Opinion ID: 1521174
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Legality of the Seizure under the Plain View Doctrine

Text: Appellants contend in the alternative that the seizure of movable personal property was justified under the plain view exception to the warrant requirement. It is a well established principle of criminal procedure that any search or seizure conducted without a warrant [or exceeding the scope of an authorized search] is  per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendmentsubject only to a few well-delineated exceptions. One of the judicially recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement is the plain view doctrine. This doctrine, however, will justify a warrantless search only when three requirements are met: the police officer must be lawfully present at the situs of the search and seizure, his discovery of the evidence must be inadvertent, and the items seized must be immediately recognizable as evidence. [ Jackson v. United States, D.C.App., 404 A.2d 911, 918 (1979) (citations omitted).] It is undisputed that the officers in this case were lawfully present at the situs of the seizure. Despite the tip they had previously received that items of personal property in the apartment were contraband, appellants argue that the discovery of the items of property they seized was inadvertent: [Sergeant] Stone did not rely exclusively upon information obtained prior to the search in reaching his determination that probable cause existed for the seizures.... [Sergeant] Stone cased his determination upon the following: (1) statements received prior to the search from an informant ... that Whitehead was accepting property, like the seized, in exchange for narcotics, (2) knowledge that prior to the search other police officers had witnessed controlled purchases of narcotics from Whitehead by an informant, (3) discussions with Whitehead about each item seized at the time of seizure, during which Whitehead was unable to give [Sergeant] Stone satisfactory proof of ownership or to otherwise make a satisfactory showing of lawful ownership, and (4) observations by [Sergeant] Stone during the search that the items seized were duplicated by other similar property in the household that are not often found in houses in that neighborhood.... [Reply Brief for Appellants at 3-4.] The officers' prior expectation, that they would find at the Benning Road address movable property had been received in exchange for drugs, did not alone necessarily preclude seizure of the property under the inadvertence requirement of the plain view exception. This court has applied a primary purpose test in interpreting the inadvertence requirement of the plain view doctrine: [s]atisfaction of the inadvertency criterion would require the discovery of the [challenged evidence] to have been a subordinate aspect of the arrest itself, or the result of some justifying purpose other than merely gathering evidence. Vance v. United States, D.C.App., 399 A.2d 52, 59 (1979) (quoting Brooks v. United States, D.C.App., 367 A.2d 1297, 1307 (1976)). See also Brooks v. United States, supra at 1307 n.15 (If ... the primary purpose of the initial intrusion, or that of a further intrusion subsequent to the arrest, is the gathering of evidence, the inadvertency requirement cannot be satisfied.) Here, the search warrant and accompanying affidavit reveal that the primary purpose of the police entry into the Benning Road residence was to gather evidence of narcotics possession and dispensation. Also, Officers Smith and Granville, in obtaining the warrant, had intentionally failed to disclose to the issuing judicial officer their belief that there were at appellees' residence consumer goods which were evidence of narcotics dispensation. Furthermore, the officers acquired no additional information during the search, besides that which they possessed when they sought the warrant, which would justify an unauthorized seizure. If the initial intrusion is bottomed upon a warrant that fails to mention a particular object, though the police know its location and intend to seize it, then there is a violation of the express constitutional requirement of Warrants ... particularly describing ... [the] things to be seized. ... [T]o extend the scope of such an intrusion to the seizure of objectsnot contraband nor stolen nor dangerous in themselveswhich the police know in advance they will find in plain view and intend to seize, would fly in the face of the basic rule that no amount of probable cause can justify a warrantless seizure. [ Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra [403 U.S.] at 471 [91 S.Ct. at 2040] (footnote omitted).] Under these circumstances, where the seizing officers had failed to disclose to the judicial officer issuing the warrant their expectation that they would find a specific variety of incriminating evidence, and where the subsequent search failed to reveal other material information upon which a probable cause determination could be based, the seizure was not justifiable under the inadvertence requirement of the plain view doctrine. Under the plain view doctrine, moreover, items not named in the search warrant must also be immediately recognizable as evidence, id. at 468, 91 S.Ct. at 2039, under the totality of circumstances surrounding the seizure of such items. United States v. Lee, 427 F.Supp. 318, 323 (E.D. Ky.1977), rev'd on other grounds, 581 F.2d 1173 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1048, 99 S.Ct. 725, 58 L.Ed.2d 707 (1978). The plain view exception is not one which allows the seizure of an item on mere suspicion.... [T]here must at least be probable cause to believe that [an article seized outside the authorization of a warrant] is incriminating evidence. Bynum v. United States, D.C.App., 386 A.2d 684, 687-88 (1978). Courts have previously found adequately incriminating to justify seizure under this test, for example, a sawed-off shotgun, shotgun shell, army-green raincoat, and a cloth money bag all of which were partially concealed under a bed, where the seizing officer entered the apartment in hot pursuit of robbery suspects, and one robber had been described as wearing an army-green raincoat and carrying a sawed-off shotgun, Vance v. United States, supra at 56, 59; a bent coat hanger, a screw driver, wirecutters, and two citizens' band radios and a tape player seized from an automobile, where cut wires protruded from both radios and the tape player, Childress v. United States, D.C.App., 381 A.2d 614, 616 (1977); a bag holding $14,000 cash found in the works of a toilet into which other inculpatory evidence had just been flushed, United States v. Diaz, 577 F.2d 821, 824 (2d Cir. 1978); a large quantity of silverware and other silver items valued at over $39,000 and bearing twenty-six different sets of initials, found in plain view in a laundry room and seized only after police officers ascertained that the apparent owner of some of the silver had lost some silver in a robbery two days earlier, United States v. Lee, supra at 321, 323; an attache case containing $9,000 cash still in the wrappers from a St. Louis bank, and a gun found when, pursuant to a valid warrant, officers searched the defendant's room. United States v. Golay, 502 F.2d 182, 183 (8th Cir. 1974). The instant case stands in marked contrast to the above cases. The items seized were common consumer goods situated in ordinary places in appellees' residence, and bore no suspicious markings. A check prior to the seizure showed that they were not listed on the Police Department hot sheet of stolen goods. We have previously stated, [a] television set is far from being obvious contraband .... United States v. Pannell, D.C.App., 383 A.2d 1078, 1080 (1978). This applies equally to other ordinary consumer items. Thus there was nothing inherently incriminating about the goods justifying a determination that they were evidence of the dispensation of narcotic drugs. The government bears the burden of justifying seizures not within the scope of a valid warrant. United States v. Golay, supra at 184. In light of the non-incriminating nature of the goods in question, Sergeant Stone's attempt effectively to shift this burden, by demanding that Whitehead demonstrate proof of lawful ownership, was impermissible. The other factor contributing to Sergeant Stone's probable cause determinationthe informant's statementsconstituted information that the seizing officers had at the time they sought the warrant. The items seized, we conclude, failed two essential requirements of the plain view exception: discovery of the items was not inadvertent, and the items were not immediately recognizable as evidence. As the seizure of appellees' personal property was neither authorized by the warrant, nor justified under the plain view exception to the warrant requirement, we find that it was illegal under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. [4]