Opinion ID: 1929377
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Heading: The Car

Text: The same probable cause that supported issuance of the search warrant for 1634 Darley Avenue supported a search warrant for Ward's nine-year-old Oldsmobile. The handgun and the ammunition for which the police were searching were highly portable and could be under the defendant's control either at his home or concealed in his automobile. LaFave states: It is permissible to have a single warrant authorize search of a described place and a described person or of a described place and a described automobile, without regard to whether the person or vehicle is to be found at the place described. W.R. LaFave, Search & Seizure § 4.5(c), at 535 (3d ed.1996). People v. Easley, 34 Cal.3d 858, 196 Cal. Rptr. 309, 671 P.2d 813 (1983), aff'd on reh'g, 46 Cal.3d 712, 250 Cal.Rptr. 855, 759 P.2d 490 (1988), is on point. In that double-murder capital punishment case the victims had been bound with baling wire and then stabbed with an icepick. A warrant was issued to search for evidence of the crime at four places, the defendant's residence before the crime, his residence after the crime, the car which he owned before the crime and retained thereafter, and the additional car that he bought after the crime. The court rejected the defendant's argument that the authorization to search four different places demonstrates that the affiant did not know where the sought-after property actually was located. 196 Cal.Rptr. 309, 671 P.2d at 820. Rather, the court said [t]here is no logical inconsistency in the conclusion that an affidavit establishes probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime will be in any one of a suspect's homes or vehicles. Id. Particularly noteworthy is the content of the affidavit in Easley. As summarized by the court, the pertinent information in the affidavit was as follows: A search warrant designating more than one person or place to be searched must contain sufficient probable cause to justify its issuance as to each person or place named therein. The affidavit in question established that defendant had obtained baling wire one day before the killings; that he was in Modesto on the day of the murders; that his fingerprint had been found on a piece of paper which was lying next to one of the victims; and that he had purchased a car and rented an apartment, paying large sums of money in cash, within four days after the homicides. On the basis of this information, the magistrate properly concluded that there was probable cause to believe that evidence of the crime could be found at either of defendant's residences or in either of his cars. Id. (citations omitted). Searches of four places under a single warrant were also sustained in Williams v. State, 95 Okla.Crim. 131, 240 P.2d 1132 (App. 1952). That was a bootlegging case in which the search for intoxicating liquor was authorized at an inn on one side of a major highway, another inn on the other side of that same highway, the residence of the defendant, and the automobile of the defendant. 240 P.2d at 1135. The court was satisfied that the same probable cause applied to all locations inasmuch as they were being operated by one person, partnership or corporation. Id. at 1137. In another capital sentence case, involving the search for a knife and bloodstained clothing that would evidence a rape, federal courts, on habeas corpus review, sustained the issuance of a warrant to search both the defendant's residence and his automobile. Vessels v. Estelle, 376 F.Supp. 1303 (S.D.Tex. 1973), aff'd without opinion, 494 F.2d 1295 (5th Cir.1974), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 969, 95 S.Ct. 234, 42 L.Ed.2d 185 (1974). The factors that the district court pointed to in the affidavit were that the assailant's car was seen in the vicinity of the victim's house, ... that the assailant left the house with the knife, and that the assailant's house was a place where implements such as knives would ordinarily be kept. Id. at 1309. In a supplemental opinion on reconsideration the district court would not modify its search and seizure analysis, commenting that the knife and the clothes which were the subject of the search are likely to remain as continuing articles. Id. at 1311. Warrants were issued simultaneously to search two automobiles in Porter v. United States, 335 F.2d 602 (9th Cir.1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 983, 85 S.Ct. 695, 13 L.Ed.2d 574 (1965). From one of the vehicles, an Oldsmobile, the FBI had seized a sawed-off shotgun, the possession of which formed the basis for the prosecution in the cited case. The search warrants had been issued in the investigation of a bank robbery after the victim teller had identified Porter as the robber. The warrants sought specifically described items of clothing and a handgun. Id. at 604. The Oldsmobile to be searched was registered in another state under an assumed name. At the same time that the FBI applied for the warrant to search the Oldsmobile, the investigators applied for a warrant to search a Rambler also registered in another state, but in the name of Porter's purported wife. Porter argued that the application for this second warrant is an indication that the search of each of the automobiles would be an exploratory search, comparable to a... `general warrant'.... Id. at 605. In response to this argument the court said: A warrant to search for three named and described articles, a gun, a cap and a coat is in no sense a general warrant. As to the significance of the fact that two warrants were issued, one for the Oldsmobile and the other for the Rambler, surely the fact that a suspect has two automobiles, or two residences, does not mean that neither one of them can be searched, because the suspect may have concealed the wanted evidence in the other one. Id. There are other cases where warrants have been issued for both the residence and the automobile of the defendant, where the affidavit has indicated that the vehicle may have been used in leaving the scene of the crime, but this latter factor is not said to be the threshold of validity. See, e.g., United States v. Morris, 647 F.2d 568 (5th Cir.1981) (robbery); State v. Higginbotham, 162 Wis.2d 978, 471 N.W.2d 24 (1991) (arson); State v. Iverson, 187 N.W.2d 1 (N.D.) (murder), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 956, 92 S.Ct. 322, 30 L.Ed.2d 273 (1971). In the case before us we are informed by the affidavit that Ward was operating his car within forty-eight hours after the murder. Obviously, Ward was not hiding out at home. Inasmuch as his handgun could be considered an item of continuing utility and value to him, the warrant-issuing judge reasonably could have inferred that Ward might be moving the gun and ammunition between his residence and his vehicle, so that there was probable cause to believe that evidence of the crime could be found in Ward's vehicle.