Court Opinion

ID: 9863332
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 03:24:47.939885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:41:18.372335
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
Reasons given by me in Gary v. State, 647 S.W.2d 646, at 649 (Tex.Cr.App.1983), Backer v. State, 656 S.W.2d 463, at 465-467 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) and Ward v. State, 659 S.W.2d 643, at 649, n. 6 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) are enough to show that an “inventory” like this one is a charade played out to cover a general search of a motor vehicle— scripted by opinions from this Court, some of which are those cited above, advancing amiable legal fiction.
The notion that government is free to impose its will upon citizens and their effects or possessions in the manner done in this cause is rejected by literal constitutional language designed, written and adopted to provide the very security against inva*46sions of privacy condoned by the majority (again). Adding to all that an utterly gratuitous application to possessions in the trunk of an automobile on a public street of what was permitted peace officers at a station house by the Supreme Court in Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 103 S.Ct. 2605, 77 L.Ed.2d 65 (1983), demonstrates just how near full circle we have come in 1984. See Brown v. State, 657 S.W.2d 797, 799 (Tex.Cr.App.1983) (Concurring Opinion).
In the instant case, driving in early morning hours, the citizen “made an abrupt left turn without signaling,” and lost his rights because his companion could not produce “identification.”
I dissent.