Court Opinion

ID: 9663108
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:27:49.860273+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:45.674731
License: Public Domain

STEINMETZ, J.
(dissenting). I disagree with both the result of the majority decision and its analysis.
The facts in this case are that at approximately 9:09 p.m. on November 7, 1983, the defendant called the Sauk County Sheriff’s Department via the 911 emergency telephone number. He told the sheriff’s dispatcher he shot his mother and “killed everyone” in the house. He also told the dispatcher the following:
“Yes, would you please send me the police . . . send them to Reedsburg. . . . 554 Reed Street. . . .
. “I went down to the basement and got my gun and I killed everyone. . . .
“Hurry. When are the cops gonna be here? . . .
“Tell ’em I’m in the basement.
“I’m gonna go outside if they don’t get hurrying. . . .
“I started one. It’s real small. It’s going out. Don’t worry, it’s just a small folk — smoke fire. . . .
“Tell ’em to bring some water down when they come down here though. . . .
“Tell them to come down here.”
The sheriff’s department notified the Reedsburg Police Department. Shortly after the Reedsburg police arrived, the defendant left the home through the front door. He stated: “Oh what have I done, what have I done?” and appeared shaken and was either sobbing or crying. He voluntarily surrendered to the police.
The Sauk County Sheriff’s Department arrived shortly thereafter. After placing the defendant under arrest, Captain Wilbur Abel of the Reedsburg Police Department and Detective Randy Stammen of the Sauk County Sheriff’s Department entered the house and discovered *29the mutilated bodies of the defendant’s mother and two sisters. The record discloses the officers then proceeded to quickly check the remaining rooms, closets, basement and garage “to see if anyone was hurt, or if there was anyone else in the house.” Without removing anything, the two officers left the house and placed it under 24-hour guard.
At 11:50 p.m. that same night technicians from the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory arrived. They remained inside the Douglas home gathering evidence until nearly 3:30 a.m. and left unfinished. Deputy Terry Spencer of the Sauk County Sheriff’s Department videotaped the scene.
At 6:30 a.m. on November 8, Captain Abel returned to the house to assist the coroner in removing the bodies for transport to Madison and then accompanied the bodies to Madison. Later that day, employees from the state crime laboratory returned to the house to complete their investigation and remained until 8:00 p.m. the night of November 8. Numerous items of physical evidence were removed during this period. Captain Abel did not return to Reedsburg until late that day.
At approximately 6:30 p.m. on November 9, Captain Abel and Detective Stammen returned to the house to reconstruct the events of the evening of November 7. Captain Abel testified he returned to the house because, “We had been gone virtually all the time since the morning following the killings,” and he stated “We hadn’t completed our investigation.” He added: “We wanted to look the scene over again and to try to ascertain in our own minds what had happened in the house that night. . . . We were recreating the crime.” While in defendant’s bedroom, the officers discovered a note on the floor. This note was taken in evidence and was suppressed by the trial court, which action has been affirmed by the court of appeals and the majority’s decision. Captain Abel and Detective Stammen left the *30premises at approximately 8:00 p.m. that evening. The guarding of the home which had been continuously in effect since the night of November 7 was discontinued at that time.
A. CONSENT
Throughout the opinion the majority labels the defendant’s consent to enter and search his family’s home as implied. I believe Douglas’s consent was expressly given, not impliedly. The majority relies on Kelly v. State, 75 Wis. 2d 303, 249 N.W.2d 800 (1977), in which the court justified the entry and search of the victim’s home on the implied consent of the defendant. In Kelly, the court concluded implied consent was given because the defendant’s statements led the police to believe the victim had shot himself or been shot by someone other than the defendant and that he was running around outside and in need of help. The defendant after the shooting walked down the road and told her neighbor “a man had be shot” while she was in the bedroom. That neighbor and the defendant went to Eugene Biet-tler’s house and the defendant told him “her boyfriend had been shot and was running around outside.” Eugene Biettler then called the police for assistance. Through her actions and statements the defendant impliedly consented to the entry and search of her home. The court stated: “Under such circumstances there was an implied consent not only to aid the victim but to determine what had caused the death or injury and who was responsible.” Id. at 313. It was these circumstances that formed consent impliedly given. According to Black’s Law Dictionary 276 (rev. 5th ed. 1979), implied consent is manifested by signs, actions, or facts, or by inaction or silence, which raise a presumption that the consent has been given.
