Jones v. State

• Decision Date: 03 November 1982
• Docket Number: No. 62436,No. 1,62436,1
• Citation: 640 S.W.2d 918
• Parties: Alfred Lee JONES aka Alfred L. Walker, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 918

640 S.W.2d 918

Alfred Lee JONES aka Alfred L. Walker, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 62436.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas Panel No. 1.

Nov. 3, 1982.

Thomas M. Roberson, Houston, for appellant.

Carol S. Vance, Dist. Atty., Alvin M. Titus and William Paul Mewis, Asst. Dist. Attys., Houston, Robert Huttash, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

Before ODOM, TOM G. DAVIS and CLINTON, JJ.

OPINION

TOM G. DAVIS, Judge.

Appeal is taken from a conviction for possession with intent to deliver phenmetrazine. Appellant was convicted in a trial before the court and punishment was assessed at five years.

In his first ground of error, appellant maintains the court erred in overruling his motion to suppress the contraband which formed the basis of the instant prosecution. He urges that officers were without authority to conduct a warrantless search of his briefcase following his arrest. The briefcase contained 2,997 preludin tablets.

Officer L.K. Clark, of the Houston Police Department, was employed in the narcotics division on February 6, 1978. At approximately 4:00 p.m. she received information from a confidential informant who had been correct on two prior occasions. Specifically, Clark testified:

"A. My informant told me on the 6th that there would be a Negro male approximately 6 feet tall, slim built, with a short beard. He would be wearing tan slacks, a maroon jacket, and he would be carrying a black briefcase which opened at the top and he would also be carrying a red clothing bag, and that this person would be going by the name of Jackson. The informant further told me he would be arriving at the Houston Intercontinental Airport on the 6th on Flight 950, Continental Flight, due to arrive at 5:03 which didn't get there until 5:10, but in this black briefcase he would be carrying a quantity, a large quantity of drugs."

After receiving this information, Clark, Officer D.T. Green, and two other officers proceeded to the airport where they set up a surveillance of Flight 950. Clark did not attempt to obtain a search warrant because she did not believe she could prepare a warrant, have it signed by a magistrate, and drive to the airport in time to catch the 5:03 flight.

Appellant disembarked from Flight 950 wearing tan slacks and a maroon jacket. He was carrying a red clothing bag and a black briefcase which opened at the top. He appeared to be about 6 feet tall and had a short beard. Clark and Green approached appellant and asked his name. He replied that it was Jackson. Appellant was arrested.

Green performed a pat-down search for weapons. Because a crowd was gathering, appellant was taken to the airport security office before a full search was made of his clothing and the briefcase. Inside the briefcase, Clark found "31 brown paper sandwich-type bags which had pink tablets in 30 of them." At some point after the arrest, Green found five tablets inside appellant's coat pocket.

Floyd McDonald testified that he is a chemist with the crime laboratory for the Houston Police Department. McDonald performed certain tests upon the substances which were recovered from the briefcase and appellant's pocket. Those tests revealed that the tablets contained phenmetrazine.

Appellant contends that there was insufficient probable cause to arrest and search and that there was no valid excuse for not obtaining a warrant.

Probable cause unquestionably existed in the instant case. Clark's informant had provided true and correct information on two previous occasions. This satisfied the second prong of Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108, 84 S.Ct. 1509, 12 L.Ed.2d 723. The first prong of Aguilar was satisfied by the highly detailed nature of the informant's allegations. Such detail has been held sufficient to show that an informant's information is correct and not based on unwarranted conclusions or misobservations. Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410, 89 S.Ct. 584, 21 L.Ed.2d 637; Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307, 79 S.Ct. 329, 3 L.Ed.2d 327. Even if the informant's details were alone not enough to satisfy the first prong of Aguilar, the corroboration of the details by the officers established probable cause. No less than eight of the specific facts provided by Clark's informant were verified at the airport...