Opinion ID: 758098
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Plain View Seizure

Text: 26 It is well established that a law enforcement officer may seize items found in plain view. The interests protected by the Fourth Amendment are diminished when an object is found in plain view. Once an officer has observed an object in plain view, the owner's privacy interest in that object is lost. Therefore, the owner's remaining interests are merely interests of possession and ownership. See Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 739, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 75 L.Ed.2d 502 (1983). The Supreme Court has weighed the intrusion on these interests created by the seizure of an object found in plain view against the government's interests, and found that when an obviously incriminating object is found in plain view, it may be seized without a warrant. See id. 27 Nonetheless, seizure is not necessarily justified merely because the object appeared in plain view in the course of a search. As the Supreme Court has stated: 28 [I]t is important to keep in mind that, in the vast majority of cases, any evidence seized by the police will be in plain view, at least at the moment of seizure. The problem with the plain view doctrine has been to identify the circumstances in which plain view has legal significance rather than being simply the normal concomitant of any search, legal or illegal. 29 Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 465, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971). 30 Therefore, the Supreme Court has limited warrantless seizures under the plain view doctrine to situations where the officer had a legal right to be at the location from which the object was plainly viewed. Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 136, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990). In addition, to justify the seizure, the incriminating nature of the object must be immediately apparent and the officer must have a lawful right of access to the object itself. See Horton, 496 U.S. at 137, 110 S.Ct. 2301. The initial intrusion can be justified by a warrant or by one of the recognized exceptions of the warrant requirement. See Coolidge, 403 U.S. at 465, 91 S.Ct. 2022. It is well established that individuals have a Fourth Amendment privacy interest in containers and bags. See United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 11, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977). Therefore, to meet the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, Schaller's search of the pack must have been pursuant to a warrant or under a valid exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. Cf. Coolidge 403 U.S. at 465, 91 S.Ct. 2022; United States v. Licata, 761 F.2d 537, 544 (9th Cir.1985). 31 Here, once Schaller was searching the pack, the incriminating nature of the pipe and drugs was immediately apparent to Schaller. Nonetheless, for the seizure to fall within the plain view exception, the initial search must have been lawful. Otherwise, Schaller would not have been viewing the items from a place where he had a right to be. 32 The only exception to the warrant requirement urged by the Government is the exception for a valid administrative search. For purposes of this appeal the Government does not argue that Bulacan consented to the search. Further, the initial search of the pack cannot be justified as a search incident to arrest because Schaller did not have probable cause to arrest Bulacan at the time the search commenced. Therefore, unless Schaller was conducting a valid administrative search, the plain view doctrine does not justify the seizure of the evidence. 33