Opinion ID: 299629
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: A closer look at a challenging situation.

Text: 10 In Dorsey, supra, two officers approached a parked car occupied by two recognized, known narcotics violators. Although it was 11:00 p. m. the officers could see the driver and the passenger were turned facing each other as though examining something on the seat. The officer on the driver's side directed his flashlight into the car and illuminated in Dorsey's hand a cellophane bag filled with white-powdered, gelatin capsules. When Dorsey placed the bag on the ledge of the glove compartment, the other officer reached through the open window, seized the bag, and placed Dorsey under arrest. As the driver complained of the officer flashing his light inside the car, the officer noticed that the driver was dropping heroin capsules on the floor. He, too, was arrested and nine heroin capsules were picked up off the floor. 11 Without either characterizing the officer's action as a search or attempting to justify it as a search, we held that 12 The essential inquiry, as is customarily the case in Fourth Amendment claims, is the reasonableness of the police conduct under the circumstances.   Reasonableness involves consideration of the nature of the police conduct as well as the occasion of its exercise. We think the evidence supported a view of that conduct as not transgressing the constitutional standard. 13    When the officers suddenly saw [the appellants] situated as they were at the time and place in question, the former were entitled to extend their preventive patrolling mission to the extent of approaching the car and observing what was going on inside.    We do not think the need to employ a visual aid at night in the form of a flashlight converts this from lawful into unlawful conduct. A car parked at 14th and U Streets at eleven o'clock at night, occupied by known narcotics offenders, bears little resemblance to a home or dwelling. If policemen are to serve any purpose of detecting and preventing crime by being out on the streets at all, they must be able to take a closer look at challenging situations as they encounter them. All we hold here is that this was one of those situations, and that the police response to it was a justifiable one which did not project their law enforcement responsibilities beyond permissible constitutional limits. 5 14 We think the facts and holding in Dorsey, supra, are comparable and decisive of appellant's contentions in regard to his first alleged illegal search. 6 15