Court Opinion

ID: 9524947
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:58:43.219871+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:12:21.929646
License: Public Domain

GLASER, District Judge,
concurring specially.
The trial court’s conclusion that probable cause for arrest was lacking at the time of the initial arrest is correct, but it does not automatically follow that the evidence must be suppressed.
One exception to the warrant requirement frequently referred to is the “search incident to a lawful arrest” exception; but such search may extend only to the person of the defendant and to those areas within his easy reach. The purpose is to search for weapons and for evidence of the crime which might otherwise be lost or destroyed by the defendant. See: Dixon v. State, 23 Md.App. 19, 327 A.2d 516 (1974). As the defendants were already safely in custody in the police car, a seizure of items from the defendants’ vehicle cannot be justified on a *196“search incident to arrest” rationale. Further, if probable cause for the arrest was lacking, it obviously means the “search incident” rationale is not an available exception. It also means that any evidence obtained as a result or product of the unlawful arrest is inadmissible; but the evidence is admissible if some other exception to the warrant requirement is available to the prosecution or if the evidence was not obtained as a result of the arrest.
When the officer first observed the defendants, the circumstances were such as to authorize temporarily detaining and questioning the defendants. The suspicion existed that criminal activity was afoot. See: Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); State v. Arntz, 286 N.W.2d 478, 479 (1979); 49 N.D.L.Rev. 127; Sec. 29-29-21, N.D.C.C. When he attempted to do so, the response was such that he decided to defer the process until assistance arrived. As it turned out, it was not necessary to stop the vehicle, because it was disabled by the suspects. He did not search the vehicle. He was in a place he had a right to be when he observed the objects in the vehicle. His observation, together with the previous information in his possession, clearly furnished probable cause for believing the cafe had been burglarized and that the defendants had committed the offense. At the time probable cause accrued, there had been no Fourth Amendment intrusion; no search, no seizure.
Both the arrest of the defendants and the seizure of the evidence from the vehicle (because of exigent circumstances) were at that point clearly proper. This is so, even though the initial arrest was arguably lacking probable cause. Although the officer may have prematurely arrested the defendant, doing so did not result in a forfeiture of his right to be present at the scene and observe what there was to be observed. None of the information obtained by the officer up to the time that probable cause had definitely been established was derivatively obtained from the unlawful arrest. It was not the “fruit of the poisonous tree.” See: United States v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463, 100 S.Ct. 1244, 63 L.Ed.2d 537 (1980), and cases cited therein which illustrate the difference.