Opinion ID: 2159212
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Motion to Suppress Fiber and Foam Evidence

Text: On January 16, 1982, approximately two months after Amie Hoffman's murder, defendant called the police to his home to report that he had been the victim of a stabbing. This bizarre event caused the police to seize and later examine defendant's car, which yielded critical evidence in both the Hoffman and O'Brien murders. Arriving at defendant's home, the police found the defendant with a stab wound in his lower back. Defendant advised the police that while he was driving his car, a vehicle displaying a flashing blue light came up behind him. Believing the driver to be a policeman, Koedatich claimed he stopped, exited his car, and walked to the rear. The driver chastised defendant for driving too slowly. When defendant turned to reenter his car, he felt a blow to his back. In one motion he slid behind the steering wheel of his car. Once inside the car he felt blood, became frightened, drove home, and called the police. The police administered first aid and called an ambulance, which transported Koedatich to the hospital. Sergeant Perkalis drove defendant's mother to the hospital. In the meantime, Sergeant Perkalis issued a crime alert report about the stabbing to adjacent police departments. Further interviewing of the defendant at the hospital established that the alleged attack had taken place not in Morristown but in Morris Township, and that jurisdiction over the attack belonged to Morris Township. Accordingly, the Morristown police transferred defendant's car to the Morris Township police garage in order to obtain forensic evidence. The freezing conditions in winter made the lifting of fingerprints almost impossible, so that cars were routinely placed in the garage in order to obtain fingerprints. Because the details of the attack appeared to be similar to the O'Brien and Hoffman attacks, Detective Kinnecom, a member of the Morris County Sheriff's Criminal Investigation Division, who was responsible for the preservation and identification of physical evidence gathered at the O'Brien murder, was called to examine defendant's car. A critical piece of evidence at the scene of the O'Brien slaying was a tire track found near Ms. O'Brien's car. The police had sketched, photographed, and made a plaster cast of the tire track. From the O'Brien murder on December 5, 1982, to the date of the alleged Koedatich stabbing, a five or six week period, Detective Kinnecom had diligently examined thousands of tires to find a tire with a tread pattern similar to the impression made at the scene of the O'Brien abduction. As soon as he looked at defendant's car, he noticed that a tire on the car had a tread pattern similar to the tread pattern found near Ms. O'Brien's car. He did no further investigation, but immediately called the Prosecutor's Office and a search warrant was secured. The interior of defendant's car was searched pursuant to the search warrant. The defense agrees that the search warrant was properly issued, but alleges that the original seizure of the car was improper and hence the fruits of the seizure, in this case the fiber and foam evidence, were improperly admitted. The defense moved to suppress the foam and fiber evidence. At the suppression hearing the defense's theory was that the defendant was really a suspect, and that the police had secured the car through subterfuge. Sergeant Perkalis, the officer in charge, testified at the suppression hearing that he requested that defendant's clothes and car be taken by the police to be examined for possible evidence of the assailant's identity. He recounted the circumstances of the seizure: Q: Once the details of the incident were related to you, did you indicate to Mr. Koedatich your desire to do anything? A: I indicated to Mr. Koedatich we were going to secure his vehicle as possible evidence. Q: And what was the response to that? A: His response was, yes, okay, he agreed. Q: Now, the security of the evidence, was that standard police procedure? A: Yes, sir.... Q: You were investigating this as what  this whole incident? A: As an aggravated assault with a weapon. Q: Upon whom? A: Upon Mr. Koedatich. Q: Was he a suspect at the point? A: No, he was not. Specifically, with respect to the seizure of the car, he testified: Q: Did you direct Patrolmen Scott or Dormer to secure any other evidence? A: Yes, I also indicated or I advised Mr. Koedatich at that point in time that we were going to also secure his vehicle as possible evidence also and he was very cooperative. There was [sic] no problems with that at all. Q: Before we get to that, why did you seek to secure the automobile? A: For possible contact between the suspect and the vehicle; that there might be some forensic evidence left on the vehicle. Q: Such as? A: Such as fingerprints. Q: Why did you think that the vehicle might provide some additional forensic or trace evidence? A: Because of the close contact between the suspect and where the assault took place. The court found that the defendant had not been a suspect at the time of the stabbing, that the police had treated defendant like a victim of an assault, and that Detective Kinnecom reported to the garage because another officer suggested that defendant's assailant could be connected to the O'Brien and Hoffman murders. Moreover, the court noted that the defendant had initiated contact with the police, and that in the course of that investigation the police processed the car under standard procedure. Hence, the court upheld the seizure of the defendant's car as a valid consent seizure, finding beyond a reasonable doubt that Sergeant Perkalis never ordered the defendant to turn over his car or anything of that nature. On appeal, the Public Defender accepts the fact that the defendant had not been a suspect prior to his alleged stabbing, but argues instead that since defendant was not advised that he did not have to give his consent to the seizure of his car, his