Court Opinion

ID: 9794926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:14:20.082175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:22:24.766734
License: Public Domain

O’CONNELL, J.,
dissenting.
We have here another case in which the police, not having grounds for a lawful search, maneuver the suspect into a position where he can be detained until evidence of his guilt can be gathered. In this respect the ease is not unlike State v. Allen, decided this day.
The majority opinion deems it unnecessary to de: cide whether defendant was arrested when he got into the police car to go to the police station with Serr geant Kuntz. I disagree. If defendant was unlawfully arrested (and I think that he was), the evidence which was gathered by the police as an incident to his unlawful detention should not be admissible in evidence. I know of no other way to discourage this kind of police practice — a practice which, if condoned, would permit arrest and detention without probable cause for the purpose of making exploratory searches. This is precisely the kind of police conduct the Fourth Amendment was intended to proscribe.
It is apparent that the initial arrest was a subter*409fuge employed to uncover evidence of defendant’s guilt. Officer Kuntz explained that the purpose of asking defendant to accompany him to the police station was “so that I might contact his parole officer or his probation officer to ascertain just what his status was and what the probation officer felt about his current companion [referring to Ealph Lemon who was suspected of parking meter thefts].” Although officer Kuntz testified that he asked defendant “if he would accompany me to the station voluntarily, not under arrest,” the invitation was made under such circumstances that it left the defendant no alternative but to accept. Kuntz called for assistance on his car radio and soon other police were on the scene. Defendant testified that “there were police officers all around the area.” One of them got into Kuntz’s patrol car so that defendant was between the two officers. On the way to the station defendant was not permitted to put his hand in his pocket to get a cigarette. Kuntz felt it necessary to advise defendant of his rights defined in Miranda, later explaining to the court that he did so “because of the fact that there were certain elements in my mind or certain thoughts in my mind that later Mr. Dempster might be questioned relative to the thefts from the parking meters # * #
When defendant and the officers arrived at the police station, Kuntz, “seated Mr. Dempster in a chair” and then “proceeded to the Eecord Bureau for a routine check of our records, which is normal in any investigation,” during which time “I had another officer remain in the room with him,” all of which quite clearly suggests that defendant was not free to leave and also that the purpose of the detention was not for the purpose of getting in touch with defendant’s parole *410or probation officer but to make an “investigation” in the hope of finding evidence sufficient to warrant an arrest and a search incident to it.
The majority opinion takes the position that even if the initial arrest was unlawful, the subsequent arrest at the police station was lawful and the search made there can be sustained as “a reasonable search incident to a lawful arrest.”
The crime for which defendant was arrested was his failure to appear in response to a complaint charging him with disregarding a traffic signal. In my opinion, a police officer is not entitled to search a person when the only basis for the search is the citizen’s failure to appear in court on a charge of violating a minor traffic regulation.
Sloan, J., joins in this dissent.