Court Opinion

ID: 9552224
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:06:42.86271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:50.727911
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice PARKER
(dissenting).
Protection from unreasonable searches and seizures is one of the cornerstones upon which our Nation was founded and should remain inviolate. However, such protection must be judicially applied not by the mere pronouncements of maxims, bolstered by inapposite precedent but rather by careful analysis of the facts relating to each claimed violation. Anything less dilutes and vitiates the very rights which we are seeking to preserve. The principal opinion here has mentioned only peripherally the single point which in all justice *346must control the decision, that is, the legal status of defendant as a tenant by sufferance or otherwise. Defendant refrained from testifying or calling any witness on his behalf as, of course, he had a right to do, but by such abstention he must accept the undisputed testimony which was presented to the jury. There was no contradiction of Mrs. Brownfield, one of the owners, when she recited the circumstances regarding the rental of the property, that on October 22, 1968:
“Steve [the defendant] came down and he asked to rent it and I said yes, that I would let him have it, and he said his brother would be moving in with him and he could only pay half of the rent at the time and that he would pay the other full month later.”
Likewise there was no refutation of Mr. Brownfield’s testimony that on November 6, the fifteenth day after his wife’s conversation with defendant:
“ * * * I told him that I wanted them to move and he said that they would have the rent for me. And I said that I didn’t want the rent, that I wanted them to vacate the house. And they said they was paying me good money. And I said well, I still didn’t want them there, and I asked them to vacate. He wanted to know if he should move that night. And I said well, you could wait until morning. And I asked them to clean the house up when they left, and they said they wouldn’t do it. And that was the reason that Dolly went down the next morning.”
Under such circumstances there would seem no valid basis for contention that defendant was more than a tenant at sufferance under the provisions of § 34-60, W.S.1957. No case cited in the principal opinion deals with a similar situation. However, under our holding in Welch v. Rice, 61 Wyo. 511, 159 P.2d 502, the Brownfields had a right to enter the house in question without legal process and the fact that they elected to secure an officer to accompany them did not alter the situation. Although the prevailing opinion attempts to distinguish Welch v. Rice, supra, by saying “It is clear in this case that the owners had not accomplished, by reentry or otherwise, a termination of tenancy when the officers entered [with them],” 1 the oral lease here for the two weeks had expired, the subsequent month’s rent had not been paid, and while the tenants had indicated orally they would pay it, they had been told to vacate and had unequivocally agreed to do so. When entry was effected at about 10 a. m., November 7, through the unlocked front door, after there was no response to Mr. Brownfield’s knock, and marijuana was clearly visible, no search was made by any person until a search warrant had been secured. Nothing has been presented by defendant which convinces me that the evidence then seized was not admissible at the trial. As to other points raised in this appeal, a careful examination of the record discloses no reversible error. I would, therefore, affirm.

. Mr. Brownfield testified that when his wife went to the property which was to have been vacated by the tenants she observed their motor vehicle parked there, believed therefore they might be present in the house, and telephoned her husband. Mr. Brownfield said he telephoned his attorney and was advised to take a disinterested person into the house with him. He then called a police officer, who was a friend, asking him to come to the house and witness the removal of the tenants’ belongings from the rental property.