Ringo v. State, 27392
| Decision Date | 09 February 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 27392,27392 |
| Citation | 161 Tex.Crim. 93,275 S.W.2d 121 |
| Parties | Wallace RINGO, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Thomas & Thomas, By George T. Thomas, Big Spring, for appellant.
Leon Douglas, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.
DICE, Commissioner.
The conviction is for the possession of marihuana; the punishment, eight years' confinement in the penitentiary.
The evidence shows that upon a search of the appellant following his arrest without a warrant, he was found in possession of eighteen marihuana cigarettes.
Appellant urged during the trial, and now insists, that he was illegally arrested and therefore the subsequent search of his person without a warrant was unlawful.
The facts and circumstances surrounding appellant's arrest, as given by the arresting officer, Amos Johnson, who testified both out of and in the presence of the jury, are substantially as follows:
Around 1:30 o'clock on the morning of November 8, 1953, City Officers Johnson and J. D. Campbell, while patrolling in a section of the City of Big Spring which the witness described as the 'flats,' observed an automobile with the lights off, on the wrong side of the street, pulling away from or circling a restaurant and beer joint known as the El Patio, which Officer Johnson described as a dive and a place where persons stayed who habitually violated the law; that the two officers proceeded to follow and stop the car, and upon going to the car found three occupants therein: Manuel Pineda, the driver, who was seated under the steering wheel, the appellant, who was seated in the right front seat, and one, Barela, seated in the back seat and who appeared to be intoxicated. Officer Johnson talked to Pineda, the driver of the car, and asked him for his driver's license, to which Pineda replied that he did not have any; that Pineda then stated that the car belonged to him and then said it belonged to his mother who lived in Lubbock and that she had loaned it to him. Thereupon, Officer Campbell went to the police car to contact Lubbock by radio and check on the registration of the automobile. While Officer Campbell was checking on the car registration, Officer Johnson talked to the appellant and asked him for his identification, where he was from and what he was doing. Appellant told the officer that he had no identification and stated he had come from Arizona some six weeks before and was not doing anything and had not done anything or worked anywhere, and that he had tried to pick a little cotton but did not get a job.
Officer Johnson testified that at this point he decided to hold appellant for vagrancy and about this time Officer Campbell returned and reported that the information received by radio was that the car was not registered in the name of Pineda's mother but in the name of someone else in Lubbock and that he then took appellant to the police station in connection with two offenses: vagrancy and an investigation for car theft because he thought the car was stolen and that appellant was one of the occupants thereof.
The record shows that under the authority of Article 214, C.C.P., the City of Big Spring has, by ordinance, authorized police officers to arrest without warrant persons found in suspicious places, and under circumstances which are...
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