Court Opinion

ID: 9862949
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 02:33:34.680473+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:45:09.372741
License: Public Domain

Conley Byrd, Justice. I concur in the result reached but 1 am also of the opinion that the search was not incident to a lawful arrest within the reasons given by the IT. S. Supreme Court for allowing the exception to the Fourth Amendment requirement of a search warrant. The record shows that the Texarkana Police, under the direction of Chief Max Tackett, called the sheriff’s office of Sevier County with a request for a search warrant. AYliile they were waiting for the search warrant, appellant, his brother and his girl friend drove up to the grandfather’s house place in a A^olkswagon. The brother began to work on his mother Is car. Appellant and the girl friend got on a tractor, drove across the field near Chief Tackett’s car, came back, parked the tractor behind the barn, and were in the process of leaving in the ATdkswagon when Deputy Sheriff Young of Sevier County arrived with the search warrant. Acting upon directions from Chief Tackett, the deputy sheriff arrested appellant and his girl friend at a point on the gravel road some twenty-five to forty feet from the garage and about sixty to seventy yards from the barn. The officers then arrested the brother and made a complete search of the garage and barn where they found the paint and other related articles. Based upon Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961), and the exclusionary rule adopted thereunder, appellant moved to suppress the evidence obtained by the search on the ground that the search warrant was illegally issued. The trial court, finding that the warrant was issued by the clerk instead of a magistrate, held that the search warrant was invalid, but permitted the evidence obtained from the search to be introduced on the theory that it was a valid search incident to a lawful arrest. The State, to support the action of the trial court, cites as authority an annotation-in 19 A.L.R. 3rd at pages 805 and 807 wherein several states have permitted a search as an incident to a lawful arrest so long as the search of premises was in the “immediate presence,” “immediate control,” or “immediate surroundings” of the person arrested. However, because the Fourth Amendment of the U. S. Constitution has been made applicable to the States by Mapp v. Ohio, I believe we should look to the interpretation given the Fourth Amendment by the H. S. Supreme Court, rather than rely upon interprepations given by the several States to their own Constitutional provisions. The Fourth Amendment only prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” In applying its exclusionary rule, the United States Supreme Court has consistently recognized a search incident to a lawful arrest as being reasonable. In Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 367, 84 S. Ct. 881, 11 L. Ed. 2d 777 (1964), Mr. Justice Black stated: “.. . Unquestionably, when a person is lawfully arrested, the police have the right, without a search warrant, to make contemporaneous search of the person of the accused for weapons or for the fruits of or implements used to commit the crime. Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392 (1914); Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 30 (1925); This right to search and seize without a search warrant extends to things under the accused’s immediate control, Carroll v. United States, supra, 267 U.S., at 158, and, to an extent depending on the circumstances of the case, to the place where he is arrested, Agnello v. United States, supra, 269 U.S., at 30; Marron v. United States, 275 U.S., 192, 199 (1927); United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 61-62 (1950). The rule allowing contemporaneous searches is justified, for example, by the need to seize weapons and other things which might be used to assault an officer or effect an escape, as well as by the need to prevent the destruction of evidence of the crime —tilings which might easily happen where the weapon or evidence is on the accused’s person or under his immediate control. But these justifications are absent where a search is' remote in time or place from the arrest.. . ” ' In Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 46 S. Ct. 4, 70 L. Ed. 145 (1925), the facts showed that Agnello was arrested a block or two from his residence. In holding the search unlawful and not incidental to a bvwful arrest, the court said: "While the question has never been directly decided by this court, it has always been assumed that one’s house cannot lawfully be searched without a search warrant, excejot as an incident to a lawful arrest therein. ’ ’ A reading of the decisions of the United States Supreme Court shows that a search as an incident to a lawful arrest, without a warrant, has been approved only (1) where the arrest was made within the premises, Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 34, 83 S. Ct. 1623, 10 L. Ed. 2d 726 (1963); Stoner v. California; 376 U.S. 483, 486, 84 S. Ct. 889, 11 L. Ed. 2d 856 (1964); (2) where the search was necessary to seize weapons or other things which might be used to assault the officers, Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 88 S. Ct. 1889, 20 L. Ed. 2d 917 (1968); or (3) where the search was necessary to prevent the destruction of evidence, Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58, 59, 87 S. Ct. 788, 17 L. Ed. 2d 730 (1967). Here, (1) the arrest was not made within the barn or the garage, and (2) there is no showing that the same was necessary to prevent an injury to the officers or an escape of the person arrested, or (3) to prevent the destruction of evidence. Therefore I am of the opinion that the search was not incidental to a lawful arrest.