Court Opinion

ID: 9636013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:12:10.455673+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:40.234363
License: Public Domain

*90
Levine, J.,

dissenting:

I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that “exigent circumstances” prevailed when the search of the automobile was undertaken at the police station. Hence, notwithstanding the apparent similarity of the facts at bar to those in Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, 90 S. Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970), I respectfully dissent.
As the majority itself acknowledges, the “automobile exception,” from the time of its initial pronouncement in Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 45 S. Ct. 280, 69 L. Ed. 543 (1925), 39 A.L.R. 790, has been consistently “justified on the basis that an automobile is so readily movable as to make impracticable the obtaining of a search warrant.” Manifestly, this rationale for the rule did apply when the car was initially halted and searched. Nevertheless, I can not share the view that the exigency continued once the occupants were safely in custody, and were prevented from gaining access to the car.
It is interesting to note this quotation from Chambers, supra, in the majority opinion:
“Neither Carroll, supra, nor other cases in this Court require or suggest that in every conceivable circumstance the search of an auto even with probable cause may be made without the extra protection for privacy that a warrant affords. But the circumstances that furnish probable cause to search a particular auto for particular articles are most often unforeseeable; moreover, the opportunity to search is fleeting since a car is readily movable. Where this is true, as in Carroll and the case before us now, if an effective search is to be made at any time, either the search must be made immediately without a warrant or the car itself must be seized and held without a warrant for whatever period is necessary to obtain a warrant for the search.” 399 U. S. at 50-51 (emphasis added).
As applied to this case, that statement cannot be read to *91permit any other result but that, given the probable cause for the search coupled with the “exigent circumstances,” the police were confronted with the alternatives of searching the car near the bridge or seizing it, as they actually did, and then “obtain [ing] a warrant for the search. ”399 U. S. at 51.
As the Court then proceeded to observe in Chambers:
“ ... As a general rule, it has also required the judgment of a magistrate on the probable-cause issue and the issuance of a warrant before a search is made. Only in exigent circumstances will the judgment of the police as to probable cause serve as a sufficient authorization for a search. Carroll, supra, holds a search warrant unnecessary where there is probable cause to search an automobile stopped on the highway; the car is movable, the occupants are alerted, and the car’s contents may never be found again if a warrant must be obtained. Hence an immediate search is constitutionally permissible.” 399 U. S. at 51 (emphasis added).
However movable the car may have been when initially halted, it could not have been more immobilized than it was at the police station, where it was securely in the possession of the police while its occupants were in custody. Thus, the very raison d’etre for the “automobile exception” was lacking.
As Justice Harlan, dissenting in Chambers, so aptly stated:
“In sustaining the search of the automobile I believe the Court ignores the framework of our past decisions circumscribing the scope of permissible search without a warrant. The Court has long read the Fourth Amendment’s proscription of ‘unreasonable’ searches as imposing a general principle that a search without a warrant is not justified by the mere knowledge by the searching officers of facts showing probable cause. The ‘general requirement that a search warrant be *92obtained’ is basic to the Amendment’s protection of privacy, and ‘ “the burden is on those seeking [an] exemption ... to show the need for it.” ’ (citations omitted).
“Fidelity to this established principle requires that, where exceptions are made to accommodate the exigencies of particular situations, those exceptions be no broader than necessitated by the circumstances presented.. . .” 399 U. S. at 61.
Notwithstanding these well-settled Fourth Amendment principles, the majority relies on this statement from Chambers to bridge the gap between the justification for the search of the car at its initial apprehension and the subsequent search at the police station:
“Arguably, because of the preference for a magistrate’s judgment, only the immobilization of the car should be permitted until a search warrant is obtained; arguably, only the ‘lesser’ intrusion is permissible until the magistrate authorizes the ‘greater.’ But which is the ‘greater’ and which the ‘lesser’ intrusion is itself a debatable question and the answer may depend on a variety of circumstances. For constitutional purposes, we see no difference between on the one hand seizing and holding a car before presenting the probable cause issue to a magistrate and on the other hand carrying out an immediate search without a warrant. Given probable cause to search, either course is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
“On the facts before us, the blue station wagon could have been searched on the spot when it was stopped since there was probable cause to search and. it was a fleeting target for a search. The probable-cause factor still obtained at the station house and so did the mobility of the car unless the Fourth Amendment permits a warrantless seizure of the car and the denial of its use to anyone until a warrant is secured. In that event there is little to *93choose in terms of practical consequences between an immediate search without a warrant and the car’s immobilization until a warrant is obtained. . . .” 399 U. S. at 51-52.
The weakness of this reasoning, which I am constrained to characterize as fictional, is exposed by the dissenting opinion of Justice Harlan:
“The Court concedes that the police could prevent removal of the evidence by temporarily seizing the car for the time necessary to obtain a warrant. It does not dispute that such a course would fully protect the interests of effective law enforcement; rather it states that whether temporary seizure is a ‘lesser’ intrusion than warrantless search ‘is itself a debatable question and the answer may depend on a variety of circumstances.’ ... I believe it clear that a warrantless search involves the greater sacrifice of Fourth Amendment values.” 399 U. S. at 63.
It is important to note that the crimes here were committed in the early evening, and the trip to the police station followed only minutes later. Yet, the record is silent on why it was not possible to obtain a search warrant while the car and its occupants were separately detained at the police station. Totally lacking at that point were the “exigent circumstances” upon which the majority justifies the warrantless search of the automobile. That, in these circumstances, the temporary seizure of the automobile pending obtention of a warrant was a “lesser intrusion” than a warrantless search is hardly a “debatable question.”
I would therefore reverse the judgment of the court below on the grounds that the warrantless search of the automobile at the police station violated appellants’ Fourth Amendment rights. Judge Digges authorizes me to state that he concurs in this opinion.