Court Opinion

ID: 9765802
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:20:05.843749+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:15.864586
License: Public Domain

MORRISON, Judge
(dissenting).
Vagrancy statutes by their very nature place an awesome responsibility on the police officer patrolling a beat. Such statutes authorize the arrest of a man because of his status, as opposed to arrest for a singular overt act in violation of public order, and for this reason, these laws demand the utmost discretion in their application.
An affirmance of this conviction would authorize any police officer to arrest without a warrant and without probable cause any man who has had prior difficulty with the law. This far I refuse to go.
All that the officer observed prior to this arrest was that appellant walked from the front of a tavern to his automobile. There was no suggestion that appellant was intoxicated.
*735Article 609, V.A.P.C., provides that it shall be the duty of the law enforcement personnel named therein to make a complaint under oath to an officer empowered to issue criminal warrants, of all vagrants. Such article makes it a misdemeanor for an officer to fail to comply therewith.
Williams v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 394 S.W.2d 510, squarely supports the holding that the arrest in this case was unlawful.
I respectfully dissent.