holding that officers had probable cause for warrantless arrest because officers verified all details given by informant except question of whether suspect was carrying drugs; consequently, they had reasonable grounds to believe that remaining item of unverified information was also true
How later courts described this case
- holding that officers had probable cause for warrantless arrest because officers verified all details given by informant except question of whether suspect was carrying drugs; consequently, they had reasonable grounds to believe that remaining item of unverified information was also true
- relying on Gates's "totality of the circumstances" test and finding probable cause when "all of the details of the information given to the officers by the informant were corroborated by the officers except the question of whether appellant was carrying cocaine."
- relying on "totality of circumstances" under Gates and finding probable cause when "all of the details of the information given to the officers by the informant were corroborated by the officers except the question of whether appellant was carrying cocaine”
- holding probable cause existed where informant described defendant wearing a white shirt with colored trim and blue jeans, and the bag he was carrying
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
The majority assumes, without holding, that the measure of probable cause applicable to warrantless arrests and searches under Draper v. United States, 358 U.S. 307 , 79 S.Ct. 329 , 3 L.Ed.2d 327 (1959) has been superseded by the “totality of the circum *952 stances ’ analysis announced in Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 , 103 S.Ct. 2317 , 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983). As I stated in dissent to the Court’s explicit holding that the Gates analysis will control in a warrantless arrest situation, such a momentous decision should first be made by the Supreme Court of the United States. See Eisenhauer v. State, 678 S.W.2d 947 (Tex.Cr.App.1984) (Clinton, J., dissenting). 1
But even assuming that the majority has resolved this issue correctly in terms of Fourth Amendment analysis, the Court errs in disposing of the case as it does.
Both in his memorandum to the trial court in support of his motion to suppress evidence and in his brief to the court of appeals appellant invoked the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution. It is not clear from the opinion of the court of appeals whether that court’s disposition was founded on Federal or State law grounds; at the time the case was decided the “two-prong” test of Aguilar clearly controlled the standard for measuring probable cause under both the State and Federal Constitutions.
In invoking Illinois v. Gates, supra, the majority has expressly reversed the court of appeals’ decision insofar as it decided the Fourth Amendment question. As we did in Eisenhauer, supra, we should remand the instant case to the court of appeals to decide whether as a matter of State law the two prong standard of Aguilar should be retained or abandoned. 2 See also Schwartz v. State, 685 S.W.2d 833 (Tex.Cr.App.1985).
Because the Court fails to so remand the case, I respectfully dissent.
TEAGUE, J., joins.
. All briefs in this cause, including the State’s motion for rehearing presently before us, were filed before the Supreme Court’s decision in Gates was announced. Hence, the issue as briefed to this Court was whether, under Draper, supra, and Jones v. State, 640 S.W.2d 918 (Tex.Cr.App.1982), the information supplied by the informant, to the extent that it was corroborated by the observation of Officers Griffis and Schorr, was sufficient to supply the "basis of knowledge” prong of the Aguilar measure of probable cause. Unlike the informant in Eisen-hauer, supra, the informant in this case, though his identity was not disclosed, was shown to have had at least a minimal history of supplying information regarding drug trafficking in Dallas County, which information had proven reliable. Such fact makes this case more appropriate than Eisenhauer would have been for determining probable cause vel non under a Draper analysis, since the only question remaining is whether the "basis of knowledge” prong has been met. It is because of this Court’s failure to so analyze the instant case that I now dissent.
. In this context I would once again wish to dissociate myself from the position taken in Judge McCormick’s plurality opinion in Brown v. State, 657 S.W.2d 797 (Tex.Cr.App.1983), that since the socalled "pronouncements” of Crowell v. State, 147 Tex.Cr.R. 299 , 180 S.W.2d 343 (1944) we have opted to interpret Article I, Section 9 of our Constitution “in harmony with” the United States Supreme Court interpretations of the Fourth Amendment. Crowell cannot be read to support this position, see Brown v. State, supra (Clinton, J., concurring), and I want no part of the judicial abdication inherent therein.