Opinion ID: 392678
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Law Applied Establishing the Pattern

Text: 6 In this case, pursuant to the automobile exception to the warrant requirement, the law-enforcement officers under Clifton's direction had the right to search the vehicles as they left the farm and seize the sealed plastic garbage bags from the trunks of the four cars and from the bed of the pickup truck. The same circumstances that justified the search of the appellees' vehicles also justified a warrantless seizure of the plastic bags. We must determine whether the contents of the bags seized from any particular vehicle were in plain view and, if not, whether those contents were within the protection of the Fourth Amendment.
7 The government's first contention is that the taking of core samples from cargo that was immediately apparent to be marijuana was not a search in other words, that the marijuana was in plain view. 8 To come within the plain view exception, a container must so clearly announce its contents, whether by its distinctive configuration, its transparency, or otherwise, that its contents are obvious to an observer. Robbins, --- U.S. at ----, 101 S.Ct. at 2847. However, as previously stated, the government's evidence in this case failed to adequately establish which vehicles had bags with tears, which vehicles had bags showing the outline of packed bricks inside, and which vehicles had bags emitting the odor of marijuana. Because the government failed to prove that marijuana was in plain view in any particular vehicle, we cannot conclude that it was in plain view in any of them. Here, as in Robbins, if indeed the marijuana in any of the vehicles was in plain view, that fact was not shown by the evidence of record in this case. Id., --- U.S. at ----, 101 S.Ct. at 2847 (footnote omitted). 9 9 The government contends that the night of surveillance and observation of the continual loading and shipping process at the ranch enabled indeed required the agents to view these bundles as an integral 'job lot' of fungible cargo. That the cargo was parceled into five different vehicles did not alter the fact that on viewing and smelling the cargo and knowing from surveillance that it was all part of one shipment, it was immediately apparent to the officers that it was marijuana. Government's Brief, at p. 12. The government further contends that the law officers' senses and preceding surveillance told them that they had intercepted a stream of identical objects from a larger shipping pool; the marijuana plainly protruding and wafting from some of the bundles verified the contents of the entire pool and its tributary streams. Government's Brief, at p. 13. 10 So far as we can tell, this common-pool plain-view theory is a novel one. However, even assuming without deciding that such a theory is an acceptable extension of the plain view doctrine, we find that the record in this case will not support its application. 11 In effect, a common-pool plain-view doctrine would allow a court to find the contents of a container found in one vehicle in plain view because the contents of a container found in another vehicle were in plain view. If we were to formulate the minimum requirements for the application of such a doctrine, 10 there would be at least three. The contents of a container found in a vehicle would be in plain view when: (1) the contents of a container found in a previously searched vehicle were in plain view; (2) these plain view observations are communicated to the officers who search the subsequent vehicle; and (3) it is apparent from the circumstances that the containers in both vehicles originated from a common pool. 12 From the record, we can say that the only one of these requirements adequately established by the government was the third. It was apparent from the circumstances that the plastic bags in all five vehicles originated from a common pool. However, the government failed to adequately establish either of the other two requirements and so failed to satisfy the minimal prerequisites for application of any hypothetical common-pool plain-view doctrine.
13 The government's second contention is that the core-sampling invaded no privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment. This contention is clearly foreclosed by the decision in Robbins, either under the plurality's or Justice Powell's view of the law. Under the plurality's view, since the plastic bags were closed, opaque containers, 11 their contents were fully protected by the Fourth Amendment, and the bags could not be opened or sampled without a warrant. On the other hand, even under Justice Powell's view, the contents of these plastic bags were entitled to full Fourth Amendment protection. The bags in this case, as in Robbins, were opaque plastic bags that were securely wrapped and sealed. 12 Justice Powell found such containers to warrant the full protection accorded to luggage in Chadwick and Sanders.