Court Opinion

ID: 9704252
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:28:09.10424+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:19.763324
License: Public Domain

Levin, J.
(dissenting). I agree with the majority that were the police to view the stripping of an automobile from a common access area, there would be no search violative of the constitutional protection. The record in the instant case does not, however, show that the police viewed the interior of the garage from a common access area.
I would affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals which affirmed the trial court’s decision to grant the motion to suppress, or, if a majority of the Court were of the opinion that remand to the Court of Appeals is appropriate, I could join in remand.
The record indicates that the officers responded to a radio dispatch which was apparently prompted by an anonymous tip. The tip was that the stripping of an automobile was in progress and that the parts were being taken to a garage in the *95rear of 2379 Leslie. The officers proceeded to the scene and could observe a stripped Cadillac three-fourths of a block away from the garage in the rear of 2379 Leslie.
The concurring opinion states that two officers "walked onto defendant’s property and proceeded to the walk-in door on the side of the garage.”1 They peered into the window and observed the dismantling of an automobile in progress. They then arrested the defendant and three other men who were dismantling the automobile.
The opinion further states that when the officers, following receipt of the apparently anonymous tip, found the stripped Cadillac, they had no evidence of who owned the stripped car, who had done the stripping, when it had been done, or where the parts had been taken. The opinion continues, and I agree: "Nonetheless, it was reasonable on the part of the police to continue their inquiry.”2
The opinion then states: "The subsequent police viewing of defendant’s activity through the garage door window did not constitute a search.” The opinion observes that the police "did not enter defendant’s home or peer into the windows of his home.” They "looked into an unattached garage which abutted a public alley from a common access route. This entry onto the curtilage and the observation by police into the garage was limited and reasonable under the circumstances.”3
I agree that insofar as the officers may have "walked onto defendant’s property” along "a common access route” of public ingress and egress, as in the four cases cited in footnote 1 of the concurring opinion, there would have been no unlawful *96search. The record, however, does not establish that the officers were able to gain access to the side entrance door by walking only onto that portion of defendant’s property that was a common access route of public ingress and egress.4 It *97does not show that the police traveled a route that a mailman, milkman, or ups man might have traveled and were able to view the activity in the garage from such a route. 5
Archer, J., took no part in the decision of this case.

 Ante, p 86.

 Ante, p 92.

 Ante, p 92.

 The officer testified:
Q. And what happened when you got to that location?
A. We found a white over red Cadillac sitting in the alley stripped. Tires were missing, front end was gone, plates were gone.
We went to the garage, the address they gave us over the radio. Went to the side of the garage. There’s a door, a walk in door. We looked in. There were four subjects inside with a black Chevrolet and the door off of it. The trunk lid was off of it, and they were working on the left rear door of it.
Q. You said you were by the door. You initially went by the garage door?
A. Yes.
Q. Where was the window on this door?
A. On the door itself, a regular square window.
Q. Could you see clearly?
A. There is a screen on it and it was a towel they had on it. You could see in, yes.
Q. The towel covered part of the window?
A. Yes. There were lights on inside the garage.
Q. What percentage of the window was covered by the towel? Was half of it, the upper part or what?
A. Like I would say a little over a quarter of the window was open.
Q. Only a quarter of the window was open, and through that hole there you could see all four defendants, is that correct?
A. Yes.
Q. How long did you look through that hole?
A. A couple of minutes.
Q. Couple of minutes, you, yourself?
A. My partner was there first. I was at the big door then I walked around.
Q. Officer, you testified one of the doors were [sic] open?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you ever try to enter this door?
A. Yes.
Q. Did you knock or just come in?
A. Opened it up and walked in.
Q. So, did anybody come in through the garage door itself?
A. The big door?
*97Q. Yes.
A. No.
Q. And when you got over there you and your partner went inside the garage, is that right?
A. That’s right.
Q. After you looked in the window, is that right?
A. That’s right.
Q. How many doors were there to this garage?
A. Main door, big door that swings up, and a walk in door.
Q. So, the window that you are looking in, it was in the back of the garage it wasn’t to the side of the garage?
A. To the side of the garage. The door is on the side of the garage. It would he the north side of the garage.

 In one of four cases from foreign jurisdictions cited, State v Wilbourn, 364 So 2d 995 (La, 1978), the Supreme Court of Louisiana said that a person entering or knocking at the side door of a defendant’s residence could readily view the front of a vehicle parked alongside in a carport. Because such a person could see the front of the vehicle from a public or "semi-public” access route, what was discoverable in plain view was not constitutionally protected. In the instant'case the record does not show that the garage and a side door of defendant’s home were located in such relationship to each other that the police could peer through the window at the side of the garage into the interior of the lighted garage and observe the activity therein while they were standing at the side door of defendant’s home or from some other location along a common access route.
In State v Seagull, 26 Wash App 58, 64; 613 P2d 528 (1980), an officer observed what he thought to be contraband from a “portion of the premises to which the public, including police officers on legitimate business, are impliedly invited by the owner . . . .” In Pistro v State, 590 P2d 884, 885 (Alas, 1979), the police observed what was going on in a garage upon turning into a driveway, about fifty or sixty feet from the garage, and again ten to twenty feet therefrom "en route to the side door . . . .” The court said: "The driveway was a normal means of ingress and egress impliedly open to public use by one desiring to speak to occupants in the garage, or to park off the street while visiting occupants of the house.” Id., 887. A similar analysis was adopted by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in United States v Ventling, 678 F2d 63 (CA 8, 1982), where tire tracks were observed by an officer after he had driven onto the driveway and went to the front door of the defendant’s home.