Court Opinion

ID: 9631620
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:44:59.294375+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:36.429487
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge,
concurring in part/dissenting in part.
I concur with the majority regarding appellant’s third and fourth proposition. I dissent though to the search based upon an administrative inspection statute that should not be used as a guise to hide a search for criminal violations. Based upon this, I distinguish New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987).
It is my interpretation in Burger that the inspection of the junkyard was, in reality, a random search. In this case, it is clear from the record that the search was a charade to use the administrative procedure to get around the fourth amendment and Article 2, Section 30, of the Oklahoma Constitution.
There were four Tulsa police officers and two Osage County deputies that made the initial search, together with the party from the Used Motor Vehicle Commission. The officer testified that the investigation was based upon a criminal investigation in Tulsa County, further that they were going to the salvage yard to search for stolen vehicles and “had information that those things might be there.”
I do not find that 47 O.S.Supp.1986, § 691.6, is unconstitutional but I find that the Tulsa police officers did not act in good-faith and in reliance upon this statute. It would have been so easy in this case to obtain a search warrant pursuant to the Oklahoma Constitution as well as the fourth amendment. A warrantless “administrative” search used as a subterfuge to search for evidence of a crime to me would be an unconstitutional application of the administrative statute. Therefore, I would hold that if the purpose of the inspection is to be used to uncover evidence of a crime for criminal prosecution, traditional probable cause and warrant requirements apply, but to the contrary, as in Burger, a random administrative search is valid.