Opinion ID: 299629
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Legality of the Seizure of the Transmission in the Garage

Text: 24 Appellant contends with equal vigor that the seizure of the auto transmission was illegal as being the product of an illegal search either if the entry of Officer Huffstutler into the garage is considered independently, or if his entry is considered as the product of his previously illegal search by peering through the gap in the garage doors. Appellant claims there could be no valid search incident to arrest, citing Chimel, supra, and Vale v. Louisiana. 20 25 Without making an elaborate comparison with Chimel or at this point with Vale, but noting that both those cases involved a dwelling where the protection of the Fourth Amendment is reasonably more extensive than in an open field, auto or a garage, we think that the action of the police officer can be justified as reasonable under the Fourth Amendment on either or both of two grounds. 26
27 All the authorities cited above in our discussion of the doctrine of plain view are equally applicable to Officer Huffstutler's seizure of the auto transmission. Obviously the doctrine of plain view would be a rather sterile doctrine if it extended only so far as police officers' looking. In all of the plain view cases, the viewing has been followed by a seizure of evidence. 28 We do not ignore that Officer Huffstutler had spotted the stolen auto transmission within ten feet of him, had noted the cut speedometer cable, had gone the few blocks to the stripped Corvette to see if its speedometer cable was cut (it was), then returned to the garage for a final look before going to his precinct. After a short time there he returned to the garage, made the arrests, and seized the auto transmission. All of the events from the time the two officers first came upon the stripped Corvette, searched the neighborhood, made their observations in the garage, went back to the stripped Corvette, went back to the garage, went to the precinct, returned to the garage for the third time — all took place in exactly two hours. The time interval from when Officer Huffstutler first spotted the stolen transmission is not certain, but it probably was more than an hour and not more than an hour and a half. 29 What appellant is contending for here is to write into the doctrine of plain view a continuous observation requirement. Is the officer required to keep his eye glued to the knothole while he motions for help with a free hand? If the officer had known the additional fact of the Corvette's speedometer cable being cut at the time he first saw the transmission, and had left his point of observation to return to his car to radio his headquarters, and then returned to the gap in the garage doors only to find the transmission had been moved out of his vision, would he then have been barred from moving inside the garage to seize what he was certain was stolen property? If an interruption of the officer's plain view of stolen property is allowed, how long an interruption is permitted? 30 In Creighton, supra, the police had observed various items of property openly displayed in appellant's car, after he had been arrested for a traffic violation. Learning of a burglary later while appellant was still at the station house, police went to appellant's car and seized the stolen property. We held that the goods were in plain view, and that there was no search, hence no warrant was required. In Creighton, as in the case at bar, the original plain view of the stolen property by the officers occurred at a time when the officers did not know the items were stolen. 21 In Creighton there was an interval after the sighting, during which a phone call turned up a report of a burglary; in Wright here there was an interval after the officer's first look, during which he checked the cut speedometer cable. In each case, after the clinching piece of information had been secured, the officer returned to the stolen property and seized it. No search was involved in either case. 31 In the circumstances of this case we believe that on the doctrine of plain view Officer Huffstutler was authorized to carry that doctrine to its logical conclusion, seize the stolen property he had observed, and that the one-hour to hour-and-a-half interval in which the other events connected with his investigation transpired did not preclude him from doing this. On his return to the garage at the time the arrests were made it was the officer's duty to follow up, see if the transmission was still there, and recover the stolen property if he could. Whether he could see the transmission through the open door is in our judgment immaterial. He had seen it in the garage no more than an hour and a half before; it was not an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment for him to step inside, identify it again, and have it moved out along with the other stolen automobile parts that were already in the process of being spirited away. 32 Our holding on this point finds support in the American Law Institute Tentative Draft No. 3 of A Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure (1970), Part II, Search and Seizure. Section 6.06, Seizure Independent of Search, provides: 33 An officer who, in the course of otherwise lawful activity, observes or otherwise becomes aware of the nature and location of things which he reasonably believes to be subject to seizure under Section SS 1.03, and which therefore can be seized without a search, may seize such things. 34 Section SS 1.03(b) lists as subject to search and seizure contraband, the fruits of crime, or things otherwise criminally possessed. 35 It was not necessary for Officer Huffstutler to make a search to discover the auto transmission when he seized it at the time of the arrest. He had already observed the transmission and become aware that it was located inside the garage. He had carefully checked it to be the fruit of the crime he was investigating and, in the language of the American Law Institute draft, it was subject to seizure (as fruits of crime)    and    therefore can be seized without a search. 22 36 The Commentary on this draft Section is illuminating: 37 The authorization with respect to the seizure of things plainly observable in private premises does raise some questions under Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10 [68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436] (1948). There the opium was not visible, but it was plainly observable by odor perceptible off the premises. Nevertheless entrance and seizure without a warrant was held unlawful.    However, although the presence of opium was observable, its location was not evident, and a search was in fact necessary; the authorization in the draft does not cover a search, but only an entry for things already perceived and ready to hand. (Last emphasis supplied.) 38 The appellant here relies upon Johnson, supra ; the ALI draft on search and seizure points up the important distinction between the fact in Johnson and that in the case at bar. 39
40 The police officer had seen the auto transmission shortly before, the other missing parts from the Corvette he was at the moment viewing in the trunk of another car, obviously in preparation to be hauled away. He was obligated to recover the stolen transmission without giving the miscreants a chance to spirit this away, too. The officers had no idea how many persons other than those visible were involved, hence 41 On the basis of such a plain view discovery of the fruits of a crime which were identified both by description and label, it was not only reasonable for the officers to seize them notwithstanding the absence of a search warrant, but it would have been a dereliction of their duty for them not to do so. To say that the police must leave evidence which they find (without engaging in an improper search) in order to go after a search warrant, on the assumption that the items will remain in the same place until they return with the warrant, is to ignore reality. 23 42 The officers were confronted with a situation which called for immediate action. The action which they took, the seizure of the stolen transmission, was the reasonable action to satisfy the exigent circumstances present. Chimel and earlier Supreme Court precedents have recognized such preventive action as being constitutionally justified. As we said in Thweatt, supra, Obviousness is a form of exigency in a sense that failure to act immediately when confronted with the evidence in this manner may result in its disappearance. 24