Court Opinion

ID: 9777327
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 20:07:41.423435+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:52.661615
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
One week after our opinion in this case, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Gill v. *103State, 625 S.W.2d 307, 319 (Tex.Cr.App.1981), held:
Absent a showing of probable cause and exigent circumstances, a warrantless search of a locked automobile trunk is per se illegal.
In essence, the En Banc opinion of the Court precludes entry into a locked trunk of a vehicle under the impoundment inventory exception to the warrant requirement.
Aside from the inventory theory, which the State emphasized at trial, the seizure of the stolen items in this case was still permissible. The arresting officer observed the subjects leaving the residence. One was carrying something white. The other was walking barefoot on the rock surface of the yard. When the officer turned his vehicle around, one individual ran. The Appellant placed something in the trunk, slammed the lid, entered the vehicle and began to leave. Both individuals were stopped. They gave inconsistent accounts of their relationship to the residence.
The officer observed that the front door was broken and splintered. Through the open door, Officer Castro saw many items thrown about the house.
The individual who attempted to flee on foot had nothing in his possession which might be deemed stolen property. No stolen items were on the person of the Appellant. A stolen wristwatch was later found in the open passenger area of the vehicle. This left no doubt that the bulk of the stolen items were in the trunk of the car. An inventory of the car, prior to impoundment, revealed numerous stolen items in a white pillow case in the trunk. They were identified by the owner of the residence.
The State’s attorney presented the evidence under the inventory theory of warrantless searches. This was not necessary to validate its admission. The offense was committed in the officer’s presence. The removal of the pillow case from the house, its placement in the trunk, and the opening of the trunk, all took place in several minutes. It was all one continuous action, contemporaneous with the arrest. Appellant may contend that it was practicable for the officers to detain the vehicle and obtain a warrant. Both subjects were already under arrest. Practicability of obtaining a warrant is not the absolute test for Fourth Amendment questions. The constitutional issue is not whether a warrant would have been reasonable, but whether the search was unreasonable. United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 66, 70 S.Ct. 430, 434-435, 94 L.Ed. 653, 659-660 (1950). In Rabinowitz, federal officers exercised a lawful arrest of the defendant at his office. In the process, they seized evidence from closed desks and cabinets in the room in which he was found. The Supreme Court found no constitutional violation, since the search was reasonably incident to a lawful arrest.
It is now well-established that the Fourth Amendment protects an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy and not simply his property interest. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967). The privacy interest is not to be determined solely by resort to arbitrary geographical bounds, but should be assessed in light of reasonable expectations arising out of all the surrounding circumstances. To invalidate the present search simply because the Appellant was able to close the lid of his trunk while still in the officer’s view would negate fifteen years of post-Katz reason. Harris v. State, 486 S.W.2d 88, 90 (Tex.Cr.App.1972).
In Warden v. Hayden, police entered a residence in hot pursuit of a described robber. While some officers found the subject in bed, feigning sleep, other officers searched numerous rooms on several floors of the house. A shotgun and a pistol were found in the toilet flush tank in the bathroom. Ammunition was found in the dresser. The pistol magazine was found under the mattress. Clothing, matching the description given by witnesses, was found inside a washing machine downstairs. The Supreme Court upheld seizure of the clothing, even assuming the officer was not look*104ing for the subject or his weapon inside the washing machine. The decision is generally classified under the hot pursuit exception to the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment. The operative time frame is virtually identical to that in which Appellant was arrested and the trunk opened. The danger exigency in Warden v. Hayden was not the primary basis of that decision and does not therefore negate the application of the decision to this ease. Under the totality of the circumstances, there was no invasion of Hayden’s reasonable expectation of privacy. The same is true here.
Borner v. State, 521 S.W.2d 852 (Tex.Cr.App.1975), approved seizure of marijuana from a locked trunk due to the continuity of the transaction, from original police sighting to search and seizure.
Further support for this seizure is found in Article 18.16 of the Code of Criminal Procedure:
All persons have a right to prevent the consequences of theft by seizing any personal property which has been stolen and bringing it, with the supposed offender, if he can be taken, before a magistrate for examination, or delivering the same to peace officer for that purpose. To justify such seizure, there must, however, be reasonable ground to suppose the property to be stolen, and the seizure must be openly made and the proceedings had without delay.
The uncontested facts of the case display absolute compliance with this statute.
Application of this doctrine does not give unlimited authority to the police. The great danger which the Fourth Amendment is designed to prevent is general search authority vested in police officers. We are not confronted with an unfocused search, generally invading Appellant’s privacy interests in the pursuit of evidence or contraband. This was no traffic stop culminating in a narcotics seizure. The officer observed a burglary in its final stages of completion. Prior to arrest and search, his examination of the front door and a portion of the readily-visible interior confirmed his suspicions. The absence of stolen property on the subjects’ persons or in the passenger area of the car left the inescapable conclusion that the goods were in the trunk. Even a layman’s reasonable expectations would be hard-pressed to characterize this as a search. It was more in the nature of a retrieval of a specific item from a specific place. The circumstances and nature of the officer’s observations placed a definite limit on his intrusion. This limit was not broached and was not beyond what Appellant was reasonably entitled to expect.
For the above reasons, the seizure of the pillow case and articles from the locked trunk was not a violation of Appellant’s Fourth Amendment rights. Even if this were not the case, the Gill decision would not justify reversal. Gill now limits the scope of vehicle inventories, and we are bound to follow that decision. Nonetheless, we would decline to apply Gill retroactively to this case. A cardinal premise of the exclusionary rule is that it will serve to deter police misconduct. There is no basis for finding police excess in this case. At the time Officer Castro conducted the inventory, a locked trunk was within the scope of such a procedure under state and federal law.
This very search was the basis for revoking Appellant’s probation in another cause. That revocation was appealed, on Fourth Amendment grounds. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals validated the inventory and affirmed the revocation. See Johnson v. State, 605 S.W.2d 933 (Tex.Cr.App.1980) (unpublished opinion No. 65085, Sept. 17, 1980).
When a change in the law calls into question a police officer’s actions, and it is determined that he acted properly under the law in effect at that time, it is appropriate to limit the retroactive effect of the new rule. To do otherwise would be to punish observation of the law and would not provide deterrence. Williams v. United States, 401 U.S. 646, 91 S.Ct. 1148, 28 L.Ed.2d 388 (1971).
Appellant’s Motion for Rehearing is denied.