Opinion ID: 1931018
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The admissibility of the coins taken from the automobile

Text: Both defendants contend that State's exhibit # 2, the blue dish containing the coins in the amount of $14.00, should not have been admitted in evidence, since, it is argued, they were the fruits of an illegal warrantless search made against the principles stated in Mapp v. Ohio, 1961, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081. The State seeks justification for the intrusion on the basis that no search was involved. The police activity is characterized as a routine administrative inventory, a standard police procedure designed to ascertain the nature of the property in custody. We rest our decision on this issue upon principles governing the reasonableness of the search under constitutional requirements, and not upon any theory of administrative inventory by the police. [5] The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, is fully applicable to the police activity under scrutiny, even though the officers may have intended the inspection of the automobile's interior as a mere inventory and had no actual purpose to seek the fruits, instrumentalities or evidence of criminal activity. State v. Richards, 1972, Me., 296 A.2d 129, 134-135. We believe, however, that the search was a reasonable search within constitutional restrictions under the principles enunciated in Chambers v. Maroney, 1970, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419. The white station wagon which the police officers searched at the station house parking lot for purposes of inventory could properly have been searched without a warrant, shortly prior thereto, on Temple Street at the time the defendant Cress was removed from the car following his arrest for breaking and entering the V.F.W. building with intent to commit larceny. Carroll v. United States, 1924, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543. Probable cause then existed to support a reasonable belief by an ordinary prudent and conscientious person that the automobile had been used in the burglary and probably contained some fruits of the burglary, possibly instrumentalities with which the security of the building was breached or other evidence of a criminal nature in connection therewith. The automobile registered to the defendant Shone was driven by the defendant Cress from the V.F.W. parking lot to the point on Temple Street where Cress was placed under arrest. By that time, the police knew that the crime of breaking and entering had taken place and that a muscular dystrophy container with its coinage contents had been stolen therefrom. A police officer, of his own personal observation, had already tied the automobile and the two defendants, whom he recognized at the V.F.W. parking lot, with the burglary by reason of actually seeing the defendant Cress drop the brown paper bag which the officer thereafter examined to find therein the remnants of the crushed muscular dystrophy collection plastic box, stripped of its alleged amassed currency. The essence of probable cause is reasonable ground for belief of guilt and, in the case of a warrantless search, the information must be such as would lead a reasonable and cautious person to believe that the search would disclose criminal conduct or things tending to establish the commission of crime or the identity of the perpetrator thereof. State v. Walker, 1975, Me., 341 A.2d 700. Probable cause rests on probabilities and is objective in nature. It is not whether particular officers thought or believed they had cause to arrest or search. It is rather whether on the basis of facts known or reasonably believed by him, an ordinarily prudent and cautious officer would have probable cause to arrest or search. State v. Heald, 1973, Me., 314 A.2d 820, 828. The mistaken subjective opinion of police officers making the search as to the source of their authority for the same is not determinative of the lawfulness of the search. State v. Koucoules, 1974, Me., 343 A.2d 860. In State v. Brochu, 1967, Me., 237 A.2d 418, the officers' erroneous belief that they had a valid consent to search did not render the search unlawful and unreasonable, since they were in possession of a valid search warrant, although they did not purport to act under it. In State v. Thibodeau, 1974, Me., 317 A. 2d 172, a search was held to be reasonable and proper under a valid consent to search, although the police were acting pursuant to the authority of a defective warrant. Thus, the mere fact that the Waterville police ascribed their authority to search the Shone automobile, while under the control of the defendant Cress, on the theory that they had the right to take an administrative inventory of the contents of the vehicle, would not render the search unreasonable and unlawful, if it was otherwise constitutionally permissible on the ground of probable cause. But, a warrantless search, even in a context of probable cause, may not be justified if, in addition thereto, the existing circumstances do not present a situation of exigency, requiring immediate search and seizure, or both, to prevent likelihood of removal, concealment, destruction or loss of the articles lawfully subject to seizure. State v. Stone, 1972, Me., 294 A.2d 683; State v. Walker, supra. Conceding the police had probable cause to search the automobile on the street at the time of the arrest of Cress and that a search at that time would have satisfied the requirements of exigent circumstances under the doctrine espoused by Carroll v. United States, supra, does the removal of the vehicle by the police, through the services of Miss Malone rendered at their request, to the station house parking lot where the search was conducted, so alter the situation as to take away from the then existing circumstances the characteristics of exigency which adhered to them prior to the removal? In Chambers v. Maroney, supra, the occupants of the car were arrested on the road and the car driven to the police station before it was thoroughly searched for fruits and instrumentalities of a robbery. In Chambers, the Supreme Court of the United States stated: Arguably, because of the preference for a magistrate's judgment, only the immobilization of the car should be permitted until a search warrant is obtained; arguably, only the `lesser' intrusion is permissible until the magistrate authorizes the `greater.' But which is the `greater' and which the `lesser' intrusion is itself a debatable question and the answer may depend on a variety of circumstances. For constitutional purposes, we see no difference between on the one hand seizing and holding a car before presenting the probable cause issue to a magistrate and on the other hand carrying out an immediate search without a warrant. Given probable cause to search, either course is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.  (Emphasis ours) On the facts of the instant case, as well expressed in Chambers, the blue [white] station wagon could have been searched on the spot [on Temple Street] when it was stopped since there was [then] probable cause to search and it was a fleeting target for a search. The probable-cause factor still obtained at the station house and so did the mobility of the car . . .. (Emphasis provided) Since they had probable cause to believe that the station wagon was itself an instrumentality of the breaking and entering and as such would likely contain evidence of the crime, the police were justified in making a warrantless search of the automobile at the station house immediately following the booking of the defendants. Cf. State v. Little and Brewer, supra. It is apparent from the facts of this case that the automobile was continually in the custody of the Waterville police from the time the defendant Cress was arrested. While the vehicle was driven to the police parking lot by Miss Malone, it is clear she was acting, albeit involuntarily, as an agent of the police. The automobile was at all times during the transfer from Temple Street to the station house under close escort by police cruisers. Once the accused had been lawfully arrested and were in custody, their automobile, which was subject to search at the time and place of arrest of the defendant Cress had been removed to police headquarters under police direction, could be lawfully searched and incriminating evidence seized without a warrant, where the search and seizure were made immediately after the administrative processing of the parties.