Is anyone prosecuting these type cases as 37.09(d)(1) evidence tampering?

Scenario: Officer pulls car over for traffic violation after seeing the car stop at and leave a suspected crack house. During the course of the traffic stop detention, officer questions driver about what he was doing at the "crack house" and gets the driver to admit that he had just bought some crack but he threw it out the window (or swallowed it) when he saw the patrol car getting ready to pull him over. Officer arrests driver for tampering with physical evidence and gets a written confession.

This scenario seems to me to fit the statute (37.09 (d)(1)); but, in my brief research I haven't found caselaw where this approach (i.e. destroying/concealing evidence when the defendant knows that an offense has been committed) was tried. The only cases I find are cases with similar fact scenarios where they were tried/convicted/and reversed using charges under the 37.09(a) approach (i.e. destroying evid when defendant knew an investigation in progress).

How do you overcome the corpus delicti rule?

For a discussion on the rule see: Salazar v. State, 86 S.W.3d 640 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002).

Doesn't one have a constitutional right not to incriminate himself?

The Constitution actually says, "nor shall [a person] be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." There is no constitional right to actively conceal the truth, you simply may not be forced to admit it in court. Attempting to destroy evidence is quite different from remaining silent when asked a question.

When read as broadly as you suggest, all crimes would be unprosecutable, because committing the crime would be "incriminating yourself" if you left evidence of it.

CORPUS DELICTI SATISFIED?

The officer should be able to establish:
-that the defendant just came from a house where the police strongly suspicion drugs are sold (In fact we just ran a search warrant on the house and seized a bunch of crack, cash, etc.)
-defendant stopped at the house, went in the house for about one minute, got in car and drove off
-when officer pulled in behind car and turned on his lights he saw the driver appear to throw something out the window.
-during the stop, driver orally confesses.
-officer goes back to look for the drugs but can't find them on the street.
-driver gives a formal written confession.

What do ya'll think? I might have more of a problem with the swallowing the crack cases. We didn't pump their stomachs or notice physical symptoms that would corroborate the swallowing of crack.

Come on Beck. Why not argue executing witnesses is a right protected by the constitution. Cooperation with law enforcement and not destoying evidence-like crack rocks or Blood Alcohol Concentrations is not the great risk our constitution protects against. Preventing evidence collection or assisting in concealing evidence is bad. Simple as that.