officer Johnson knew a felony had been committed. The issue is whether Johnson had any information that appellant might have been one of the three men who committed the crime.
All Johnson knew about the identity of the three men who committed the sexual assault, was that they were African-Americans and were in a maroon-over-white Buick automobile of undetermined model, whose license plate was probably 738 QVE. Johnson had no other information about their identity or description. I do not think article 14.04 permitted the police to make a warrantless arrest of any black man driving a maroon-over-white Buick with license plate number 738 QVE.
2. Was the accused about to escape?
The majority focuses on Officer Johnson’s claim that appellant was about to escape. I will analyze the information under the majority’s four factors.

a.Evidence of imminent escape.

The courts have held that the officer should have more than an inarticulate hunch that a defendant is about to escape. Honeycutt v. State, 499 S.W.2d 662, 665 (Tex.Crim.App.1973). The courts have upheld warrantless arrests in many cases where the police were informed by some credible person that defendant was about to escape. See Dejarnette, 732 S.W.2d at 350. The courts have also upheld a war-rantless arrest where the officer has observed conduct that indicates the offender is about to escape. Id.
Johnson testified at the suppression hearing that he decided appellant was about to escape based on two pieces of evidence: (1) Johnson did not believe the address on appellant’s driver’s license; and (2) after Johnson told appellant he was a suspect, Johnson thought appellant would escape.
First, the address. Officer Johnson said that he did not believe the address on appellant’s driver’s license.3 That address was appellant’s parent’s address, where appellant had lived since he returned from the military.
Johnson admitted he did not cheek the address on the driver’s license. Johnson did not ask appellant for his telephone number to verify appellant’s address. Johnson did not ask appellant for names of relatives. Johnson said he did not know about appellant’s ties to the community.
Officer Johnson said he did not believe that the address on the driver’s license was the correct one, because appellant told him he had stayed with friends. At the suppression hearing, appellant denied he told Johnson he stayed with friends. Even if true, however, that did not provide Johnson with probable cause to believe that appellant would escape. Staying with friends, instead at one’s own home, is not evidence a person is about to escape.

b.Discovery of police pursuit.

At the suppression hearing, Johnson testified he thought appellant would flee because Johnson told him he was a suspect. An officer cannot create probable cause for a warrantless arrest by telling the suspect of the officer’s suspicions. If we permitted an officer to create probable cause in such a way, we would legitimize a shortcut around the fourth amendment. The Court of Criminal Appeals has held that the crime itself is not enough to prove that defendant would flee. See Dejarnette, 732 S.W.2d at 349-50.

c.Proximity in time to the crime.

The majority holds that Officer Johnson was justified in arresting appellant because appellant was discovered within one day after the unidentified witness gave Johnson the license plate number. That is not what the law requires. It is not the proximity between the information and the arrest, but the proximity between the crime *678and the arrest that is relevant. Nine days expired between the crime and the two arrests.

d. Location of the arrest.