*31Contrary to the majority’s decision, and unlike Kelly, in the instant case the defendant’s actions and statements manifest an expressly not impliedly given consent. Black’s Law Dictionary 276 (rev. 5th ed. 1979), defines express consent as being directly given, either viva voce or in writing. It is positive, direct, unequivocal and requires no inference or implication to supply its meaning. The trial court found the following fact beyond a reasonable doubt: “That defendant, by words and conduct, clearly invited police officers to enter his home” and in the addendum to its memorandum decision the trial court added “he specifically invited the police into his home.” (Emphasis added.) The defendant stated to police, among other things:
“Yes, would you please send me the police . . . send them to Reedsburg ... 554 Reed Street. . . .
“Tell ’em I’m in the basement. . . .
“I started one. It’s real small. It’s going out. Don’t worry, it’s just a small folk-smoke fire. . . .
“Tell ’em to bring some water down when they come down here though. . . .
“Tell them to come down here.”
These statements positively and unequivocally invited the police to enter the home to extinguish the fire set by the defendant and assist the victims. No inference is needed to arrive at the conclusion that Douglas expressly consented to the entry of his home, and the trial court’s finding of fact that the defendant “clearly invited police officers to enter his home” is not against the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence.
Having stated that this case involves expressly given rather than impliedly given consent, the distinction vanishes with respect to the second question as to the scope of Douglas’s consent. The manner in which consent is given, whether impliedly or expressly, is a difference *32without a distinction on the issue of the spatial and temporal scope of the consent. Once the consent is given, it does not matter whether it was expressly given or whether it was given by implication; what matters is not the means chosen to give the consent, but the meaning of the consent as reflective of the consenting party’s intent.
The majority would have us believe that once we label the manner in which the consent was given as “implied,” the intent of the consenter, here Douglas, in terms of his spatial and temporal limitations is likewise restrictively implied now by law. At p. 22 of the majority opinion, the majority states “Giving the fourth amendment its usual construction, it would be inappropriate to conclude that an implied consent, which has no express bounds, is boundless.” The majority stops short in its analysis of this case. It concludes Douglas impliedly consented to the entry and search of his home and instead of questioning what Douglas intended, simply concludes implied consents further imply more restrictive temporal and spatial restraints on the police than expressly given consents. This simply does not follow, and the appropriate result is found upon a careful consideration of the total circumstances in the case.
B. VALID SEARCH AND SEIZURE
There is no reason to hold that the mere passage of time makes a subsequent entry unreasonable, but rather the total circumstances must be carefully considered in balancing the defendant’s expectation of privacy against the state’s interest in investigating and solving a major crime.
In United States v. Knotts, 460 U.S. 276, 280-81 (1983), the United States Supreme Court in quoting Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735, 740 (1979), stated the relevant fourth amendment analysis:
*33“ ‘[T]his Court uniformly has held that the application of the Fourth Amendment depends on whether a person invoking its protection can claim a “justifiable,” a “reasonable,” or a “legitimate expectation of privacy” that has been invaded by government action. [Citations omitted.] This inquiry, as Mr. Justice Harlan aptly noted in his Katz concurrence, normally embraces two discrete questions. The first is whether the individual, by his conduct, has “exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy,” 389 U.S., at 361 — whether, in the words of the Katz majority, the individual has shown that “he seeks to preserve [something] as private.” Id., at 351. The second question is whether the individual’s subjective expectation of privacy is “one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’ ” id., at 361— whether, in the words of the Katz majority, the individual’s expectation, viewed objectively, is “justifiable” under the circumstances.’ ” (Footnote omitted.)
Under the facts of this case, Douglas did not exhibit an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy, nor did he seek to preserve something as private. More importantly, for the sake of argument, even if Douglas did exhibit an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy, it was not one which society is prepared to recognize as reasonable. That subjective expectation was not one that viewed objectively is “justifiable” under the circumstances of this case concluding in the November 9 reconstruction of his admitted crimes.
