Maldonado v. State

• Decision Date: 15 October 1975
• Docket Number: No. 49286,49286
• Citation: 528 S.W.2d 234
• Parties: Raul MALDONADO, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 234

528 S.W.2d 234

Raul MALDONADO, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 49286.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Oct. 15, 1975.

James S. Bates, Edinburg, for appellant.

Jim D. Vollers State's Atty., and David S. McAngus, Asst. State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

OPINION

ODOM, Judge.

The offense was possession of more than four ounces of marihuana; the punishment, confinement for seven years and a fine of five thousand dollars.

Appellant's sole ground of error is that the trial court erred in overruling his motion to suppress and admitting marihuana into evidence at trial. He asserts that a warrantless search of the vehicle containing the marihuana violated his rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The State in its brief avers only that appellant has no standing to contest the legality of the search.

The facts relevant to a proper disposition of this case are lengthy and somewhat complicated, involving two arrests and several vehicle searches. On August 31, 1973, Highway Patrolmen Franklin W. Robinson and Stanley Oldham joined a road block on Interstate 35 about three miles south of New Braunfels. Robinson and Oldham arrived at the road block at approximately 2:50 a.m. The road block had been established by other officers to attempt to apprehend some prisoners who had escaped from a jail in Hondo. Every northbound vehicle was stopped.

Appellant arrived on the scene at 3:35 a.m. He was alone and driving a 1968 Ford truck with a blue cab and two green sideboards. The back of the truck was open.

Robinson asked to see appellant's driver's license. Appellant responded that he had a valid license but had left it at home. He could produce no identification, but gave his name and address as Raul Maldonado of 1122 North 19 1/2 Street, McAllen, Texas. In answer to further questions, appellant stated that he did not have the registration receipt for the truck, but the owner was a close friend, 'Jose,' whose last name he could not remember. Appellant gave the officer the vital statistics that might aid in determining whether he held a valid driver's license. While the registration and license checks were made by radio, Robinson again asked appellant who owned the truck. This time the response was 'Pedro,' but again he could not remember the last name. The return on the registration check showed the owner to be Jose Garcia of Mission. Because of the lateness of the hour and the combination of name and birth date, it could not be determined whether appellant held a valid driver's license.

When asked about his destination, appellant said that he was traveling to San Antonio to pick up some furniture at a location near the Alamo, but could give no further details. He explained his presence north of San Antonio by stating that he was first going to visit some relatives in Austin, but he could not furnish any name, address, or telephone number.

Appellant was arrested for operating a motor vehicle without a valid driver's license and failure to display vehicle registration receipts. The officers frisked him and inspected the exterior of the truck. The back of the truck appeared to be empty. The front license plate was wired on and bore a rusted bolt mark, indicating that at one time the plate had been bolted to some vehicle.

Appellant was not taken to the Comal County jail until 4:15 a.m. The arresting officer at the pre-trial hearing testified that during all this time appellant's demeanor and conduct were wholly unsuspicious. He did not appear to be under the influence of any intoxicant, stood or sat quietly by the side of the road while waiting to be taken to jail, and generally 'was co-operating' in every way. The interior of the truck was not searched, the officer testified, because no police officer present felt that the appellant posed any danger.

At 4:30 a.m. the truck was towed to M.G.'s Garage in New Braunfels, which was customarily employed by the police for general storage of vehicles. At 6:45 a.m. the road block was discontinued.

At 7:00 a.m. Robinson telephoned Bobby G. Prince, a criminal investigator in the Motor Vehicle Theft Division of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Robinson expressed his suspicion that the truck was stolen based upon the details recited above: appellant's lack of possession of a driver's license or truck registration receipt, lack of information about the owner, unsatisfactory explanation of his destination and route, and the rusted bolt mark on the front license plate.

