Court Opinion

ID: 9764354
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:19:28.433979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:55.713127
License: Public Domain

LEVY, Justice,
dissenting.
Primarily—but not solely — because the majority wrongly treats the appellant’s brief complaint that the Texas recidivist statute, art. 12.42(d) of the Texas Penal Code (1974), offends the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, I respectfully dissent.
The words of the Eighth Amendment— “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” — are majestic and sweeping, not precise. They derive their meaning “... from the evolving standards of decency that characterize the progress of a maturing society.” Trop v. Dulles, 356 U.S. 86, 78 S.Ct. 590, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958). We have had few occasions to give precise content to the Eighth Amendment, and in an enlightened democracy such as ours, this is not surprising. But this case reaffirms that the need for its protection is as acute today as it has ever been. And the extension of the “cruelty” concept by the Supreme Court in Trop, supra, to comprehend mental suffering as well as physical pain, portends the application of the Amendment’s protection to many currently accepted penalties which, while physically unobjectionable, subject the convicted to grievous psychic strain.
Clearly, the words are not static because the basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of the human personality. While the State has the power to punish, this Amendment is the principal safeguard to assure that such power be exercised within the limits of civilized standards. See Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 30 S.Ct. 544, 54 L.Ed. 793 (1910), a landmark case expounding and applying the Eighth Amendment, which also cites with approval the dissent in O’Neil v. Vermont, 144 U.S. 323, 339-40, 12 S.Ct. 693, 699-700, 36 L.Ed. 450, 458 (1892), wherein Mr. Justice Field asserted that “all punishments which by their *921excessive length or severity are greatly disproportioned to the offenses charged” are barred.
In Solem v. Helm, — U.S. -, 103 S.Ct. 3001, 77 L.Ed.2d 637 (1983), the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits not only barbaric punishments, but also sentences that are disproportionate to the crime committed. This holding, as the minority therein vigorously protested, significantly modified and “cannot be rationally reconciled with” the Court’s recent and prior decision in Rummel v. Estelle, 445 U.S. 263, 100 S.Ct. 1133, 63 L.Ed.2d 382, on remand 498 F.Supp. 793 (writ of habeas corpus granted) (1980), which had upheld the recidivist statute here under attack. Therein the Solem Court traced the development of the principle that a punishment should be proportionate to the crime from the Magna Carta, which had decreed in 1215 that His Majesty’s subjects shall be free from the cruelty of excessive punishment.
An appellate court should, of course, always be aware that legislatures have broad authority in determining the mode and limits of punishment for crimes, and grant substantial deference to the discretion that trial courts possess in sentencing convicted criminals. In applying the Eighth Amendment, the appellate court accordingly decides only whether the sentence under review is within constitutional limits. As the Supreme Court noted in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 667, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 1421, 8 L.Ed.2d 758, 763 (1962), a single day in prison may be unconstitutional in some circumstances. No penalty is per se “constitutional”. Even one day in jail would be a cruel and unusual punishment for the “crime” of sneezing. And a life sentence for overtime parking would clearly invoke the Eighth Amendment’s protection.
In Solem v. Helm, upon which this dissent heavily relies, the Supreme Court set out several objective factors to consider when sentences are reviewed under the Eighth Amendment, recognizing that no single criterion can identify when a sentence is unconstitutionally disproportionate. What factors come to mind, first of all, are the gravity of the offense and the harshness of the penalty. Secondly, the sentences imposed on other criminals in the same jurisdiction. If more grievous crimes are subject to the same penalty, or to less serious penalties, that is some indication that the punishment at issue may be “excessive.” Thirdly, the sentences imposed for commission of the same crime in other jurisdictions.
Courts traditionally have made these judgments—just as legislatures must make them in the first instance. Comparisons can be made in light of the harm caused or threatened to the victim or society, and the culpability of the offender. For example, applying necessary social values, victimless or nonviolent crimes are less serious than crimes marked by violence or the threat of violence, which is perhaps another way of saying that crimes against individuals are more antisocial than crimes against property-
The magnitude of the crime may be pertinent—stealing a million dollars is more serious than stealing a loaf of bread. There is little dispute that a lesser-included offense should not be punished more severely than the greater offense, or that attempts are less serious than completed crimes.
As to the culpability of the offender, a court is, of course, entitled to examine the defendant’s motive in committing a crime. Negligent conduct, for example, is less serious than intentional conduct or malicious acts.
