Alexander v. State

629 S.W.2d 776, 1981 Tex. App. LEXIS 4645
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 17, 1981
Docket05-81-00117 CR
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 629 S.W.2d 776 (Alexander v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alexander v. State, 629 S.W.2d 776, 1981 Tex. App. LEXIS 4645 (Tex. Ct. App. 1981).

Opinion

WHITHAM, Justice.

This is an appeal from a conviction by a jury for possession of heroin in which appellant’s punishment, enhanced by two prior convictions, was set at life imprisonment in the Texas Department of Corrections. We affirm.

On January 9, 1978, Officer Jackson Ray Martin of the Dallas Police Department was assigned to the Vice Control Division, Drug Abuse Section. At approximately 8:40 p. m. on that date he received a telephone call from an unnamed informant whom he had known and used for approximately a year and who had always given him accurate information. The informant advised him the appellant was in the vicinity of the 1800 block of Record Crossing in his Corvette and that he had some heroin in his Corvette in a bank bag. The informant also told Officer Martin that he had just seen the heroin inside the Corvette within the past five minutes, and that appellant was about to leave the location and that he did not know if Martin would be able to catch appellant before he left.

Officer Martin further testified that based on his training and experience it *778 would take forty-five minutes to an hour for him to draw up an affidavit, find a magistrate and attempt to obtain a search warrant based on what the informant had told him. Accordingly, Officer Martin, Sergeant T. G. Sherman and Sergeant Penn went directly to the location given by the informant, which took about fifteen minutes. The Corvette was not at the exact location but was parked in the 1700 block of Chattanooga, which is parallel to Record Crossing, and one block south of Record Crossing. The officers then drove to the 1900 block of Chattanooga and set up surveillance. Five minutes elapsed before they saw appellant enter the driver’s side of the vehicle and a female enter the passenger’s side of the automobile. The appellant drove away. Officer Martin pursued the appellant and stopped the car. Appellant and the passenger were told to get out of the car, which they did. Officer Sherman testified that appellant and the passenger were arrested at that time. Appellant was taken to the rear of the vehicle and frisked for weapons. The car was then searched on the inside. A .38 caliber pistol was seen in open view between the console and the drivers seat. A white bank bag was found under some clothing in the rear deck area of the Corvette. Officer Martin opened it and discovered $904.24 in it and a match box which contained five spoons of heroin and a larger packet of heroin valued at $4400.00.

In his first ground of error appellant complains of the trial court’s failure to suppress the evidence of the heroin because the evidence was obtained as the result of an unlawful search and seizure. We hold, however, that the informant’s information provided probable cause for the officers to stop and search appellant’s automobile. Probable cause existed because of the specific and reliable nature of the information received, which caused the officers to believe that appellant was committing an offense. Considering the time necessary to obtain a warrant, the time to reach the location where appellant was with the heroin, plus the mobility of the automobile, exigent circumstances clearly existed which mandated that the officers proceed at once to arrest appellant without obtaining a warrant and make a search of the automobile. Scott v. State, 531 S.W.2d 825 (Tex.Cr.App. 1976); Reed v. State, 522 S.W.2d 916 (Tex.Cr.App.1975). Carroll v. U. S., 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed.2d 543 (1925).

We hold further that the warrant-less search of the passenger compartment of the automobile and the bank bag found therein was incident to the arrest; therefore the evidence was properly admitted. In New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981) the Supreme Court stated:

Accordingly, we hold that when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile. It follows from this conclusion that the police may also examine the contents of any containers found within the passenger compartment, for if the passenger compartment is within reach of the arrestee, so also will containers in it be within his reach.4
Note 4. “Container” here denotes any object capable of holding another object. It thus includes closed or open glove compartments, consoles, or other receptacles located anywhere within the passenger compartment, as well as luggage, boxes, bags, clothing, and the like. Our holding encompasses only the interior of the passenger compartment of an automobile and does not encompass the trunk. Id. at 460, 101 S.Ct. at 2864, 69 L.Ed.2d at 775.

Appellant’s first ground of error is overruled.

By his third ground of error appellant complains that the trial court erred in overruling appellant’s motion for a continuance so that a chemist of defendant’s choice could examine the alleged controlled substances. The case was set for trial on October 17,1979. The appellant filed a notice of motion for discovery and inspection on October 5,1979. On October 17,1979, the trial date, appellant filed a motion for continu- *779 anee on the ground that the chemist would require two weeks notice to analyze the alleged heroin. The motion for continuance referred back to the October 5,1979, motion for inspection. Appellant contends that he was prejudiced because his October 5 motion was not acted upon due to an alleged practice in Dallas County of hearing defense motions just prior to trial. We cannot agree that error is presented.

It was incumbent upon appellant to produce evidence of that practice in Dallas County so that we may determine whether his case had been prejudiced by the inability to produce the analysis by the appellant’s chemist at trial. In the absence of such a showing, we cannot determine if the denial of the motion for continuance constituted reversible error. Leach v. State, 548 S.W.2d 383 (Tex.Cr.App.1977). Appellant’s third ground of error is overruled.

In his fourth ground of error the appellant contends that the trial court erred in refusing to charge the jury on circumstantial evidence. While on its face this would appear to be a circumstantial evidence case in which such a charge would be required, examination of the record reveals that there is direct evidence of possession of the heroin by appellant. During appellant’s cross-examination of the arresting officer the following occurred:

Q. Can you say, Officer Martin, from your own personal knowledge that this man had any knowledge of the fact that that bank bag was in his car?
A. Prom the conversation, yes, sir, I can. Prom later conversations with the defendant.
Q. With the defendant or the informant?
A. With the defendant.
Q.

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Related

Hughes v. State
729 S.W.2d 352 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1987)

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629 S.W.2d 776, 1981 Tex. App. LEXIS 4645, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alexander-v-state-texapp-1981.