Lonnie Earl Johnson, Appellee v. the State of Texas

Summary

The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas affirmed the Court of Appeals' decision, rejecting the State's claim that the trial court's findings supported a lawful arrest and rejecting the appellant's challenges to statutory interpretation, the attenuation doctrine, and the effect of a later arrest warrant. The majority held that the arrest lacked probable cause, that Article 44.01(a)(5) does not allow a defendant to challenge the prosecutor's certification, that the attenuation doctrine is not an exception to Article 38.23 but a method to determine whether evidence is "obtained," and that the later warrant did not attenuate the taint of the illegal arrest. Justice Clinton dissented, adhering to his prior views in Garcia and Bell.