Opinion ID: 2607891
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Necessity of a Search Warrant.

Text: Precisely because [t]he right of privacy was deemed too precious to entrust to the discretion of those whose job is the detection of crime and the arrest of criminals, [2] it is well settled that a warrant must be obtained before a search may be conducted unless there are exigent circumstances [3] or the search is incident to an arrest. [4] In the present case there were no special or exigent circumstances such as those mentioned in Johnson, supra 333 U.S. at 15, 68 S.Ct. 367, which would have justified a warrantless search. The officer admitted this much on cross-examination. Furthermore, even if the arrest was for probable cause, [5] the search does not meet the test enunciated in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969) for a search incident to an arrest. As the court said in Chimel, supra : There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of the arrestee's person and the area `within his immediate control'  construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence. Chimel, supra at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040, makes it abundantly clear that this is the area within the arrestee's reach and not, as the state has argued in the present case, ten feet from the arrestee in and about the washing machine where the narcotics were discovered. Exceptions to the constitutional requirement of a warrant must be strictly observed so that in practice they do not swallow up the requirement. We conclude that the defendant had standing to assert his reasonable expectations of privacy, that the warrantless search was not justified by exigent circumstances, and that it was not incident to an arrest. A search warrant was therefore required and the failure of the police to obtain one requires that the evidence seized be suppressed and the decision of the trial court be reversed. The reversal of a conviction on these grounds is mandated by the state and federal constitutions as the result of improper police practices in failing to respect the constitutional rights of private citizens. It is the fault of the police, not the courts, that the defendant may go free.