Opinion ID: 2073303
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: Admissibility of stereo tapes

Text: The stereo tapes were taken by the police from Ward's automobile as a protective measure, given the fact the car was being removed from the public street to an unsecured parking lot. The record clearly shows that these tapes were in plain view in the vehicle and were brought under police custody and control some time during the same afternoon after Ward and the defendant had been arrested. At the time, the police had no knowledge these tapes had been stolen, since it was only the next day that they were alerted another apartment had been burglarized on the twenty-third of October in which the stereo tapes removed from the Ward car matched the description of the property stolen in one of the burglaries. Parkinson's attack upon the admissibility of the stereo tapes in evidence, even if grounded upon an alleged unconstitutional seizure, must fail as he lacks standing to raise the issue, since his personal rights were not infringed at the time. The seizure of property from another's automobile is not an invasion of a passenger's constitutional immunity from unreasonable searches and seizures, once the third party's status as a passenger has ended. The present record discloses no possessory interest in the defendant respecting the automobile from which the tapes were removed; rather, it affirmatively shows that the car belonged to Ward and was being driven by him and under his control. If a warrantless search, or seizure as in this case, is made of or from an automobile not the property of the accused and it appears that the accused had no possessory rights thereto such as by exercising control over it by reason of his driving the same, the accused has no standing to invoke constitutional guarantees to exclude evidence obtained by the warrantless search or seizure. See State v. Littlefield, 161 Me. 415, 213 A.2d 431 (1965); Bradshaw v. State, 192 So.2d 387 (Miss. 1966), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 941, 88 S.Ct. 299, 19 L.Ed.2d 293; Manson v. State, 249 Ind. 53, 229 N.E.2d 801, 803 (1967); People v. Arnold, 91 Ill.App.2d 282, 233 N.E.2d 764 (1968); People v. Avery, 31 A.D.2d 885, 298 N.Y.S.2d 104 (1969); United States v. Kilgen, 445 F.2d 287, 289 (5th Cir. 1971); Hill v. State, 500 P.2d 1080 (Okl.Cr.1972); State v. Gallagher, 162 Mont. 155, 509 P.2d 852, 859 (1973); Kay v. State, 489 S.W.2d 861, 862 (Tex.Cr.App.1973); State v. Griffin, 217 Kan. 703, 538 P.2d 720, 722 (1975); Contra: Kleinbart v. State, 2 Md.App. 183, 234 A.2d 288, 303 (1967). As stated in Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969): The established principle is that suppression of the product of a Fourth Amendment violation can be successfully urged only by those whose rights were violated by the search itself, not by those who are aggrieved solely by the introduction of damaging evidence. Coconspirators and codefendants have been accorded no special standing.  (Emphasis supplied) We do not intimate any opinion respecting the admissibility of the stereo tapes as against the codefendant Ward, the owner and driver of the automobile from which the police removed the tapes which were in plain view. There was no error below of which Parkinson may complain and the entry will be Appeal denied. Judgments affirmed.