Opinion ID: 1644285
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: government searches with private persons

Text: In response to Abdouch's first assignment of error, namely, constitutional inadmissibility of the articles found by the Clark family, the State contends that members of the Clark family, as private citizens without a police request, found the articles in question, which were delivered to the police and were admissible as evidence obtained without governmental activity. To support its contention, the State relies on Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465, 41 S.Ct. 574, 65 L.Ed. 1048 (1921), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that the fourth amendment does not apply to searches by private parties acting without governmental involvement. In Burdeau, the Court stated: The Fourth Amendment gives protection against unlawful searches and seizures, and as shown in the previous cases, its protection applies to governmental action. Its origin and history clearly show that it was intended as a restraint upon the activities of sovereign authority, and was not intended to be a limitation upon other than governmental agencies; as against such authority it was the purpose of the Fourth Amendment to secure the citizen in the right of unmolested occupation of his dwelling and the possession of his property, subject to the right of seizure by process duly issued. In the present case the record clearly shows that no official of the Federal Government had anything to do with the wrongful seizure of the petitioner's property, or any knowledge thereof until several months after the property had been taken from him.... It is manifest that there was no invasion of the security afforded by the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure, as whatever wrong was done was the act of individuals in taking the property of another. A portion of the property so taken and held was turned over to the prosecuting officers of the Federal Government. 256 U.S. at 475, 41 S.Ct. at 576. In State v. Ware, 219 Neb. 594, 365 N.W.2d 418 (1985), Ware claimed that evidence, found by teachers in their search of his room at Boys Town, was the result of a warrantless search in violation of the fourth amendment. This court in Ware expressed: It is clear that the fourth amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures is inapplicable to the conduct of private parties. [Citing Burdeau v. McDowell, supra . ] ... .... In the defendant's case there is nothing to indicate that the police participated in or directed the actions of the family teachers. To the contrary, it was the Boys Town employees who asserted their responsibility and willingness to search Ware's room. The uncontroverted testimony is that the teachers instigated and carried out the searches, and the only police response was that if they wanted to and it was their policy, they could. In light of these facts there was no agency relationship created by the police. Therefore, the searches of the defendant's residence in Boys Town were conducted by private individuals not subject to the warrant requirement embodied in the fourth amendment. 219 Neb. at 599-601, 365 N.W.2d at 422-23. In light of Burdeau v. McDowell, supra , this court concluded in State v. Gundlach, 192 Neb. 692, 695, 224 N.W.2d 167, 170 (1974): Unless a private citizen in making a search is acting as an agent for the police, his acts may not be attributed to them. See, also, State v. Skonberg, 194 Neb. 550, 551, 233 N.W.2d 919, 920 (1975): The constitutional provision against unreasonable searches and seizures applies only to governmental agencies and not to private persons. See, further, State v. Howard, 184 Neb. 274, 278, 167 N.W.2d 80, 84 (1969): The protection of the Fourth Amendment is a restriction on governmental action only. [Citing Burdeau v. McDowell, supra . ] To determine whether a private person's search is actually a search by the state depends on whether the private person must be regarded as having acted as an `instrument' or agent of the state.... Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 487, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971). The preceding test to determine governmental involvement in a search with a private person is applicable to questions relative to the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and article I, § 7, of the Nebraska Constitution. In Byars v. United States, 273 U.S. 28, 47 S.Ct. 248, 71 L.Ed. 520 (1927), state officers, equipped with an invalid search warrant, asked a local prohibition agent of the U.S. Treasury Department to accompany them in a search of Byars' residence for contraband liquor and material related to the illegal manufacture of liquor. During the search, the federal agent took possession of counterfeit whiskey stamps found on the premises searched. The trial court overruled Byars' motion to suppress the stamps as evidence obtained during the search, and Byars was convicted of possessing the counterfeit stamps. Rejecting the government's claim that the seized stamps were constitutionally admissible evidence, the Supreme Court stated: [T]he court must be vigilant to scrutinize the attendant facts with an eye to detect and a hand to prevent violations of the Constitution by circuitous and indirect methods. Constitutional provisions for the security of person and property are to be liberally construed.... ... [T]he federal prohibition agent was not invited to join the state squad as a private person might have been, but was asked to participate and did participate as a federal enforcement officer, upon the chance, which was subsequently realized, that something would be disclosed of official interest to him as such agent.... We cannot avoid the conclusion that the participation of the agent in the search was under color of his federal office and that the search in substance and effect was a joint operation of the