Court Opinion

ID: 9853592
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:50:51.829792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:51.950920
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). When the defendant was jailed for violating conditions of probation (for failing to advise the probation officer of his purchase of a car), the police properly searched him incident to booking him into jail. The police took the defendant's personal belongings, inventoried them and placed them in a property box. This search and seizure of the defendant's property was for limited purposes: to verify his identity, to protect his property, to protect others against any contraband, weapons or means of escape he may have had, and to protect the police officers from groundless accusations that they may have lost or destroyed property taken foi; safekeeping.1 "If contraband or fruits of a crime [had been] found in this process, the discovery [would] not [have made] the search unreasonable." Warrix v. State, 50 Wis. 2d 368, 376, 184 N.W.2d 189 (1971).
In this case, however, a second search and seizure occurred. This search and seizure of the property in the *427property box was done for a purpose unrelated to the property's safekeeping, unrelated to the reason for the probation detention,2 and unrelated to weapons, con-, traband or means of escape.
For this "second look" and seizure, the majority does not require the police to obtain a search warrant. Nor does the majority require the police, at the time of the second look, to have probable cause to arrest Bet-terley for felony theft in order to search the box for evidence related to that charge.3
*428The majority further concludes that the ring was not actually "seized" when it was first removed from the box, because the removal did not interfere with Betterley's possessory interests. Majority op. at 424. The "seizure" occurred, according to the majority opinion, when the ring was retained after the remainder of Betterley's property was returned to him, "presumably upon his release." Majority op. at 424.)
The majority opinion relies on United States v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800 (1974). However, Edwards is inapposite. In that case, unlike this one, the Court justified the warrantless search by the exception to the warrant requirement for searches incident to arrest. In this case the evidence seized had nothing to do with the probation hold.4
The majority's conclusion reflects a misconception of a detainee's interest in the contents of a property box. Although the police have examined and seized a detainee's personal effects, a person detained in county jail maintains title to and some control over these *429items. Ordinarily, persons detained in jail may obtain the release of the contents of their property boxes to Mends or relatives by signing a property release form.5 Thus, I conclude that a person in jail has some posses-sory interest and expectation of privacy in personal effects in a property box.
Because Betterley had a possessory and privacy interest in the contents of his property box, the removal of his ring was a seizure, despite the majority's conclusion to the contrary. This seizure was not supported by probable cause. Officer Lundell, without having seen the ring, requested that it be delivered to him. Another officer removed Betterley's ring from the property box during Betterley's detention and took it from the jail in Hudson to officer Lundell in New Richmond.
Warrantless searches and seizures are "per se unreasonable . . . subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967). See also Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454-55 (1974). The state has not met its burden of showing that the circumstances of this search and seizure brought it within one of the "jealously and carefully drawn" exceptions to the requirement that law enforcement officers obtain search warrants. Jones v. United States, 357 U.S. 493, 499 (1958).
The police had ample time to seek a warrant; no exigent circumstances excused their failure to do so. No other exception to the warrant requirement justified the search or seizure. Thus the majority creates an exception to the rule "that the police must, whenever practicable, obtain advance judicial approval of *430searches and seizures through the warrant procedure." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 (1968).
The intrusion on the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment authorized by the majority in this case is not shocking, massive or flagrant. Nevertheless it is an intrusion, and as the United States Supreme Court has warned, the Fourth Amendment protects against the gradual erosion of rights. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 635 (1886).6
For the reasons set forth, I conclude that the search of the property box and the seizure of the ring without a warrant were, under the circumstances of this case, in violation of sec. 968.10, Stats. 1991-92, Art. I, sec. 11, Wis. Const., and the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the federal Constitution.
I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Nathan S. Heffernan and Justice WILLIAM A. Bablitch join this dissent.

 See State v. Jones, 181 Wis. 2d 194, 510 N.W.2d 784 (Ct. App. 1993) (probable cause arrest; validated examination of inventoried property for evidence of crime leading to arrest).
A number of the cases allowing a second look without a search warrant involve examining the contents of the property box for evidence of the crime for which the arrest was made.

 There is no evidence that police had probable cause to arrest Betterley for felonious theft; thus the search of his property box for evidence relating to felony theft was not justified as a search that could have been incident to an arrest for that charge.
Professor LaFave comments as follows about the relationship between the search and the offense for which the arrest was made:
"It may be that the argument for requiring probable cause is greater when the purpose of the search is to find evidence relating to a crime other than that for which the person is in custody .... [Plermitting a detailed post-booking search through the arrestee's effects to see if he can be linked with some other offense bestows upon the police an undeserved windfall and provides them with a temptation to make subterfuge arrests_On the other hand, if a defendant is in custody for offense A and there later develops probable cause to arrest him for offense B, it might well be concluded that a re-examination of all his property held by the police and subject to search at the time of his original arrest, to see if any of it is or contains evidence of offense B, is justified, as otherwise the defendant would receive greater protection than had he not been in *428custody and was just now being arrested for offense B." Wayne R. LaFave, 2 Search and Seizure sec. 5.3(b) at 496-97 (1987).

 The Edwards Court cautioned that it was not concluding that "the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment is never applicable to postarrest seizures of the effects of an arrestee." The Court was very careful to explain that " 'while the legal arrest of a person should not destroy [his] privacy . . ., it does — for at least a reasonable time and to a reasonable extent — take his own privacy out of the realm of protection from police interest in weapons, means of escape and evidence.'" Edwards, 415 U.S. at 808-09, quoting United States v. DeLeo, 422 F.2d 487, 493 (1970). (emphasis added.).
The majority op. accepts that the Edwards court limited its decision, but any limitation in the majority decision is difficult to detect.

 See, e.g., Dane County Sheriff Department, Security Services Manual, p. 1, sec. 605-1 (Jan. 1, 1992), in Dane County Law Library (Madison, Wis.).

 The words of Justice Thomas of the Wyoming Supreme Court should be heeded: "Perhaps my concern is ultra cautious, but I am convinced that law enforcement officers and prosecutors should not casually rely on this case [upholding warrantless searches of a prisoner's property secured in a jail property box] .... I suggest that prosecuting attorneys should always obtain a warrant to seize property of prisoners that they propose to use as evidence, even though it is already in the custody of the law enforcement officers, because of the prisoner's incarceration. It seems to me this is a relatively simple and easy way to avoid what otherwise might be a very troublesome controversy." Marquez v. State, 754 P.2d 705, 709 (Wyo. 1988) (Thomas, J. concurring).