Opinion ID: 2181717
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The police officer's experience and expertise.

Text: 2. The question of whether in light of his expertise, the officer had formed an opinion with a reasonable degree of certainty concerning the identity of the substance previously searched by private parties before expanding the search. 3. The extent of the intrusion required to perform the expansion. 4. The question of whether such intrusion impinged upon any further expectation of privacy that remained after the exposure of the contents by private persons. See State v. Eiseman , R.I., 461 A.2d at 377. Having reviewed the evidence in light of these factors, we are convinced that all four militate against the trial justice's conclusion and in favor of our finding that the state's subsequent toxicological examination was a significant expansion of the private search subject to the protection of the Fourth Amendment. Lieutenant Reise and his subordinate, Detective Miranda, both had extensive experience with the State Police. Reise was a twenty-one year veteran of the State Police and a ten-year member of its detective division. Miranda had been employed by the State Police since 1969 and had been working in its detective division since 1974. Additionally, Reise was thoroughly familiar with the proper procedure to follow to obtain a search warrant to advance an investigation. Despite his expertise, Lieutenant Reise was unable to identify with a reasonable degree of certainty those substances that he had received from Alex without further testing. His testimony is replete with admissions that he sent samples to the state lab because he simply did not know what they were. In spontaneous response to two questions posed by the prosecutor upon direct examination, Lieutenant Reise gave virtually identical answers to explain why he ordered the testing: I had no idea what it was (papaveretum); I sent it for the same reason I just didn't know what it was (lidocaine). And on subsequent cross-examination, Lieutenant Reise reaffirmed the fact that he ordered the chemical analysis of certain substances precisely because he lacked knowledge of their identity. He stated that the reason he had had the state lab perform the testing was because there were some unknowns in there that I couldn't identify just through a Physicians Desk Reference. Although he did testify that he felt certain substances delivered by Alex were a contraband substance or something of that nature, a full reading of his testimony convinces us that these statements were nothing more than an expression of his own vague, subjective suspicions about their identity. These statements clearly do not support a finding that Lieutenant Reise was able to identify the substances delivered by Alex with any reasonable degree of certainty without the aid of the state toxicological tests. The final two Eiseman factors we shall consider in tandem. The extent of the intrusion and whether it impinged upon a further expectation of privacy retained by defendant are two integrally related factors. If defendant retains a constitutionally protected expectation of privacy in the items delivered to the state by private parties, and the state intrudes upon that expectation of privacy, it does so subject to the proscription of the Fourth Amendment. In this case defendant originally possessed a reasonable expectation of privacy in the pills and other contents of the black bag. These items were originally found in an opaque black bag inside a metal box in a locked closet in defendant's home. The fact that they were unexpectedly seized, inspected, and delivered to the State Police by a private party does not alter defendant's legitimate original expectation of privacy. Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. at 658-59, 100 S.Ct. at 2402-03, 65 L.Ed.2d at 418-19. [T]he Government may not exceed the scope of the private search unless it has the right to make an independent search. Id. at 657, 100 S.Ct. at 2402, 65 L.Ed.2d at 418. Consequently, unless the private inspection and testing of the black bag and its contents was so complete as to be virtually coextensive with the State Police search, it only partially frustrated defendant's original expectation of privacy. It did not    strip the remaining unfrustrated portion of that expectation of all Fourth Amendment protection. Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. at 659, 100 S.Ct. at 2403, 65 L.Ed.2d at 419. The facts of this case readily demonstrate that the state's toxicological examination of the contents of the black bag did exceed the scope of the private tests performed by Bio-Science Laboratories at the request of Dr. Stock. In addition to the chemical analysis of both the blue liquid and the white powder performed by Dr. Stock, the state toxicologist chemically analyzed five samples of pills, including three capsules and two tablets, and two samples of ampoules that were never tested by Dr. Stock. The state concedes that one of these capsules, a red capsule marked Lilly F-40, could not have been identified by a simple sight examination. [14] The state therefore did intrude upon a further expectation of defendant's privacy. The extent of the state's intrusion is significant because, without it, the initial view of the objects tested produced only an inference of criminal conduct by defendant. See id. at 657, 100 S.Ct. at 2402, 65 L.Ed.2d at 418; see also United States v. Jacobsen, ___ U.S. ___, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984). In this case, as in Walter, the state exceeded the scope of the private search by employing chemical or mechanical means to reveal the hidden nature of these objects. This governmental activity represents a significant expansion of the private search because it positively identified the unknown composition of the pills delivered to the state police. See State v. Morgan, 32 Wash. App. 764, 768, 650 P.2d 228, 231 (1982). This additional investigation, being necessary in order to obtain the evidence which was to be used at trial, Walter v. United States, 447 U.S. at 654, 100 S.Ct. at 2400, 65 L.Ed.2d at 416, was an independent search subject to the Fourth Amendment. Since we hold that the state's subsequent chemical analysis of certain contents of the black bag was a significant expansion of the private search and that there were no exceptions to the warrant requirement, defendant's conviction must be reversed. In a case in which the authorities have not relied on what is in effect a private search,    [they] presumptively violate the Fourth Amendment if they act without a warrant. United States v. Jacobsen, ___ U.S. at ___, 104 S.Ct. at 1659. The state may not significantly expand the scope of a private search unless it obtains a warrant. State v. Eiseman, R.I., 461 A.2d at 381.