At 8:15 a.m. Prince began his investigation by going to M.G.'s Garage. His investigation consisted of checking the vehicle identification number on the door, noticing that there was fresh paint under the identification plate, and determining shortly afterwards by radio that the identification number corresponded to the license plate number, both of which had been issued to the truck. At midmorning he learned that there was no stolen report on the truck. If Prince had also checked the vehicle identification number on the frame of the truck and the confidential police number located elsewhere on the truck, he would have discovered, as ascertained much later, that both these numbers also corresponded to the others.

During this investigation, Prince drove to the Comal County Courthouse. Before his arrival, appellant pled guilty to the two offenses with which he was charged, paid his fine, and walked out of the courtroom, apparently a free man once again. He proceeded to walk toward a door in the courthouse that led to the outside parking lot. At this point, appellant was not in custody or under arrest for any charge.

Before appellant reached the door, Prince entered and stopped him. Prince asked appellant is he was Raul Maldonado. Appellant answered that he was, whereupon Prince stated that he wished to talk to him.

During this conversation, appellant's memory and lapses of memory substantially corresponded to those of the early morning, except that he now identified the owner of the truck as 'Pepi.'

For the next three hours, or between 9:00 a.m. and noon, Prince continued to talk to appellant in a room in the Sheriff's office at the courthouse. Although appellant was apparently left unattended at times for this three hour period, he was nevertheless restrained of his liberty. Prince had already once restrained appellant from leaving the courthouse. If Prince had observed him trying to leave again, it is reasonable to infer that he would have stopped him again.

Appellant was 'under arrest' at 9:00 a.m. or very shortly thereafter. 'It is not the actual physical taking into custody that will constitute an arrest. An arrest is complete whenever a person's liberty of movement is restricted or restrained.' Hardinge v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 500 S.W.2d 870; Vernon's Ann.C.C.P., Article 15.22.

Appellant was returned to jail at noon.

About 2:00 p.m., with appellant still in custody, Prince learned from South Texas police authorities that they had no knowledge of Raul Maldonado, that he had no drug arrests, that the registered owner of the truck was in Michigan, and that 'in the past trucks of this nature (had been) used to transport narcotics, in different methods.' ¹

At about 3:00 p.m. Prince returned to M.G.'s Garage to examine the truck once more. He was accompanied by Sergeant B. L. Hierholzer of the Narcotics Service, Department of Public Safety, San Antonio, and Captain John Wood of the Texas Rangers. The officers first checked the identification number on the frame of the truck, which matched the door identification and license plate numbers.

Then the confidential or 'secondary VIN number' on the truck was finally checked, and it, too, matched the door and engine numbers as well as corresponding to the license plate number.

Finally, Prince noticed that the inside of the truck appeared to have a shorter depth than the outside. Upon climbing into the back of the truck, the officers noticed a piece of plywood nailed onto the floor. The officers extracted the nails and discovered a false compartment in the truck containing 650 wrapped packages of marihuana.

The contention that appellant has no standing to contest the legality of the search is without merit.

In Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960), the Supreme Court of the United States enumerated three bases upon which a defendant might establish that he is a 'person aggrieved' by an unlawful search and seizure: (1) his proprietary or possessory interest in the thing searched or seized; (2) his legitimate presence on the premises searched; or (3) his having been charged with an offense an essential element of which is possession of the seized evidence. The last basis is commonly referred to as the 'automatic standing' doctrine.

Appellant has standing under the first and last of these bases. The evidence does not establish that the appellant did not have a proprietary or possessory interest in the truck at the time of the search. The State correctly points out that the evidence also does not establish the contrary. ²

In Clemons v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 501 S.W.2d 92, 93, we quoted approvingly from Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969) and Jones, supra:

'(I)t is entirely proper to require of one who seeks to challenge the legality of a search as the basis for suppressing relevant evidence that he allege, and if the Allegation is disputed that he establish, that he himself was the victim of an invasion of privacy.' (Emphasis added.)

Appellant's standing was never contested in the proceedings below. The State raises the issue for the first time in its brief upon appeal. The State should not be heard to complain of an incomplete record when its failure to dispute appellant's standing is responsible for the deficiency.

Moreover, appellant has automatic standing because he was charged with possession of...