Opinion ID: 2390579
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant's Arrest Was Legal

Text: Defendant asserts that law-enforcement officers Milbury and Beverly illegally entered 1189 Landsdowne Avenue on March 4, 1986. Defendant argues that, because the entry was illegal, so was his warrantless arrest for narcotics possession. As the fruits of that illegal arrest, drugs and paraphernalia should have been suppressed, so should have the taped confession, because there were no intervening circumstances that purged the taint. The State contends that the arrest was legal because the illicit materials, the drugs and paraphernalia, were in plain view. The police may seize evidence found in plain view despite the lack of a warrant. State v. Hill, 115 N.J. 169, 173, 557 A. 2d 322 (1989). The applicability of the plain-view doctrine depends on the right of the officer to be in the position to have that view and to seize that evidence. Harris v. United States, 390 U.S. 234, 236, 88 S.Ct. 992, 993, 19 L.Ed. 2d 1067, 1069 (1968). Detective Beverly and Inspector Milbury had that right. The officers' right to be in a position to have a plain view arose out of the purpose of their entrance into the house. Legitimate precaution justifies routine police procedures not designed as pretexts to discover evidence. State v. Esteves, 93 N.J. 498, 506, 461 A. 2d 1128 (1983) (citing Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 447-48, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 2530-31, 37 L.Ed. 2d 706, 718 (1973)). Here, the officers had no underlying design to find drugs linked to Perry or to make a drug arrest of Perry. Indeed, they hoped to deter Perry from taking drugs completely to protect the polygraph process from pollution. Moreover, they were involved in legitimate procedures to locate an important source of information. In attempting to locate Perry, they followed a routine procedure of checking places that they knew he frequented. After checking unsuccessfully two known drug-dealing locations, the police proceeded to a vacant building defendant often frequented. Finding the door unlocked and ajar, they entered. Their entry into 1189 Landsdowne Street was legitimate and rightfully reflected the objectively-reasonable actions of well-trained police officers. Defendant's claim that Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed. 2d 639 (1980), compels a different conclusion lacks merit. Unlike the officers here, those in Payton entered in order to make an arrest. Id. at 576, 100 S.Ct. at 1375, 63 L.Ed. 2d at 644. The officers here entered to find Arthur Perry so that they could perform a polygraph test. In Payton, police pried open a door to search for a felon and for evidence of a felony. Here, the officers walked through the open front door of an apparently-vacant building, with no suspicion that a crime had been or would be committed. But for the fact that defendant himself volunteered that he possessed drugs and intended to use them, the officers would have asked him merely to come with them for the polygraph test. However, once he volunteered that information freely, handed them a syringe and a drug spoon, and the officers saw the drugs in plain view atop a bureau after their legal entry on another matter, they had no duty to retreat to a neutral magistrate for an arrest or search warrant. See Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 75 L.Ed. 2d 502 (1983); State v. Ercolano, 79 N.J. 25, 34-35, 397 A. 2d 1062 (1979); State v. Contursi, 44 N.J. 422, 209 A. 2d 829 (1965). Moreover, defendant cannot claim any disappointment of his expectation of privacy. Although we recognize that the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house preventing a warrantless entrance to search or arrest absent exigent circumstances, Payton, supra, 445 U.S. at 590, 100 S.Ct. at 1382, 63 L.Ed. 2d at 653, it has not erected a barrier to officers entering for other legitimate purposes. Because the heart of the plain view doctrine is the unrelated, legitimate purpose that occasions one's presence near the contraband, seizures subsequent to lawful entry fit within the plain view doctrine and are not prohibited by Payton. State v. Moller, 196 N.J. Super. 511, 515, 483 A. 2d 433 (App.Div. 1984) (observation of evidence in plain view does not constitute a search). In addition to the foregoing, other reasoning demonstrates that Perry's expectation of privacy was not impinged. He was in a house, not his own, that appeared vacant and whose front door was not only unlocked but open. The open door, uncertain ownership, and vacant nature of the edifice create a situation far from unambiguous and make it difficult to give its transient user a constitutionally-reasonable expectation of privacy. Moreover, the evidence shows that defendant's own subjective expectations were not thwarted by the officers' entrance. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 361, 88 S.Ct. 507, 516, 19 L.Ed. 2d 576, 588 (1967) (Harlan, J. concurring) (the resolution of fourth-amendment issues turns on whether the individual exhibited an actual, subjective expectation of privacy). He expected their arrival, wished to continue cooperating with them in the murder investigation, and did not object to them ascending the stairs once they entered and he saw them. Because we find that counsel could reasonably have concluded that any effort to suppress the drug evidence would be unsuccessful, arguments growing out of the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine for suppressing his post-arrest statement also lack vitality. Perry, although technically under arrest for events occurring at 1189 Landsdowne, voluntarily made statements and kept a scheduled interview unrelated to his drug arrest. New York v. Harris, ___ U.S. ___, ___-___, 110 S.Ct. 1640, 1643-1645, 109 L.Ed. 2d 13, 21-22 (1990) (the Supreme Court held that violation of fourth-amendment prohibition of warrantless and non-consensual entry into a suspect's home in order to make a routine felony arrest did not affect the admissibility of statements made by defendant after he had been taken from his home to the police station). Here, the separately-scheduled interview was sufficiently independent to dissipate the taint of [any alleged] illegal conduct. State v. Johnson, 118 N.J. 639, 653, 573 A. 2d 909 (1990).