The defendant’s statements and conduct on the night of November 7 clearly forfeited his expectation of privacy in his home. This allowed police to conduct a reasonable search of the premises and would have allowed the seizure of the note if it had been discovered that night. The majority never explains when or how the defendant’s expectation of privacy which he surrendered to the police on November 7 was reinstated or reasserted. He admitted murdering three of the other residents of the house, his mother and two sisters, so he had eliminated their expectation of a right of privacy. The record *34is silent as to whether the defendant’s father, Richard Douglas, who arrived on the scene just prior to the defendant’s surrender, wanted to enter the house or did in fact enter the house. The father conversed with Captain Abel in the street prior to the defendant’s arrest and the record does not show whether he voiced any objection to the initial entry and search of his home nor when he eventually, if ever, returned to the home. The house at all times remained under the control and supervision of the Reedsburg Police Department. More importantly, Captain Abel testified no person was allowed access to the Douglas home after guards were posted.
The majority holds the passage of time vitiated the initial consent and that the interruption in investigative activities between 8:00 p.m. on November 8 until 6:30 p.m. on November 9 made the initial investigation and the subsequent investigation and reconstruction of the scene “factually and analytically separable.” (Pages 12, 24.)
It is important to note that the killings took place in the city of Reedsburg, county of Sauk, which had populations of 5,038 and 43,469 residents, respectively, at the time of the last census.1 It can be assumed that the police and sheriff’s department for a county and especially a city of that size are limited and teams of specialists to be assigned for multiple killing cases, in this case a triple homicide, as might be available in large, populated urban areas simply do not exist.
Captain Abel of the Reedsburg Police Department coordinated the city police department’s investigation and Detective Niles the sheriff’s department’s. Detective Niles interviewed the defendant shortly after he was taken into custody while Captain Abel remained at the scene of the crime. It was in that interview that the defendant stated the evening’s events started in his bedroom while he *35was doing homework and that he thought about death and killing people. He told Detective Niles he went from his bedroom to the basement and then to where he had his deer hunting rifle. The interview lasted until 11:02 p.m. on November 7. Captain Abel still remained on the scene. It is reasonable that the statement had to be transcribed for accuracy and only then was Captain Abel privy to its contents. It is reasonable to infer based on Captain Abel’s testimony that the earliest he would have been able to be privy to its contents would have been the morning of November 9. Moreover, it was reasonable that after hearing Douglas’s statement Captain Abel and Detective Stammen in going to the house to reconstruct the crime would have started in the defendant’s bedroom where the slip of paper was found in plain view on the floor and “lying in an open area of the bedroom.” (Page 16.)
Captain Abel stated he remained on the scene on November 7 until approximately 3:30 a.m. and returned to accompany the bodies to Madison at approximately 6:30 a.m. Captain Abel then left for the state crime laboratory in Madison to accompany the evidence removed from the defendant’s home and did not return home until late that day.
Captain Abel on November 9 would have had to, among other things, coordinate with Detective Niles of the sheriff’s department what was known in the case. It is reasonable to assume that each of the officers had other duties which had accumulated over the previous 36 hours, so that it is not wholly unreasonable that he did not go to defendant’s home until 6:00 p.m. on November 9 to reconstruct the crime. The majority's opinion is suspicious of whether Captain Abel and Detective Stam-men went to Douglas’s house to reconstruct the crime based on their combined knowledge received through the earlier investigation and the evidence obtained or *36to continue a search. The record, however, indicates they went there to reconstruct the crime and that is consistent with the factual development in the case. After all, even the majority would have given the police the right to search the home on the night the bodies were recovered. Unfortunately, at that time the police did not know the defendant had thought about death and killing and had begun the tragic events of the evening in his bedroom.
Reconstruction of the crime is an ordinary and recognized practice of police investigation and it is done as much to see if the defendant really committed a crime he has confessed to as it is to determine whether the facts already known raise doubts about the defendant’s admissions and declarations.
The privacy protected by the fourth amendment was described in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 630 (1886), as protection against all governmental invasions “of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life.” This hardly describes the circumstances of the instant case of a triple killing where the defendant has never returned to the home and the police have secured the house at all times.