local and federal officers. In that view, so far as this inquiry is concerned, the effect is the same as though he had engaged in the undertaking as one exclusively his own. 273 U.S. at 32-33, 47 S.Ct. at 249-250. Approximately 20 years after Byars, the Supreme Court decided Lustig v. United States, 338 U.S. 74, 69 S.Ct. 1372, 93 L.Ed. 1819 (1949). In Lustig, city police summoned Greene, a federal agent, to Lustig's hotel room, where police were engaged in an illegal search after Greene had reported to police that something was going on in Lustig's room. When Greene arrived at the hotel room, he examined the evidence in controversy, counterfeit U.S. currency, and, from the discovered counterfeit currency, selected evidence to be used in federal prosecution of Lustig for counterfeiting. The trial court refused to suppress the physical evidence of counterfeiting, which led to Lustig's conviction. In finding that Lustig's conviction was based on constitutionally inadmissible evidence, the Supreme Court set aside Lustig's conviction and stated: We therefore accept as a fact that Greene did not request the search, that, beyond indicating to the local police that there was something wrong, he was not the moving force of the search, and that the search was not undertaken by the police to help enforcement of a federal law. But search is a functional, not merely a physical, process. Search is not completed until effective appropriation, as part of an uninterrupted transaction, is made of illicitly obtained objects for subsequent proof of an offense. Greene's selection of the evidence deemed important for use in a federal prosecution for counterfeiting, as part of the entire transaction in [Lustig's room] was not severable, and therefore was part of the search carried on in that room. The uncontroverted facts show that before the search was concluded Greene was called in, and although he himself did not help to empty the physical containers of the seized articles he did share in the critical examination of the uncovered articles as the physical search proceeded. It surely can make no difference whether a state officer turns up the evidence and hands it over to a federal agent for his critical inspection with the view to its use in a federal prosecution, or the federal agent himself takes the articles out of a bag. It would trivialize law to base legal significance on such a differentiation. Had Greene accompanied the city police to the hotel, his participation could not be open to question even though the door of [Lustig's room] had not been opened by him. [Citation omitted.] To differentiate between participation from the beginning of an illegal search and joining it before it had run its course, would be to draw too fine a line in the application of the prohibition of the Fourth Amendment as interpreted in Byars v. United States [citation omitted]. The crux of that doctrine is that a search is a search by a federal official if he had a hand in it; it is not a search by a federal official if evidence secured by state authorities is turned over to the federal authorities on a silver platter. The decisive factor in determining the applicability of the Byars case is the actuality of a share by a federal official in the total enterprise of securing and selecting evidence by other than sanctioned means. It is immaterial whether a federal agent originated the idea or joined in it while the search was in progress. So long as he was in it before the object of the search was completely accomplished, he must be deemed to have participated in it. Where there is participation on the part of federal officers it is not necessary to consider what would be the result if the search had been conducted entirely by State officers. Evidence secured through such federal participation is inadmissible.... ... The fact that state officers preceded [Greene] in breach of the rights of privacy does not negative the legal significance of this collaboration in the illegal enterprise before it had run its course. 338 U.S. at 78-79, 69 S.Ct. at 1374. The silver platter doctrine mentioned in Lustig was rejected in Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 223, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669 (1960), when the U.S. Supreme Court stated: [W]e hold that evidence obtained by state officers during a search which, if conducted by federal officers, would have violated the defendant's immunity from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible over the defendant's timely objection in a federal criminal trial. While Byars and Lustig pertained to interaction by governmental agencies, one state and the other federal, a question arises concerning a search in which a private person and a government official have combined parts. Government involvement or participation in a search with a private person is not always in the form of an officer's imperative direction to the private individual: Make the search. There are more subtle and less obvious forms of governmental involvement, but governmental involvement nonetheless. Although the silver platter doctrine regarding joint endeavors between state and federal officials has been rejected, the concept may still apply to searches by private parties. Nevertheless, courts which have considered combined efforts of a government official and a private person in a search hold that a search is subject to the fourth amendment prohibition against an unreasonable search if the search is a joint endeavor involving a private person and a government official. See, Corngold v. United States, 367 F.2d 1 (9th Cir.1966) (search by an airline employee and customs agents held to be a joint search where the customs agents joined actively in the search); State v. Cox, 100 N.M. 667, 674 P.2d 1127 (1983) (search by police officer, fire chief, and private insurance arson investigator held to be a joint search where the officers participated