Court Opinion

ID: 9661907
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:54:23.226301+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:34.997776
License: Public Domain

John F. Stroud, Justice, dissenting. Obviously the drafters of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the drafters of Article 2, § 15 of the Arkansas Constitution could not have contemplated the search and seizure of automobiles in 1791 or in 1874. It was, therefore, inevitable that an automobile exception would evolve from the courts when automobiles became commonplace. Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S. Ct. 280, 69 L. Ed. 543 (1925), held: [T]he guaranty of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures by the Fourth Amendment has been construed, practically since the beginning of the Government, as recognizing a necessary difference between a search of a store, dwelling house or other structure in respect of which a proper official warrant readily may be obtained, and a search of a ship, motor boat, wagon or automobile, for contraband goods, where it is not practicable to secure a warrant because the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought. Having thus established that contraband goods concealed and illegally transported in an automobile or other vehicle may be searched for without a warrant, we come now to consider under what circumstances such search may be made. . . . [T]hose lawfully within the country, entitled to use the public highways, have a right to free passage without interruption or search unless there is known to a competent official authorized to search, probable cause for believing that their vehicles are carrying contraband or illegal merchandise . . . 267 U.S. 153-156, 45 S. Ct. 285, 69 L. Ed. 551, 552. The automobile exception was expanded in Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S. Ct. 1975, 26 L. Ed. 2d 419 (1970), where the United States Supreme Court held that a warrantless search of an automobile taken to a police station after the accused and others had been arrested while riding in the automobile was not a violation of the Fourth Amendment inasmuch as the police officers had probable cause to arrest the occupants and an immediate search in connection with the arrest would have been constitutionally permissible. They concluded, therefore, that it was not unreasonable to take the automobile to the police station before making the search as probable cause for the search still existed. In 1977, the United States Supreme Court decided the case of United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S. Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed. 2d 538 (1977), which has been cited as establishing the “suitcase doctrine.” It was held to be illegal when the arresting officers made a warrantless search of a double-locked footlocker found inside the trunk of a parked automobile. The court opened Pandora’s box by commenting that the expectation of the defendants that the contents of the footlocker would remain free from public examination was an important consideration. In the same year, the Arkansas Supreme Court in Sanders v. State, 262 Ark. 595, 559 S.W. 2d 704 (1977), held illegal the warrantless search of a suitcase that had been removed from the trunk of a taxi by the arresting officers. There was no question of probable cause, as the officers acted on a tip from a reliable source that the suitcase contained marijuana, which in fact it did. The court found no exigent circumstance and pointed out that luggage, unlike an automobile, is generally not open to public view; that a person expects privacy in personal luggage to a greater degree than in an automobile; and that once the suitcase was seized, there was no longer a mobility factor. The United States Supreme Court affirmed the decision in 1979 in Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 99 S. Ct. 2586, 61 L. Ed. 2d 235 (1979), and held that a warrant is required to search personal luggage taken from an automobile to the same extent as it is required to search luggage in other locations. I agree with the comments of Justices Blackmun and Rehnquist in their dissenting opinion where they said, 99 S.Ct. 2595, 2597, 61 L. Ed. 2d at 248, 250: The Court today goes farther down the Chadwick road, undermines the automobile exception, and, while purporting to clarify the confusion occasioned by Chadwick, creates in my view, only greater difficulties for law-enforcement officers, for prosecutors, for those suspected of criminal activity, and, of course, for the courts themselves. Still hanging in limbo, and probably soon to be litigated, are the briefcase, the wallet, the package, the paper bag, and every other kind of container. The lines that will be drawn will not make much sense in terms of the policies of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. And the heightened possibilities for error will mean that many convictions will be overturned, highly relevant evidence again will be excluded, and guilty persons will be set free in return for little apparent gain in precise and clearly understood constitutional analysis. The majority has obviously reached the point unanimously refuted by this court less than two years ago in Berry v. State, 263 Ark. 446, 565 S.W. 2d 418 (1978), where heroin was found during a warrantless search of a bank bag and a closed, but unlocked, briefcase, both discovered within the passenger compartment of an automobile. Justice George Rose Smith indicated that if such evidence were suppressed: “persons having contraband drugs in their possession could prevent a search for such drugs in an automobile simply by carrying the articles in a suitcase rather than in a sack or in a box.” I think it farcical to distinguish between searches on the basis of whether the contraband is found in a briefcase, suitcase, or shaving kit, but if I engage in such semantics, the facts of this case more nearly square with the Berry case than the Sanders case. In Sanders, the arresting officers had a tip that the marijuana was in that particular suitcase, but in both Berry and this case, the officers were conducting a general search incident to the arrest, without direction or knowledge of the receptacle involved. Secondly, the size and shape of a shaving kit more nearly resemble a briefcase than a suitcase. Thirdly, if expected privacy is argued, how can one say that a toothbrush deserves more privacy than one’s personal papers carried in a briefcase? Finally, if personal luggage is to be afforded especial immunity not applied to other receptacles, then surely the luggage should be in place where luggage is customarily kept—not secreted in the jack compartment of a vehicle. Although this case can be affirmed by compliance with the law as last expressed by this court in the Berry case, I believe we unnecessarily stir muddy waters by attempting to make subtle distinctions in the type of receptable used to secrete contraband within an automobile. I would adopt a clear and reasonable position that can be understood by law enforcement officers and the public generally and one that is not based on the type of container harboring the illegal drugs.. The rule adopted by this court on January 1, 1976, as Rule 12.4 of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure for Search and Seizure Incidental to Arrest should be followed by this court: (a) If, at the time of the arrest, the accused is in a vehicle or in the immediate vicinity of a vehicle of which he is in apparent control, and if the circumstances of the arrest justify a reasonable belief on the part of the arresting officer that the vehicle contains things which are connected with the offense for which the arrest is made, the arresting officer may search the vehicle for such things and seize any things subject to seizure and discovered in the course of the search. (b) The search of a vehicle pursuant to this rule shall only be made contemporaneously with the arrest or as soon thereafter as is reasonably practicable. The pendulum has swung too far in protecting the rights of those accused of crime as compared to the rights of the public generally to be protected from criminal acts. In recent years, the appellate courts of this country seem to have been diverted from the ultimate question of guilt or innocence that should be the central concern in a criminal proceeding, but instead, have been almost consumed by a quest for technical error. In Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 490, 96 S. Ct. 3037, 3050, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1067, 1085 (1976), Justice Powell said: Application of the [exclusionary] rule thus deflects the truthfinding process and often frees the guilty. The disparity in particular cases between the error committed by the police officer and the windfall afforded a guilty defendant by application of the rule is contrary to the idea of proportionality that is essential to the concept of justice. Thus, although the rule is thought to deter unlawful police activity in part through the nurturing of respect for Fourth Amendment values, if applied indiscriminately it may well have the opposite effect of generating disrespect for the law and administration of justice. . . . Mr. Justice Stone expressed my feelings in McGuire v. United States, 273 U.S. 95, 99, 47 S. Ct. 259, 260, 71 L. Ed. 556, 558 (1927): [a] criminal prosecution is more than a game in which the Government may be checkmated and the game lost merely because its officers have not played according to rule. . . The time has come to begin to pull the pendulum back toward center, and I would affirm the trial court.