Under the particular facts of this case, the majority places an improper burden on the state to show what prevented or made it impractical to obtain a search warrant for the November 9 entry into the house. (Pages 25 and 26.) The November 9 entry was made to reconstruct the crime, not specifically to look for known evidence. The grounds for obtaining a search warrant require the place to be searched and the thing to be seized to be described with particularity.2
Until the officers saw the slip of paper on the bedroom floor, they did not know of its existence and, therefore, could not have described it in a search warrant *37application with any particularity or location. We stated in State v. Noll, 116 Wis. 2d 443, 450-51, 343 N.W.2d 391 (1984):
“The fourth amendment to the United States Constitution requires that a search warrant ‘particularly describ[e] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’ The original purpose of the particularity requirement was to do away with the evils of the general warrant known to the colonists as the writ of assistance. These writs, which were issued on ‘mere suspicion,’ gave customs officials blanket authority to search wherever they pleased for any goods imported in violation of British tax laws. United States v. Christine, 687 F.2d 749, 755 (3rd Cir. 1982), 1 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure sec. 1.1 (1978). Today the particularity requirement prevents the government from engaging in general exploratory rummaging through a person’s papers and effects in search of anything that might prove to be incriminating. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 467 (1971); State v. Starke, 81 Wis. 2d 399, 413, 260 N.W.2d 739 (1977). In order to satisfy the particularity requirement, the warrant must enable the searcher to reasonably ascertain and identify the things which are authorized to be seized. Steele v. United States, 267 U.S. 498, 503 (1925); United States v. Cook, 657 F.2d 730, 733 (5th Cir. 1981). The use of a generic term or general description is constitutionally acceptable only when a more specific description of the items to be seized is not available. United States v. Cook, 657 F.2d at 733.”3
This could not be done in this case since the police did not seek to search the bedroom; they were not looking for any evidence and clearly they had no idea the slip of paper found on the bedroom floor ever existed. To require a search warrant on November 9 is a constitutional impossibility and to suggest the lack of effort to *38obtain one is not worthy of statement as a reason for finding this entry unreasonable.
C. CONCLUSION
The majority states: “In the instant case, the factor of time is dispositive on the issue of continuation” (page 23)4 of the bridge between November 7, 8 and 9. That statement does not explain why the actual periods of time were improper or what the appropriate time limits for a proper entry are. I would not consider the factor of time as “dispositive,” but rather, my belief that the seizure of the note was validated by a legitimate search is supported by a careful consideration of the total circumstances in the case. Confined to the particular facts of this case, I believe there were legitimate reasons for the interruption of investigation conducted in the Douglas home and the total circumstances in this case made the November 9 entry for the stated purpose reasonable. Since the police had a right to be in the defendant’s bedroom on November 9, they had the right to take as evidence the slip of paper that was in plain sight. The police, according to the record, had only made a cursory check of defendant’s bedroom on November 7. After that they had no reason to be there, that is until the defendant stated that the tragic events of November 7 began in his bedroom.
In State v. Boggess, 115 Wis. 2d 443, 448-49, 340 N.W. 2d 516 (1983), we stated:
“Both the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, sec. 11 of the Wisconsin Constitution proscribe unreasonable searches and seizures. The basic purpose of this prohibition is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary *39invasions by government officials. See Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 504 (1978).” (Footnote omitted.)
As the United States Supreme Court stated in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9, 12 (1968) in concluding a person is entitled to be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion:
“Of course, the specific content and incidents of this right must be shaped by the context in which it is asserted. For ‘what the Constitution forbids is not all searches and seizures, but unreasonable searches and seizures.’ Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 222 (1960). . . . [T]he rule excluding evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment has been recognized as a principal mode of discouraging lawless police conduct.”
The instant case does not involve lawless police conduct which requires discouraging. In Terry, at 13, the Court cautioned:
“The exclusionary rule has its limitations, however, as a tool of judicial control. It cannot properly be invoked to exclude the products of legitimate police investigative techniques on the ground that much conduct which is closely similar involves unwarranted intrusions upon constitutional protections. Moreover, in some contexts the rule is ineffective as a deterrent.”
I find the application by the majority of the fourth amendment and resulting exclusionary rule in this case to be unwarranted and the police conduct on November 9 to have been a legitimate police investigative technique. The mere passage of hours under the total circumstances of this case did not create a violation of the fourth amendment. The November 9 visit by the police to reconstruct the scene of the crimes was not an arbitrary invasion by government officials.
I would reverse the court of appeals on the admissibility into the evidence the slip of paper as I find it to have been reasonably found by the police.
*40I am authorized to state that Justice William G. Callow and Justice Louis J. Ceci join this dissenting opinion.

 According to report of National Census Bureau 1980.

 See 2 LaFave, W., Search and Seizure sec. 4.6 (1978).

 See also State v. Starke, 81 Wis. 2d 399, 413, 260 N.W.2d 739 (1978); Rainey v. State, 74 Wis. 2d 189, 202, 246 N.W.2d 529 (1976).

 At pages 25, 26, the majority again requires a search warrant for the November 9 entry.