Opinion ID: 2323439
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: seizure of the electrical cord

Text: The defendant contends that the wire cord taken from the smashed, front-grill section of her car was unconstitutionally seized and should not have been allowed into evidence. The exclusionary rule protects the individual's reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her person, home, and belongings by prohibiting the use, at trial, of evidence obtained by illegal searches and seizures in violation of a person's constitutional rights. [7] State v. Burns, 431 A.2d 1199, 1205 (R.I. 1981). It follows that when no reasonable privacy interest has been unlawfully invaded, neither the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution nor article I, section 6, of the Rhode Island Constitution prevents the introduction of evidence seized. See State v. McKee, 442 A.2d 440, 442-43 (R.I. 1982). In State v. Benoit, 417 A.2d 895 (R.I. 1980), we held that the defendants' privacy interest in items in the passenger compartment of the car was paramount over the state's interest in searching the car and seizing those items because, although police had lawfully seized the car itself some four hours earlier, they should have procured a warrant before making an additional invasion into the defendants' privacy interest in the interior of the car, even if the items seized were in plain view insofar as they could be seen through the car's windows. Id. at 901. Unlike Benoit, in the instant case no additional privacy interest has been invaded. Taking a wire attached to the outside, front-grill area of an automobile already lawfully seized, when that wire is in plain view for all to see and when no additional privacy intrusion (such as entering the passenger compartment of the vehicle) is needed to remove the wire, constitutes neither an unlawful search nor a further seizure. [8] The situation here is analogous to one where police, having already lawfully seized a car, scrape mud from the tires to use it as evidence. One would be hard pressed to argue in that instance that the police had made an additional seizure, namely, that of the mud. See Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 591, 94 S.Ct. 2464, 2470, 41 L.Ed.2d 325, 335 (1974) (plurality opinion). A different situation arises once police invade a separate privacy interest, such as an individual might reasonably have in items inside his or her car, trunk, or glove compartment. In Benoit police removed items from the interior of the defendants' car. That activity required the officers (1) to open the car doors, thereby invading any privacy interest in the car's interior, (2) to conduct a search of the passenger compartments, and (3) to make additional and separate seizures of the items found therein. Here there was no such Fourth Amendment or section 6 activity. [9] A car is seized but once.