This combination of objective factors, though by no means exhaustive, can make an analysis possible for comparing the severity of different crimes on a broad scale.1 Applying these principles to the appellant, Simpson, it must be noted at the outset that Simpson was not charged simply with possession of cocaine—found on the front *922seat of the car in which he was a rear seat passenger—but also was charged with being a habitual offender. Simpson’s two prior convictions were also for non-violent crimes against property; specifically, burglaries of a building. And a State is clearly justified in punishing a recidivist more severely than it punishes a first offender. His primary offense—possession of a mere 9.5 milligrams2 of cocaine—is certainly one of the most passive felonies a person could commit. It involved neither violence nor the threat of violence to any person. Moreover, many authorities consider narcotics addiction or usage basically a psychological or medical problem, not per se criminal conduct. Under British law, for example, addicts are patients, not criminals. The doctor has almost complete professional autonomy in reaching decisions about the treatment of addicts. Schur, “British Narcotics Policies,” 51 J.Crim.L. and Criminology 619, 621 (1961). Addicts have not disappeared in Britain, but they have decreased in number, Id,., at 622, and there is now relatively little “addict-crime” there.
For a thorough discussion of the concept that narcotics addiction is an illness rather than a crime, see the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas in Robinson v. California, supra, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 1421 to 1426. When expressing my profound agreement with the civilized concept therein developed, I am not oblivious to the vicious evils of the narcotics traffic that have occasioned the intense concern of government, both state and federal. Punitive measures are certainly justified where they reasonably relate to such transgression against the community. But this is not to say that being an addict should be punished as a crime, any more than psychosis can be so punished. The addict, like the psychotic, may of course be confined for treatment or for the protection of society. Each has a disease and each should be treated as a sick person. Cruel and unusual punishment results not solely from confinement, but also from branding the addict as a criminal. We have indeed progressed from the Seventeenth Century, when the violently insane went to the whipping post and into prison dungeons, “until they had regained their reason”, or, as sometimes happened, were burned at the stake or hanged, and the pauper insane often roamed the countryside as wild men and from time to time were pilloried, whipped, and jailed. See Deutsch, “The Mentally Ill in America” (1937), p. 13; “Action for Mental Health” (1961), p. 26. Today we have in the various states different definitions of insanity, but ultimately it is treated as a disease, not a crime. The punitive approach continues, however, with respect to drug addicts. So much of the Controlled Substances Act seeks not to cure, but to penalize, to punish sick people for being sick, and I vehemently agree with Mr. Justice Douglas that “[T]his age of enlightenment cannot tolerate such barbarous action.” Robinson, supra, at 1426.
Claiming that the flexible parole system3 in Texas makes it unnecessary to review recidivist convictions on the basis of the objective criteria set out in Solem v. Helm, the majority concludes that the primary function of appellate courts is to review judgments “to assure that the defendant received a fair and impartial trial”. I disagree somewhat with both assertions, the first one of which has already been discussed in this opinion. As to the second, it is illuminating to remember that debtor's prison, slavery, the pillory, prohibition of alcoholic beverages, and other such practices or institutions were applied through “fair and impartial trials” in the custom of the day. Critically important as they are, “fair and impartial trials” are still means to the transcendent purpose of ensuring in each case and under all circumstances the establishment of humane and reasoned jus*923tice. In our system, the law itself—both statutory and case—must unswervingly respect, and be evaluated by its subordination and adherence to, the Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights, as embodying the most basic, compelling, and revered principles upon which this nation was founded, which rights were deliberately placed beyond juries, officials, political vicissitudes, and elections. Our constitutional history has shown that the lofty principles contained in the Bill of Rights—including, of course, the Eighth Amendment—are safest when the courts are most sensitive to their preservation, necessarily discounting whatever ad hoc “uncertainty” or “unpredictability” may temporarily result. Not certainty, not predictability, not efficiency, but the attainment of justice is the overriding purpose of the law—and of the courts which interpret and apply it.
Criminalized possession of cocaine inevitably evokes memories of half-a-century ago, when the federal Volstead Act, 27 U.S.C. sec. 12, penalized possession of intoxicating liquor. The legal and social disasters flowing from that experiment in legislating “victimless” crimes are indeed legendary, and still disquieting. In my view, they are disturbing enough to mandate judicial review under the Eighth Amendment of appellant’s sentence.
