Interesting; in addition to what appears (to my non-lawyer reading) to be a very slapdash job by an overconfident prosecutor, this makes for a good precedent.Liko81 wrote:http://5thcoa.courts.state.tx.us/cgi-bi ... +D+8562327KD5NRH wrote:Do you happen to have a link to this one?Liko81 wrote:Texas 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in Grieve v. State of Texas,
It's interesting in that the question, rather than "Is MWAG sufficient evidence of DOC?" appears to be, "In this specific case, was there enough evidence to enter without consent?" By not presenting a significant portion of the evidence available to the officers at the time of the entry (the opinion seems to indicate that the dispatch recordings were not presented at the preceding trials, either) in order to establish the latter, (which the recordings may or may not have, but listening to dispatchers often enough, including on calls that I've made, gives me the distinct impression that it is not uncommon for an issue to be somewhat embellished by the dispatcher during this process) the prosecution pretty well earned themselves a precedent on the former question that I'm sure wasn't anything they wanted.He successfully overturned his conviction on appeal by arguing that the State failed to establish reasonable suspicion of a crime to warrant an interview, because no information about the mode of carry, or the description of the balcony as to whether it would be considered a public or private place, was given, and thus a simple MWAG call is not by itself probable cause for a search.
The decision also notes that McCurry was a UTD officer, but not whether this incident occurred on UTD property or off-campus housing; either would likely include in the student housing agreements some provision allowing for entry by university staff under circumstances which might apply here.