Alba v. State

492 S.W.2d 555
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Texas
DecidedMarch 7, 1973
Docket44886, 44887
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 492 S.W.2d 555 (Alba v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alba v. State, 492 S.W.2d 555 (Tex. 1973).

Opinion

OPINION

ONION, Presiding Judge.

The original appeals by these appellants were abated in per curiam opinions for failure to comply with Article 40.09, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P. Those deficiencies have now been corrected and the appeals are reinstated.

These appeals arise out of convictions for possession of heroin wherein the punishment, enhanced under Article 62, Vernon’s Ann.P.C., was assessed in the joint trial at life for each appellant.

At the outset we are confronted with appellant Bedell’s contention that a void prior federal conviction was used to enhance his punishment. The indictment alleged appellant had been previously convicted in 1959 of the federal offense of conspiring to knowingly and willingly acquire marihuana without having paid the transfer tax imposed thereon by 26 U.S.C. § 4741(a)(2) in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 4744(a)(1). He contends that this conviction which was used for enhancement was constitutionally invalid in light of Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 89 S.Ct. 1532, 23 L.Ed.2d 57 (1969), which held that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination is a complete defense to a prosecution for a violation of 26 U.S.C. § 4744(a).

Appellant Bedell claims that Leary should be applied retroactively and that his 1959 guilty plea to the federal charge involved would not constitute a waiver of his privilege against self-incrimination. This identical question was presented in Ex parte Taylor, 484 S.W.2d 748 (Tex.Cr.App.1972), and decided favorably to appellant’s contention.

Without reciting all of the authorities and reasoning in Taylor, we find that appellant Bedell’s conviction under Article 62, supra, cannot stand. The judgment as to him is reversed and the cause remanded.

Turning to appellant Alba’s grounds, we determine that a discussion of the facts becomes necessary.

The evidence reflects that on February 18, 1971, Captain Harvey Gann of the Austin Police Department received information from an informant that the appellants were keeping a large “stash” of heroin at Jones Cemetery, east of Austin; and that sales were being made out of the cemetery. Various members of the Austin Police Department were assigned to conduct a surveillance of this area on February 19, 1971.

On February 20, Officer Wilbur Phillips of the Austin Police Department discovered two instant coffee jars filled with “fingerstalls” containing alleged heroin buried at the cemetery. 1 He conducted a field test, using a Marquis reagent, to determine that the powdery substance in the fingerstalls was in fact an opiate. He reburied the jars and the surveillance continued.

On February 20 and 21, neither of the appellants was seen in the area under surveillance.

*558 In the afternoon of February 22, the appellants were seen driving north on the Jones Cemetery Road. Before they reached the cemetery, the automobile stopped and appellant Alba got out of the passenger side of the car and disappeared into the brush. Appellant Bedell, who was driving, got out and stood at the front of the automobile until Alba returned a few minutes later. Both appellants got back in the automobile and left.

Neither of the appellants was seen in this area on February 23.

On the morning of February 24, 1971, the appellants were again seen driving north on the Jones Cemetery Road. Appellant Alba was driving the vehicle and appellant Bedell was a passenger. The appellants stopped at the end of the road near the cemetery. After appellants got out and walked past the front end of the car they disappeared from the sight of the surveilling officers for a period of 15 to 20 minutes. Appellants returned to their automobile and began driving south on Jones Cemetery Road. They stopped their car again and appellant Bedell got out carrying an unidentifiable object in a red rag. Appellant Bedell walked to a place off of the road, “knelt down and dug a hole and buried whatever it was; stood back up, pitched some more debris on top of it, turned around, walked back to the car wiping his hands with the red rag.” Appellants proceeded down the road where they were intercepted by police officers.

As the officers approached the car, appellant Bedell was observed swallowing some of the rubber fingerstalls. A subsequent search of the vehicle revealed an empty glass jar, a piece of colored tinfoil (State’s Exhibit 12) and one fingerstall (State’s Exhibit 13) containing approximately ¾ gram of 50.9 per cent heroin on the center portion of the front seat of the car.

Following the arrest, officers noted that appellant Alba was wearing shoes which had horizontal lines across the soles. The officers proceeded to the location at the end of Jones Cemetery Road where the appellants had first stopped their vehicle. A set of footprints, 2 bearing these horizontal lines, were followed from where the automobile stopped Into a fenced portion of the cemetery where the officers found a brown instant coffee jar buried (State’s Exhibit 9). Inside of the jar were two syringes and hypodermic needles which were found not to contain any trace of narcotics. There was also one fingerstall containing .59 grams of 41.5 per cent heroin inside of the jar. The heroin inside of this finger-stall was wrapped in small pieces of ruled notebook paper as in the other State’s exhibits.

The officer, who viewed appellant Bedell bury some object in a red rag, returned to his vantage point and directed other officers to the spot where the alleged burying took place. At this location officers uncovered 3 another instant coffee jar of heroin (State’s Exhibit 6). Inside of this jar there were 49 fingerstalls of 43.6 per cent heroin weighing a total of 35.2 grams. The heroin inside of these fingerstalls was also wrapped in small pieces of ruled notebook paper.

Various tests 4 were run on the different State’s exhibits in determining that the substance contained in the jars was heroin. The percentage of heroin in the substance as well as the gross weight was determined. An additional test, known as an *559 infrared spectrophotometric analysis, was run on samples from State’s Exhibits 6 and 14. This test revealed the molecular structure of the substance tested. A Department of Public Safety Chemist, Jim Burris, compared the results of this test on each of the samples and testified that the heroin contained therein was “all of the same origin, or from a common batch.” 5

In their first ground of error the appellants contend that the State failed to comply with a discovery order issued by the trial court.

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492 S.W.2d 555, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alba-v-state-texcrimapp-1973.