consent was not voluntarily given within the meaning of State v. Johnson, 68 N.J. 349 (1975). We disagree. In New Jersey, if the State seeks to rely in a non-custodial situation on consent as the basis for a search, it must demonstrat[e] knowledge on the part of the person involved that he had a choice in the matter. Id. at 354 (footnote omitted). Subject to that qualification, a search conducted after a voluntary consent is clearly valid. See State v. Sugar, 108 N.J. 151, 166 (1987) (O'Hern & Stein, JJ., concurring); State v. King, 44 N.J. 346 (1965). A consent sufficient to avoid the necessity of a warrant may be express or implied from the circumstances. An implied consent to search is as efficacious and effective as an express consent to search. People v. Engel, 105 Cal. App. 3d 489, 504, 164 Cal. Rptr. 454, 463 (1980). Consent may be implied, because it is found to exist merely because of the person's conduct in engaging in a certain activity. W. LaFave, Search & Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment ¶ 8.2(1), at 219 (2d ed. 1987). Moreover, courts in other states have found implied voluntary consent where, as in the instant case, the defendant has initiated police contact and has adopted a cooperative posture in the mistaken belief that he could thereby divert or prevent police suspicion of him. Id. ¶ 8.2(g), at 204; see also Steigler v. State, 277 A. 2d 662, 667 (Del. 1971) (actions of fully cooperative defendant amounted to implied consent to search and seizure: One can hardly expect the police to get a search warrant for a house or building when the owner is obviously cooperative and gives every appearance of being the victim, rather than the perpetrator, of a crime); State v. Fredette, 411 A. 2d 65, 70 (Me. 1979) (defendant initiated police presence through urgent calls to police; invited them to enter home; and continually cooperated with police as they searched home); Lewis v. State, 285 Md. 705, 717-21, 404 A. 2d 1073, 1080-1081 (Md. 1979) (defendant summoned police to house; was anxious to cooperate with investigation and willingly left house key with neighbor to give police access to premises); Commonwealth v. Harris, 387 Mass. 758, 443 N.E. 2d 1287 (1982) (defendant genuinely consented in hope that cooperative attitude would deflect police suspicion); Kelly v. State, 75 Wis. 2d 303, 313, 249 N.W. 2d 800, 805 (Wis. 1977) (defendant called police and, under circumstances that implied that the victim had shot himself or had been shot by someone other than defendant, there was an implied consent not only to aid the victim but to determine what had caused the death or injury and who was responsible). Federal courts have reached similar results. See United States v. Price, 599 F. 2d 494 (2d Cir.1979) (valid search where defendant told police he did not care if they searched bag because it was not his and he had picked it up by mistake); Thompson v. McManus, 512 F. 2d 769 (8th Cir.) (cooperative defendant assisted police by discussing robbery as motive for brutal assault on wife: sufficient to imply consent to second search of house), cert. den., 421 U.S. 1014, 95 S.Ct. 2421, 44 L.Ed. 2d 683 (1975). In their concurring opinion in State v. Sugar, supra, 108 N.J. at 174, Justices O'Hern and Stein found, based on a close examination of all the unique circumstances of that case, that Dr. Sugar had impliedly consented to the second search of his property. In reaching this conclusion, they relied particularly on the defendant's unabated and unqualified cooperation with police efforts to find his wife. Ibid. In Sugar, the search was not of defendant's home but rather of the curtilage surrounding his home. In this case the item searched was defendant's car, in which a person has a much lower expectation of privacy. See California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 391, 105 S.Ct. 2066, 85 L.Ed. 2d 406, 413 (1985) (`the expectation of privacy with respect to one's automobile is significantly less than that relating to one's home or office'). In New Jersey, the Appellate Division has distinguished certain cases from Johnson not only because there was a general absence of coercion, but also because there was some form of active initiation by the party who turned over the evidence. While in Johnson the police had requested entry into the apartment, in State v. McGivern, 167 N.J. Super. 86, 87 (App.Div. 1979), the police query was limited to whether there was anything in the car's trunk; the driver opened his trunk without having been asked. Similarly, in State v. Humanik, 199 N.J. Super. 283, 304-05 (App.Div. 1985), the sister's turning over of the letter to the police was not directly instigated by the officers; and in State v. Anglada, 144 N.J. Super. 358, 362-63 (App.Div. 1976), the defendant knew that [he] did not have to consent when he allowed undercover officers into his home. Consent is therefore a factual question to be determined from the relevant circumstances. We are persuaded by the totality of the unique circumstances that the defendant did in fact consent to the seizure of his vehicle, and therefore find the seizure valid. Defendant requested police intervention. There was no subterfuge by the police. The police acted in a reasonably objective and routine manner in examining defendant's car. He gave the appearance of cooperating fully with the police, and he led them to believe they were all working together to catch his assailant. The defendant thus orchestrated the events that led to the discovery of crucial evidence in both this case and the O'Brien case. It is not the fault of the police nor is the Constitution at all offended when a guilty man stubs his toe. State v. McKnight, 52 N.J. 35, 52 (1968). Indeed, there can hardly be a more appropriate case in which to find that the police acted reasonably in concluding that defendant had given his consent to the seizure of his car. To rule otherwise defies common sense. Accordingly, we find the foam and fiber evidence to be admissible.