Court Opinion

ID: 9766953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:04:22.011476+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:26.514664
License: Public Domain

MORRISON, Judge
(dissenting).
Now that the full import of the holding of the Supreme Court of the United States in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, has been brought home to the writer, I find that I cannot agree with our original disposition of this case nor can I agree with my brethren in their opinion on rehearing. What we overlooked originally and what they fail to give full application to on rehearing is the basic concept of the right of privacy as guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the Supreme Court, together with the fact that by the opinion in Mapp the guaranties of that Amendment as so interpreted have been extended to those who are tried in State courts. The fact that the officers may not have been violating a State statute when they went upon appellant’s porch is not the question. The Supreme Court has said that *335all citizens are by the Fourth Amendment granted “reasonable security and freedom from surveillance.” The Court of Appeals of New York (People v. Loria, 10 N.Y.2d 368, 223 N.Y.S.2d 462, 179 N.E.2d 478) has given the same construction to Mapp which the writer asserts is the correct one. See opinion of Mr. Justice Goldberg in Cleary v. Bolger, 83 S.Ct. 385 (1963).
The emergency rule which is recognized in McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 69 S.Ct. 191, 93 L.Ed. 153, has no application here. The occupants were evidently not aware of the presence of the officers, the fact that they were being pried upon or that they were in any way suspected, and time was not of the essence. In our original opinion, we failed to point out that the officers were not able to see into appellant’s apartment until they approached the window and peered through the broken slats of a closed Venetian blind. Hence, there was no occasion for haste or' the application of the “grave emergency” or “exceptional circumstances” rule, such as the hearing of a shot or flight by the suspect or destruction of the contraband. An officer was on hand to apprehend the occupants if they had attempted to leave, while the other had ample time to have secured a search warrant.
It should be borne in mind that there is an absence of any showing as to why the officers went upon appellant’s porch. Nothing came to their attention to arouse their suspicions until after they mounted the porch. So far as this record reveals, the officers may have planned to look into the window of each apartment there situated.
Because I firmly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States will reverse this conviction when it reaches them upon their holdings in Mapp v. Ohio, supra; Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436; McDonald v. United States, supra; Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 81 S.Ct. 776, 5 L.Ed.2d 828; and Taylor v. United States, 286 U.S. 1, 52 S.Ct. 466, 76 L.Ed. 951, I dissent to the overruling of this motion for rehearing.
ON MOTION TO WITHDRAW MANDATE AND ABATE THE APPEAL
McDonald, judge.
It is made to appear by proper death certificate that after the conviction herein was affirmed by this Court and the Supreme Court of the United States had denied certiorari, but before mandate of this Court issued, the appellant died.
Accordingly the mandate affirming the conviction is withdrawn and the appeal is abated.