Court Opinion

ID: 9753425
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:13:58.627886+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:27:36.394396
License: Public Domain

Johnson, J.,
1Í13. dissenting. While I agree that defendant’s briefing below was barely adequate, the fact remains that the trial court here understood defendant to be arguing for a more protective scope-of-consent standard under Article 11 than under the Fourth Amendment. Indeed, the trial court not only acknowledged the argument but rejected it on policy grounds, concluding that it would place police officers in the “very difficult position of having to seek separate permission” to search containers within vehicles if more than a general consent were required. Contrary to the majority, therefore, I would find that the scope-of-consent issue was adequately preserved for appellate review. Furthermore, as explained below, I would hold that this Court’s Article 11 jurisprudence compels adoption of the more stringent standard advocated by defendant.
¶ 14. The facts are plain. Although initially reluctant, defendant ultimately consented to a search of her vehicle but did not, as the majority concedes, “give the trooper specific permission to search her purse or the containers therein, nor did the trooper make such a request.” Ante, ¶ 5. The trial court nevertheless upheld the search under the Fourth Amendment scope-of-consent standard articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248 (1991), and further found that greater protection was not required under Article 11 of the Vermont Constitution because the federal standard strikes the proper balance between the interest in “individual privacy . . . and the convenience of crime detection.”
¶ 15. Under Jimeno, the question “is whether it is reasonable for an officer to consider a suspect’s general consent to a search of his car to include consent to examine” containers within the ear, and in resolving this question the Court instructed that “[t]he scope of a search is generally defined by its expressed object.” Id. at 251. The high court thus reasoned that, since the officer there had informed the defendant that he was suspected of carrying narcotics, “it was objectively reasonable for the police to conclude that the general consent to search [the] car included consent to search containers within that car which might bear drugs. A reasonable person may be expected to know that narcotics are generally carried in some form of a container.” Id.
¶ 16. Even a cursory analysis of the Court’s reasoning suggests that it raises far more questions than it answers. How does one determine, for example, what a “reasonable person would be expected to know” with respect to hiding drugs? Drugs are often depicted in popular culture as being smuggled inside car wheels, gas tanks, rocker panels, and other areas deep within a motor vehicle. Does this suggest that a general consent to search authorizes the police to literally tear a ear apart looking for drugs? Alternatively, if the officer fails to mention drugs, does that limit the scope of the search? Would the scope differ if the officer mentioned some other contraband such as stolen jewels or counterfeit money, and how precisely?
¶ 17. Apart from these uncertainties, the Jimeno Court failed to explain why the “reasonableness” of a search should be measured from the officer’s perspective rather than the suspect’s, i.e., what would a reasonable person in the suspect’s circumstances have intended to convey when he or she gave a general consent to the search of his or her car? As Justice Marshall, dissenting in Jimeno, *622observed, in most cases a suspect’s general consent to the search of his or her car will be “ambiguous with respect to containers found inside the car.” Id. at 254. Thus, like all warrantless-search exceptions, it would seem more fair to place the burden on the police to clarify that the suspect consented to a search of containers rather than on the suspect to show that he or she intended to withhold consent. As Justice Marshall explained, this can easily be accomplished simply by requiring “that a police officer who wishes to search a suspicious container found during a consensual automobile search obtain additional consent to search the container. If the driver intended to authorize search of the container he will say so; if not, then he will say no.” Id. This bright-line approach has the added advantage of avoiding questionable inferences based on what sort of contraband the officer might have mentioned in passing or what the officer could reasonably assume the suspect understood about likely hiding places.
¶ 18. The only countervailing argument to this alternative approach is that, as the trial court here noted, it would make it more “difficult” for officers to seek a separate permission to search containers within the vehicle. I find it difficult, however, to understand how the inconvenience of asking a citizen for consent to search a container outweighs the interest in assuring that the consent was real and not the result of confusion as to the meaning of a general consent. See State v. Savva, 159 Vt. 75, 86, 616 A.2d 774, 780 (1991) (noting that constitutional principle cannot “be sacrificed for the sake of law enforcement convenience”). It is simply a matter, as Justice Marshall explained, of giving an individual who genuinely “did not mean to authorize such additional searching... [the] opportunity to say no.” Jimeno, 500 U.S. at 256.
¶ 19. We in Vermont have long recognized “a separate and higher expectation of privacy for containers used to transport personal possessions than for objects exposed to plain view within an automobile’s interior.” Savva, 159 Vt. at 88, 616 A.2d at 781. In light of that heightened expectation, it is unreasonable to construe an individual’s general consent to the search of his or her vehicle as extending to containers within the vehicle. We need not, and should not, follow the United States Supreme Court in finding a fictitious consent by citizens who could not anticipate that their cooperation with law enforcement would result in open season on their purses, backpacks, wallets, and other personal containers. Accordingly, I would grant defendant’s motion to suppress under Article 11.
¶ 20. I am authorized to state that Justice Skoglund joins in this dissent.