Court Opinion

ID: 9646172
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 12:50:58.214008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:34.987695
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
Relatively recently the Court approved the following statement in Hardison v. State, 597 S.W.2d 355, 357 (Tex.Cr.App.1980):
“A showing that the offender is about to escape is indispensable under Article 14.04, supra. Honeycutt v. State, supra [499 S.W.2d 662]. See Butler v. State, 151 Tex.Cr.R. 244, 208 S.W.2d 89 (1948).”1
Finding in Honeycutt that accused was arrested while in her home, in bed, militated against a showing that she was about to escape, the Court deemed “[especially pertinent” Rippy v. State, 122 Tex.Cr.R. 101, 53 S.W.2d 619 (1931), Honeycutt, supra, at 664. Writing for the Court more than fifty years ago, Judge Hawkins coined the original phrase we restated in Hardison v. State, supra. He explained:
“... That part of the statute which says that ‘the offender is about to escape’ is indispensable. That such condition did not exist in the present case seems to be without dispute in fact. At the time the officer went to appellant’s house, appellant was partially undressed and in bed.”
Rippy v. State, supra, 53 S.W.2d at 627.2
As noted by the Court in Honeycutt, “Imminent escape has long been held essential to a warrantless arrest under Article 14.04, supra, and its precursor ... [citing cases].” One obvious reason is that exceptions allowing warrantless arrests are given “strict construction,” id., at 665. And, in that con*471nection, the closing clause of Article 14.04, indicative of a limitation imposed on the legislative authorization, has generally been overlooked: “... such peace officer may, without a warrant, pursue and arrest the accused.” Though the Court has not literally applied the underscored language so as to require that the alleged accused actually be fleeing, for a long time now it has insisted the facts in each individual case present objectively a situation in which pursuit is liable to follow at once if arrest is not made.3
Since I agree from the evidence there is not a clear showing that the persons arrested were about to escape, with these additional comments I join the opinion of Judge Roberts and the judgment of the Court.

. All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.

. Judge Hawkins wrote on State’s motion for rehearing. An earlier protest by Judge Latti-more to grant the motion of appellant for rehearing and reversing the judgment of conviction and remanding the cause indicates that we are not addressing a new problem, viz:
“... What was the officer to do? Here was a man of whose guilt the officer plainly believed himself to have satisfactory proof. If he had gone without arresting in such case and the accused had gotten in a car and traversed the few miles over the highway to the border of our sister state of Oklahoma, the officer would likely have had serious difficulty in escaping just criticism, if not more serious consequences.” Id., 53 S.W.2d at 625.

. Just recently in King v. State, 631 S.W.2d 486 (Tex.Cr.App.1982), this Court concluded that “manifestly, from the ‘concrete factual situation’ spread on the record, it must be apparent that the offender was, in fact, ‘about to escape’.” (P. 497.)