with private persons in a continuing arson investigation); State v. Scrotsky, 39 N.J. 410, 189 A.2d 23 (1963) (entry by police officers and a landlady without the right of entry; search held to be concert of action even though landlady effected the actual identification and seizure of evidence). Referring to a joint endeavor between a private person and a government official, LaFave notes: It is not essential that the government official be involved in the endeavor at the very outset; cases in this area often apply the rule from Lustig v. United States [338 U.S. 74, 69 S.Ct. 1372, 93 L.Ed. 1819 (1949) ] that it is immaterial whether the government official originated the idea or joined in it while the search was in progress and that it is sufficient that the official was in it before the object of the search was completely accomplished. Nor is it necessary that the government official directly participate in the illegal entry. The courts have found sufficient government involvement where the officer was standing by giving tacit approval to the entry made by a private person. 1 W. LaFave, Search & Seizure, a Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 1.8(b) at 179-80 (2d ed.1987). We hold, therefore, that a private person's status as a state or government agent in a search is not restricted to a search ordered, requested, or initiated by the state or government official but may include a search which is a joint endeavor between a private person and a state or government official. We further hold that a search is subject to the constitutional safeguard against an unreasonable search, prohibited by the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and article I, § 7, of the Nebraska Constitution, if the search is a joint endeavor involving a private person and a state or government official. In Abdouch's case, the Clark family, accompanied by members of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, went to Abdouch's residence. The Clark family, obviously lacking authority to enter on the farmstead, would not have ventured to the Abdouch residence without the officers. None of the group had legal authority to take possession of any property which belonged to Terry Clark and which might be found on the premises. Although the Nebraska Probate Code specifically furnishes procedures to obtain possession of a decedent's personal property, none availed herself or himself of those probate procedures. Concerning the Abdouch residence, none of the group, comprised of the Clark family and the officers, had a claim to enter, or a legal status, greater or stronger than a stranger's. When the group encountered the babysitter, Sergeant Larson stated the objective of the group, namely, to retrieve personal property belonging to Terry Clark. Entry into the house was gained under auspices of the officers, who accompanied the Clark family during their incipient search of the dwelling. Thus, the officers placed the Clark family in a position to search the Abdouch residencean official involvement which cannot be reasonably characterized as passive. What apparently and initially germinated as an ersatz probate distribution of Terry Clark's personal property burgeoned into a general search for any property, which might have belonged to Terry Clark, and later blossomed into a full-scale search by officers of the sheriff's department. While the State argues that the search of Abdouch's residence should be divided into two separate searchesone by the Clark family and the other by the officers such bisection is as impossible as it is illogical. By the officers' approval and participation in the Clark family extra-probate scheme, a plan which could not have been executed without the officers' involvement, the search of Abdouch's residence was saturated with the color of governmental authority. To dissect the search as suggested by the State would effectively eviscerate constitutional protection from every joint search by officers and private citizens. When the rationale of Lustig is applied to the farmstead search in Abdouch's case, the joint search or search by joint endeavor was a single search conducted by both private citizens, who had entered the premises with police assistance and approval, and officers, who, in effect, provided the key to enter the premises through a display of government authority. The actions of the Clark family and the officers are too interdependently connected and inseparable to allow isolation of the Clark family's activity from the officers' participation in the search. As the result of the joint endeavor of the Clark family and the officers, the effect is the same as though [the officers] had engaged in the undertaking as one exclusively their own. Byars v. United States, 273 U.S. 28, 33, 47 S.Ct. 248, 71 L.Ed. 520 (1927). Without conceptual dissection of the search into degrees of responsibility and participation, suffice it to say that the search would not have occurred without the officers' presence and involvement, which, under the circumstances, constituted a search as a joint endeavor of private persons and the State's officers. Thus, all evidence obtained at the farmstead, which was Abdouch's residence, was the result of governmental involvement in a search contrary to the constitutional safeguard against an unreasonable search. For that reason, the district court should have sustained Abdouch's suppression motion regarding the physical evidence obtained during the search of the farmstead and should have excluded those illegally obtained items as evidence against Abdouch. The district court's findings concerning Abdouch's suppression motion are clearly erroneous and resulted in error prejudicial to Abdouch, when the court overruled the suppression motion. The district court's reception of the constitutionally inadmissible physical evidence obtained through the illegal search of the farmstead was an abuse of discretion.