Court Opinion

ID: 9773329
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:42:18.039211+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:52.205283
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS, Judge
(dissenting).
The majority reverses this conviction because officers making a search after a valid arrest for a traffic violation did not state that they were in fear of danger to themselves or others. The majority holds that an officer, upon stopping an offender and sees him place something in a glove compartment, cannot search that compartment for his protection because it is unreasonable for the officer to think that the offender might have been hiding a gun.
Officer M. R. Wood testified that at about 8:00 o’clock at night he arrested appellant because he made a turn without giving a signal. As appellant was pulling to the curb, he reached with an outstretched arm toward the glove compartment. After being stopped, appellant “. jumped out of the truck, and my partner searched him for weapons, and I went to the location where I saw him reach to the box” to see if he had placed a weapon or contraband there. Appellant was standing by the door of the truck. He found a plastic bag that appeared to be marihuana. He related that it was a protective search and “. . . if he had placed a weapon in there, then after the search when we’d leave, he could have gone back to the box, retrieved whatever he placed there and done whatever harm he had on his mind if he had any” and “I was not looking for the fruits of this crime just for my own protection.” B. C. Fisher, another officer, testified about their stopping appellant and seeing appellant reaching toward the glove compartment as if to put something there or retrieve something, possibly some type of weapon.
The majority reasons that he could not harm the officers while he was outside the truck and the search for their protection was not reasonable. The testimony of Officer Wood that appellant might get a weapon out of the glove compartment and do whatever harm he wanted is sufficient to show the search was reasonable.
The Constitutions of the United States and State of Texas only prohibit unreasonable searches. In my opinion this search was reasonable. One with a gun" can kill just as easily after he gets back into his vehicle as he could before alighting. See Borner v. State, 521 S.W.2d 852 (Tex.Cr.App.1975), where this Court wrote:
“. . . the search of the area where the occupants were seated was for the protection of the officers. The Supreme Court of the United States authorizes searches after an arrest for the protection of officers for any weapon that might be readily obtained. See Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969). . . (Emphasis supplied)
Mr. Justice Black, speaking for the Supreme Court of the United States in Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 84 S.Ct. 881, 11 L.Ed.2d 777, wrote:
“The rule allowing contemporaneous searches is justified, for example, by the need to seize weapons and other things which might be used to assault an officer
It should not be necessary for an officer to be required to be in fear of his life or that he searched for his protection. The officer in the present case testified that he searched for his protection. If he had not been at least apprehensive or in fear of bodily injury, he would not have conducted the search. The Supreme Court of the *270United States upheld the search of a person after an arrest for a traffic violation based upon probable cause that Robinson was violating a traffic regulation of the District of Columbia in United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973). The Court wrote:
“It is well settled that a search incident to a lawful arrest is a traditional exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.”
Prior to the Supreme Court decision, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in United States v. Robinson, 153 U.S.App.D.C. 114, 471 F.2d 1082 (1973), had held the same search was unreasonable. The Court of Appeals noted that there was no suggestion that a wadded up cigarette package in Robinson’s pocket was believed to be a weapon or that the officer believed himself to be in danger. The officer in that case, according to the Circuit Court opinion, did not have any specific purpose in mind when he made the search. “I just searched him. I didn’t think about what I was looking for. I just searched him.” The wadded up cigarette package contained heroin. The Circuit Court held that “Officer Jenks exceeded the permissible scope of a limited frisk for weapons,” and stated that a search after an arrest for violating a mere motor vehicle regulation was illegal. The Supreme Court held otherwise.
In Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U.S. 260, 94 S.Ct. 488, 38 L.Ed.2d 456 (1973), the Supreme Court of the United States upheld a search of one who was arrested for not having a driver’s license. Gustafson was convicted for the possession of marihuana. After observing an automobile being driven or weaving across the center line of a road several times, officers followed and stopped it. Gustafson, the driver, was unable to produce an operator’s license and was arrested. The Supreme Court wrote:
“Though the officer here was not required to take the petitioner into custody by police regulations as he was in Robinson, and there did not exist a departmental policy establishing the conditions under which a full-scale body search should be conducted, we do not find these differences determinative of the constitutional issue. . . . ‘The authority to search the person incident to .a lawful custodial arrest, while based upon the need to disarm and to discover evidence, does not depend on what a court may later decide was the probability in a particular arrest situation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found upon the person of the suspect.’ ” (Emphasis supplied)
The Supreme Court held that there was probable cause for the arrest in the Robinson case. There Officer Jenks learned that Robinson did not have a valid license to operate an automobile. When the officer later saw him driving, the arrest was authorized.
The Uniform Act Regulating Traffic on Highways, Article 6701d, Section 153, Y.A. C.S., provides:
“Any peace officer is authorized to arrest without warrant any person found committing a violation of any provision of this Act.”
This includes the right to arrest for making an illegal turn under the Act.
The majority recognizes that appellant was under arrest. The right to a reasonable search follows the right to arrest.
In Wood v. State, 515 S.W.2d 300 (Tex.Cr.App.1974), the driver of a car was arrested for a traffic violation. Wood, a passenger, had difficulty keeping his eyes open and the officer thought he was under the influence of alcohol or drugs. The officer patted down Wood, felt what he thought was a knife and found three rolls of coins and some currency. He radioed for assistance and then searched and found two pistols in the car. Even though the passenger was outside the car, this Court held the search to be reasonable. Wood could not have reached the guns from outside the car. In Wood, this Court wrote:
“. . . So long as the officer is entitled to make a forcible stop and has reason to believe that the suspect is armed and dangerous, the officer may conduct a weapons search limited in scope to *271the purpose of enabling the officer to pursue investigation without fear of violence. . . . ”
In the Wood case the officer did not testify that he was afraid. He stated that it is a dangerous situation when one is alighting from a vehicle in any traffic situation at that time of night. Is the majority overruling Woodl
In Borner & Ebeling v. State, 521 S.W.2d 852 (Tex.Cr.App.1975), both Borner and Ebeling were in the car when officers stopped the car to arrest the driver for speeding. The passenger in the car moved something from above the dash to between the passenger and the driver. The officer could not tell what it was. When the officer was asked if he saw anything that aroused his suspicion, he answered that the officers saw the passenger shuffling around and trying to hide something on the seat. Both Borner and Ebeling were outside the car and were searched. One officer searched the inside of the car and, among other things, found a pistol and marihuana. Even though the two men were outside the car and could not have at that time reached the gun, this Court held that the search was authorized. There was no direct testimony that the officers in that case were in fear of danger.
If the majority of the Court is holding contrary to previous decisions that a search is legal where there is a movement that could indicate that the driver was hiding something, possibly a gun, it should so state. If the majority is holding that there can be no search of a car after a traffic arrest, it should say so.
The viewpoint of the writer of this opinion has been expressed in the concurring opinion in Wood, and in the dissenting opinion in Wilson v. State, 511 S.W.2d 531 (Tex.Cr.App.1974). An officer has a right to check any place in an automobile that a driver or passenger might reach when he re-enters the automobile after being legally stopped. If a fugitive is allowed to enter a car where a gun is accessible, he may kill the officer to prevent being arrested for a more serious offense such as robbery or murder. The driver, after being arrested for a traffic offense, knows that the officer has his name from his license to operate the car, and if the officer checks to see if he is wanted, it could lead to his earlier detention and arrest. Too many officers are being killed after arresting people for traffic offenses. See the dissenting opinion in Wilson, supra, for the number of officers killed after making traffic arrests at the time that opinion was written.
The statutes of Texas authorize the arrest of an offender of the traffic laws and taking him into custody. This Court has upheld the search of the person after an arrest as well as a limited search of his car. The Supreme Court has upheld the arrest for traffic regulation violators and the search of their persons even though the arresting officer was not in fear of his life. It also recognizes the right of the officer to search in the vicinity of where the arrest has been made.
The search in the present case is not unreasonable.
The judgment should be affirmed.