This element requires us to address whether the arrest was in a public or private place. Here, the arrest was made on a public street. There was no evidence that appellant might have taken advantage of the public streets to escape. When the first officer approached appellant, who was sitting on the back of his disabled car, appellant evidently made no move to run. This factor does not help sustain the war-rantless arrest.
3. Was there no opportunity to procure a warrant?
The majority does not discuss this element, which I think disposes of the issue. At the motion to suppress, the State did not offer any proof that Johnson did not have time to procure a warrant.
Before making an arrest, if at all possible, a police officer should obtain an arrest warrant. Hogan v. State, 631 S.W.2d 159, 161 (Tex.Crim.App.1982). Under article 14.04, which permits the police to make a warrantless arrest, the State must establish both probable cause for the arrest and the circumstances that made it impossible to secure a warrant. Kelley v. State, 676 S.W.2d 646, 650 (Tex.App. — Houston [1st Dist.] 1984, pet. ref’d).
Officer Horn arrested appellant on the morning of December 4, 1987. There is nothing in the record to determine what time Officer Horn made the arrest. We only know it was the morning. Neither do we know when Johnson first received notice that appellant was being held on Westheimer. We know Johnson arrived at the scene and made the second arrest at about 11:30 a.m. Depending on when Johnson first learned that HPD was holding appellant, Johnson could have had numbers of hours to get a warrant.
We can take judicial notice that December 4, 1987 was a weekday, and that in Harris County there are over 157 judges, who, as magistrates, may issue warrants. Johnson did not offer any reason he could not reach a judge to issue an arrest warrant. Under the authority of Hogan, when the record shows a police officer made no attempt to find out if a justice of the peace was available, or to secure an arrest warrant, we should reverse. 631 S.W.2d at 161.
II. The voluntariness of the confession.
If the trial court finds that the confession resulted from a violation of any provisions of the state or federal constitutions or laws, the court must exclude it. Bell v. State, 724 S.W.2d 780, 787 (Tex.Crim.App.1986); Tex.Code Crim.P.Ann. art. 38.23 (Vernon Supp.1990). The exclusion is not automatic, however. Bell, 724 S.W.2d at 787. If the court finds the arrest illegal, it may still admit the confession if the State shows that the illegality of the arrest did not contaminate the confession. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 417-18, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). The confession must be “sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint.” Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 602, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2261, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). The burden is on the State. See Bell, 724 S.W.2d at 787.
To decide whether a confession, which was given after an illegal arrest, was voluntary, we apply the test from Brown v. Illinois: (1) were Miranda warnings given, (2) the passage of time between the arrest and the confession, (3) the presence of intervening circumstances; and (4) the purpose and flagrancy of the officer’s misconduct. 422 U.S. at 603-604, 95 S.Ct. at 2261-62; Beasley, 728 S.W.2d at 355-56.
1. Miranda warnings.
Officer Johnson gave appellant the Miranda warnings before appellant confessed. Appellant also signed a written statement that informed him of his constitutional rights, which he knowingly waived. Even when Miranda warnings are given, the court must suppress a defendant’s confession if it is a result of an illegal arrest. See Bell, 724 S.W.2d at 788 (fifth amendment warnings under Miranda do not cure *679fourth amendment problems of an arrest). See also LaFave, W.R., 4 Search and Seizure § 11.4(b) (2d ed. 1987).
As we said in Lewis, the use of a statement resulting from an illegal arrest violates the fourth amendment guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. 737 S.W.2d at 861. Thus, even when a confession is free of fifth amendment problems (because Miranda warnings were given), the confession is not free of the taint of an unlawful arrest if the confession results from of a violation of the fourth amendment. Id.; Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. at 602, 95 S.Ct. at 2261. To break the causal chain between the illegal arrest and the confession made as a result of the arrest, the State cannot simply prove that the Miranda warnings were given. Proof that appellant’s statement meets the fifth amendment standard of voluntariness does not cure the taint of the illegal arrest. When the State obtains a confession after an illegal arrest, the State must also show that the confession was sufficiently an act of free will so that it purged the primary taint of the illegal arrest. Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 488, 83 S.Ct. at 417-18; Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. at 602, 95 S.Ct. at 2261.
2. The time between the arrests and the confession.
The majority says there was a lapse of only two hours between the second arrest and the confession. I believe the majority misreads the record. The second officer made his arrest about 11:30 a.m. Appellant signed a confession at 4:10 p.m. There was, therefore, about four hours between the second arrest and the confession.4
In Beasley, 728 S.W.2d at 357 the Court of Criminal Appeals held the lapse of seven hours between the arrest and the confession was too little time to remove the taint, and looked to the other factors. If the lapse of seven hours was too little time to dissipate the effect of an illegal arrest, obviously two (or four) hours was also too little time. See Bell, 724 S.W.2d at 787 (court-suppressed confession made one and a half to three hours after illegal arrest, even though Miranda warnings were given).
As part of this analysis we must also remember that appellant was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who was without his medication. It is easier to overbear a person with a mental illness than a normal person.
3. Intervening circumstances and the illegal arrests.
There were no intervening circumstances that reduced the impact of the illegal arrests. Appellant was not taken before a magistrate, was not given the opportunity to contact his family, and was not given the chance to consult with an attorney.
The analysis of intervening circumstances must be considered along with the analysis of the passage of time. The courts generally look to the length of time between the illegal arrest and the confession to see if the length of time between the two dispelled the effect of the illegal arrest. In those cases, the courts consider that the effect of the illegal arrest will pass with time. For example, when a confession is separated by days from the illegal arrest, we can be fairly sure the illegal arrest did not play a part in inducing the confession. Our assumption is that, days later, when defendant talks to his attorney and others, he is not being overborne by the illegal arrest into making a confession. The unstated assumption in our analysis of the passage of time, is that there will be some intervening circumstances.
When there are no intervening circumstances and the illegal arrest and detention continue without interruption, the passage of time exacerbates the effect of the illegal arrest; it does not extinguish it. For example, if a defendant is arrested and held incommunicado for two days, most courts will assume the passage of time between *680the illegal arrest and the confession, along with the lack of intervening circumstances, exacerbated, not dissipated, the effect of the illegal arrest.
Here, appellant was first arrested sometime on the morning of December 4, 1987. We have absolutely no information about the time of the first arrest except that it was before 11:00 a.m. From the time of his first arrest, appellant was in the custody of the police. Once the second officer placed him under arrest and transported him to police headquarters, appellant was the focus of that officer’s attention until he confessed.
The majority says there was an intervening circumstance, that Officer Johnson told appellant he had been identified. Slip op. at 11. I do not think this is the kind of intervening circumstance that inures to the benefit of the State. I believe Brown v. Illinois tells us to look for intervening circumstances that would lessen the impact of the illegal arrest. A trick could hardly lessen the impact; it would probably exacerbate it.
4. The purpose and flagrancy of the officer’s misconduct.
To trick appellant into confessing, Officer Johnson told appellant that the victim had identified him as her assailant. Trickery or deception, however, do not render a confession involuntary, unless the method used was calculated to produce an untruthful confession, or was offensive to due process. Snow v. State, 721 S.W.2d 943, 946 (Tex.App. — Houston [1st Dist.] 1986, no pet.); Dotsey v. State, 630 S.W.2d 343, 349 (Tex.App. — Austin 1982, no pet.).
Other than the false information, there were no allegations of police misconduct. In fact, Johnson testified that he provided appellant with lunch, albeit a T.V. dinner, and was not denied other requests, or promised favors in exchange for his statement.
I would sustain appellant’s second point of error and hold that the State did not carry its burden to prove that the confession was not tainted by the illegality of the two arrests.
The judgment of the trial court should be reversed.

. The majority states that "Appellant ... did not raise an issue regarding voluntariness [of the confession].” Op. at 672. In appellant's motion to suppress, he stated: "[the statements made to the West University police] were not made freely and voluntarily.”

. See Tex.Code Crim.P.Ann. Art. 14.01, 14.02, 14.-04, 18.16 (Vernon 1977) and Tex.Code Crim.P. Ann. art. 14.03 (Vernon Supp.1990).

. The majority says that appellant was not able to give a fixed address. The record shows that appellant gave Johnson his driver’s license but Johnson decided the address was not correct.

. There was actually more than four hours between the arrest and confession if we count from the first illegal arrest. The careful reader may ask why the dissent, who argues there was not enough time to dissipate the taint of the illegal arrest, makes a point that even more time expired than the majority contends. I will get to that under the next section.