Court Opinion

ID: 9772084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:07:01.031851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:42.013092
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON STATE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DOUGLAS, Judge.
On original submission, a majority of a panel reversed this conviction for the possession of more than four ounces of marihuana because the evidence was introduced as a result of a search of an automobile where approximately sixty pounds of marihuana was found. In addition to the amount of marihuana found in the car, some two hundred pounds was found at his home pursuant to a search warrant which contained an order for the arrest of appellant. We grant the State’s motion for rehearing.
There appears to be no question about the search of appellant’s home.
At the hearing on the motion to suppress the evidence obtained in the automobile, Officer Kenton Koop of the Dallas Police Department testified that he received information from a confidential informant that appellant was in possession of marihuana. The informant had given him information before this date that had proved to be correct. Officer Koop obtained a search warrant to search the residence of appellant. While enroute to the residence, he received additional information from the same informant that appellant was at a garage at 2406 May Street in Oak Cliff and that he and others there were dividing approximately one hundred pounds of marihuana. He related that he did not get a search warrant for the garage because he did not have time to do so at that time of night and that the informant told him that they would be there at the address for a short time. When Koop arrived at the garage, someone was listening to a radio in appellant’s 1974 black Chevrolet, which had been described earlier by the informant. The occupant pointed out appellant, who was in the garage with other people. Officer Koop testified that the garage was open to the public. This was contradicted to some extent by witnesses called by appellant. Koop went into the garage, asked appellant for the keys and opened the trunk, where he found twenty-four bricks or kilos of marihuana which weighed about 2.2 pounds each.
Koop then proceeded to appellant’s home to make the search under the warrant. Appellant’s wife was there. Officers found about a pound of marihuana in the attic and about two hundred pounds in a Dodge pickup truck in the garage.
Did the officers have a right to make the search of the automobile? The officers did not have a search warrant for the garage but did have a search warrant for the residence. The search warrant contained an order to arrest appellant.
The reliability of the informant is not questioned. The facts alleged in the affidavit show that the informant was a credible, reliable person. The informant gave him the license number of the automobile, its make and description and related that the people were dividing the marihuana at the garage. The officers had sufficient probable cause to believe that the appellant possessed marihuana in the automobile.
Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States in Colorado v. Bannister, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 42, 66 L.Ed.2d 1 (1980), held and noted that officers who had probable cause could search an automobile where it was stopped on the scene or after the car was seized and moved to a police station, citing Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970).
*218In the Bannister case, the Colorado Springs Police Department observed a blue 1967 Pontiac GTO automobile moving along a road at a speed above the legal speed limit. The automobile disappeared. Shortly thereafter, the officer heard a police radio dispatch reporting theft of motor vehicle parts which had occurred in the area and which announced that a number of chrome lug nuts were among the items missing and provided a description of the two suspects. A few minutes after hearing the report, the officer spotted the same car that he had seen earlier and it was speeding. After the car entered a service station, the officer followed it there for the purpose of issuing a traffic citation to the driver.
As the officer approached the car, both of the occupants, including the respondent Bannister, stepped out. A conversation between the officer and the respondent ensued. Standing just outside the closed front door of the automobile, the officer observed chrome lug nuts in an open glove compartment inside between the front bucket seats as well as two lug wrenches on the floorboard of the back seat. Recognizing that the respondent and his companion met the description of those suspected of stealing the motor vehicle parts, the officer immediately arrested them. He then seized the lug nuts and wrenches. The trial court granted the motion to suppress and the Supreme Court of Colorado affirmed the decision. The state filed for petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court noted that searches outside the judicial process under the Fourth Amendment were not authorized unless there were exceptions. The Court wrote:
“... One of these exceptions, recognized at least since Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 [45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed.2d 543] (1925), exists when an automobile or other vehicle is stopped and the police have probable cause to believe it contains evidence of a crime.” [Citing Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970).]
The car was stopped for speeding and there was probable cause “that the contents of the automobile offend[ed] against the law.”
The probable cause was noted by the Supreme Court of Colorado but, according to the United States Supreme Court, it mistakenly concluded that a warrant was required to open a car door and seize the items within and his stopping of the car and issuing a traffic citation was legitimate, and that the circumstances of this case provided not only probable cause to arrest but, under Carroll and Chambers, the probable cause to seize the incriminating items without a warrant.
The state’s petition for certiorari was granted. The Supreme Court of the United States held the search was constitutionally permissible. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Colorado suppressing the evidence was set aside.
The Court noted Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 760, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 2591, 61 L.Ed.2d 235 (1979), and, at least impliedly, held that it did not apply.
There were as many exigent circumstances in the present case as there were in Bannister’s case. The search was authorized. The judgment of reversal is set aside; the State’s motion for rehearing is granted.
The other grounds have been considered and overruled.
The judgment is affirmed.
ROBERTS, ODOM, PHILLIPS and CLINTON, JJ., dissent.