Court Opinion

ID: 9542837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:39:18.59296+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:05.439642
License: Public Domain

*1363GIVAN, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion's holding that the opening of appel lant's suitcase was an illegal search. The majority cites Arkansas v. Sanders (1979), 442 U.S. 753, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 61 L.Ed.2d 235, to support the holding that the search was illegal. However, there is a vast difference between the Sanders case and the case at bar. In Sanders, supra, the police officers had received confidential information that Sanders was arriving on an airplane and had drugs in his luggage. After observing Sanders alight from the airplane and enter a taxi with his luggage, they stopped the taxi, had the driver open the trunk, retrieved Sanders' suitcase, and opened it without his permission.
In the case at bar, we have an entirely different situation. Appellant had been seriously injured in an automobile accident and his vehicle had been disabled. The police officers had a duty not only to take care of appellant but to take charge of his automobile and its contents for safekeeping. In so doing, they were entitled-in fact had a duty-to make an inventory check of the automobile and the objects therein to determine if anything needed immediate attention and to secure valuables from possible theft or vandalism.
Although the majority cites South Dakota v. Opperman (1976), 428 U.S. 364, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000, which is authority for the above statement, they do not fully apply the Opperman case which is almost identical to the case at bar and is not at all parallel to Sanders.
The trial court should be affirmed.
PIVARNIK, J., concurs.