Court Opinion

ID: 9751522
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 16:33:53.14265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:50.569581
License: Public Domain

Justice ALBIN,
dissenting.
Our jurisprudence holds that to justify the warrantless search of a vehicle based on exigent circumstances, the police must establish that the securing of a warrant was “impracticable” and that the need to conduct the search was “urgent” and “immediate.” See State v. Pena-Flores, 198 N.J. 6, 28, 32, 965 A.2d 114 (2009); State v. Martin, 87 N.J. 561, 569-70, 436 A.2d 96 (1981). By that now well-established standard, the Appellate Division determined that the State fell short of showing that the search of a vehicle, held for more than three hours in police custody, was exigent. Nevertheless, the majority reverses the appellate panel’s unremarkable application of our precedents to the present facts.
Although the majority saves the evidence in this case from suppression, it does so at a significant cost to the warrant requirement of Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution. Nothing in the record suggests that the police ever attempted to obtain a search warrant in the more than three hours before they undertook the search or that the need for the search was “immediate” and “urgent” after so long a delay. Because the majority has taken the exigency out of exigent circumstances, thus eroding the primacy of the warrant requirement, I respectfully dissent.
*325I.
At approximately 10:34 p.m., a Borough of Fort Lee police officer pursued a red sport utility vehicle (SUV) reported to have been involved in an armed robbery. When the officer approached the SUV, which was stopped at a light, a man exited with a handgun and handbag. On the officer’s command, the suspect dropped the handgun and bag on the ground; he then fled on foot. The other occupants of the SUV—in disregard of the officer’s order—took flight in the vehicle. Another officer found the SUV stopped at the end of a dead end street, with two female occupants—defendant Alnesha Minitee and Liakesha Jones—standing outside the vehicle. Although the women claimed to be victims of a carjacking, they were placed in separate police cars and later arrested for their alleged roles in the robbery. At this time, at least five other Fort Lee police officers were on the scene. A detective observed two rolls of duct tape in the rear of the SUV. Duct tape had been used to restrain the robbery victims.
No one questions that the police had probable cause to search the vehicle. One could hardly question that, at the scene, exigent circumstances would have justified an immediate search of the vehicle; after all, it was believed that two robbers—one possibly armed—were on the loose. However, despite the number of officers at the scene who undoubtedly were equipped with standard-issue flashlights, the police evidently did not consider an immediate search to be of urgency.
At some point, the SUV was towed to a sally port at the Fort Lee Police Department, where it remained impounded until members of the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) came to process the contents of the SUV. The search of the vehicle did not begin until sometime after 2:00 a.m.—and perhaps much later. In any event, the search did not commence until more than three hours after the seizure of the vehicle.
The officers who testified at the suppression hearing indicated that the decision had been made to await the arrival of BCI officers to “process” and “preserve” the vehicle and to “secure *326evidence.” The BCI officers had been busy processing the crime scenes. Apparently, the concern was not to disturb anything of evidential value in the vehicle and to leave the task of processing evidence to the BCI experts.
No one testified that it would have been impracticable to secure a warrant—telephonic or otherwise—in the more than three hours before the search. No one testified that there was not a single Fort Lee police officer familiar with the investigation available to call a judge. No one explained why, if there was an “urgent, immediate need” to search the SUV to assist in ascertaining the whereabouts of the suspects, the police had the luxury of waiting more than three hours for the BCI officers to formally process the vehicle. Obviously, if time were of the essence, a search of the SUV would not have been suspended for more than three hours.
On this basis, following this Court’s decision in Pena-Flores, the Appellate Division suppressed the evidence obtained from the vehicle. State v. Minitee, 415 N.J.Super. 475, 488-89, 2 A.3d 447 (App.Div.2010).
II.
“Warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable [under Article I, Paragraph 7 of our State Constitution] and thus are prohibited unless they fall within a recognized exception to the warrant requirement.” Pena-Flores, supra, 198 N.J. at 18, 965 A.2d 114. The State claims that the warrantless search of the SUV was justified by the exigent-circumstances exception. The State bears the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence the justification for a warrantless search. State v. Wilson, 178 N.J. 7, 12-13, 833 A.2d 1087 (2003). Here, the State had to prove the presence of “exigent circumstances” that made it “impracticable to obtain a warrant.” Pena-Flores, supra, 198 N.J. at 28, 965 A.2d 114; see also State v. Colvin, 123 N.J. 428, 437, 587 A.2d 1278 (1991) (“The justification to conduct a warrant-less automobile search____turns on the circumstances that make it impracticable to obtain a warrant____”). “[E]xigent circum*327stances will be present when inaction due to the time needed to obtain a warrant will create a substantial likelihood that ... evidence will be destroyed or removed from the scene.” State v. Johnson, 193 N.J. 528, 553, 940 A.2d 1185 (2008). In this case, no prompt action was taken to conduct a search to preserve or utilize evidence for the ongoing investigation, and no satisfactory explanation was given for the failure to seek a warrant.
The majority imprecisely compares the present case to Martin. In Martin, the police found the station wagon believed to have been involved in an earlier store robbery and removed the vehicle to headquarters to be searched. Martin, supra, 87 N.J. at 564-65, 436 A.2d 96. The Court determined that there was an “urgent, immediate need for the police to ascertain whether the car contained evidence of the armed robbery,” yet also recognized that it “was impractical and perhaps not safe for the officers” to conduct the search at the scene. Id. at 570-71, 436 A.2d 96. Thus, the Court held that exigent circumstances were present to bypass the warrant requirement. Nothing in Martin even remotely suggests that the police delayed either the towing of the vehicle or its search once it arrived at headquarters. Indeed, a delay of three hours or more in conducting the search in Martin—had it occurred—would have rendered a mockery the language the Court used: an “urgent, immediate need” to conduct the search.
The majority endorses the seemingly limitless expansion of the exigent-circumstances exception, validating a warrantless search of a vehicle more than three hours after its seizure, despite the State’s failure to show that it was impracticable to secure a warrant. The application of the exigent-circumstances exception to circumstances that are clearly not exigent indicates that this constitutional doctrine is so formless that it can justify almost any outcome.
III.
In summary, I do not doubt that a search of the SUV at the scene or even its immediate search at headquarters, provided that *328the vehicle was promptly towed, would have fallen within the exigent-circumstances exception to the warrant requirement. But that is not what happened here.
The record shows that more than three hours passed from the time the SUV was seized until its search and that, in the meantime, no effort was made to secure even a telephonic warrant. The State did not establish that it was impracticable to secure a warrant because of the urgent, immediate need to conduct a search. Any uncertainty concerning how long the search was delayed—whether three, four, or five hours—must be held against the State, for it bore the burden of establishing a legitimate exception to the warrant requirement. Because I agree with the Appellate Division that the State failed to prove that exigent circumstances justified a bypass of the warrant requirement, I respectfully dissent.
For reversal and reinstatement—Chief Justice RABNER and Justices LaVECCHIA, HOENS and PATTERSON and Judge WEFING (temporarily assigned)—5.
For affirmance—Justice ALBIN—1.