Because Simpson has received the penultimate sentence for relatively minor criminal conduct, he has been treated much more harshly than other criminals—murderers, violent assailants, rapists, etc.— who have committed more serious and violent crimes in this State. I conclude that his sentence is significantly disproportionate to his crime, and therefore offends the Eighth Amendment.
In addition, I would sustain Simpson’s ground of error complaining that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s verdict.
The arresting officers testified that the “specific and articulable” facts that justified their intrusion were that a car was parked at night in a poorly-lit stall of a car wash and was not being washed. “That’s what was suspicious about it, it was just sitting there.” I do not perceive this suspicion as a “particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity,” as required by United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417-18, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621, 629 (1981). In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 906 (1968), the Court held that “... [t]his demand for specificity in the information upon which police action is predicated is the central teaching of this court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.” Specificity is not satisfied, in my judgment, by observing an unwashed car in a car wash stall. Quite the contrary, the majority opinion constitutes a dangerously close approach to
“... an abdication of judicial control over, and indeed an encouragement of, substantial interference with liberty and personal security by police officers whose judgment is necessarily colored by their primary involvement in ‘the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.’ Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14, 68 S.Ct. 367, 369, 92 L.Ed. 436, 440 (1948).” Terry v. Ohio, supra, 88 S.Ct. at 1875.
At such times as these, the reviewing court must bear in mind that simple good faith on the part of the officer is not enough to justify intrusions upon constitutionally guaranteed rights. “No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.” Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251, 11 S.Ct. 1000, 1001, 35 L.Ed. 734 (1891). If subjective good faith alone were the test, the protections of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure would evaporate, and the people would be ‘secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects’ only in the discretion of the police. Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 97, 85 S.Ct. 223, 229, 13 L.Ed.2d 142, 148 (1964). To prevent such an evaporation, this Court must require something more substantial than an inarticulate *924hunch. And it may seem trite but necessary to repeat that a search is not to be validated by what it turns up. In law it is good or bad ab initio and does not change character from its success. Or, in the words of Mr. Justice Frankfurter, “Vindicated anticipation of what an illegal search may reveal does not validate a search otherwise illegal.” Lustig v. United States, 338 U.S. 74, 80, 69 S.Ct. 1372, 1375, 93 L.Ed. 1819, 1824 (1949).
Upon this shaky foundation for justifying the search, the State builds an equally unstable superstructure, attempting to link the cocaine to the appellant. The bottle cap alleged to have been in the appellant’s possession was found in the front seat of the car, occupied by the driver and a female passenger. There was no proof that the car belonged to the appellant, or that he had any cocaine on, in, or about his person. “Possession” being defined by the Controlled Substances Act, Sec. 1.02(23), as “actual custody, control or management,” it is difficult, but perhaps not theoretically impossible, for me to understand how the appellant, sitting in the rear of the car, could be shown to have knowing “possession” of the bottle cap in the front seat of the car. This is not the required “proof beyond a reasonable doubt”, as I understand the term. And the essential teaching of Rodriguez v. State, 635 S.W.2d 552 (Tex.Cr.App.1982), cited erroneously by the majority as its support, is that merely close proximity to the drug is insufficient; the State’s evidence “... must affirmatively link the accused to the contraband ...” to show the requisite knowing possession. Such affirmative linkage is absent herein. As Rodriguez, supra, held at 554, “While the evidence may suggest appellant’s guilt, the proof here amounts only to a mere probability or strong suspicion and is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant possessed the contraband in question.”
It follows that I would have sustained the appellant’s first ground of error, alleging that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress the evidence.
For these reasons, I dissent and would reverse with directions to enter a judgment of acquittal.

. There is also a clear distinction between sentences of imprisonment and sentences involving no deprivation of liberty. See Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25, 92 S.Ct. 2006, 32 L.Ed.2d 530 (1972).

. 28.35 grams are equivalent to one ounce, and there are one thousand milligrams to one gram. 9.5 milligrams, therefore, weigh .0003325 ounce.

. A Texas prisoner becomes eligible for parole when his calendar time served plus "good conduct” time equals one-third of the maximum sentence imposed or 20 years, whichever is less. Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann., art. 42.12 sec. 15(b) (Vernon 1979).