Court Opinion

ID: 9594596
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:31:22.598965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:49.367098
License: Public Domain

Judge Walker
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in the majority opinion that there was probable cause and an exigency for a warrantless search of defendant. However, I respectfully dissent from the Court’s holding that the search of *117defendant was “intolerable in its intensity and scope and therefore unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”
The majority cites United States v. Bazy for the proposition that “[s]earches akin to strip searches can be justified in public places if limited in scope and required by unusual circumstances.” Bazy, 1994 WL 539300, at 8 (D. Kan.). I believe the facts and holding of Bazy suggest that such a search was justified under the circumstances of the instant case. In that case, officers stopped Bazy and a companion on the Kansas Turnpike at 8:30 A.M. A search of both men followed, during which “[t]he troopers unbuckled Bazy’s pants and pulled them away from his waist and checked his underwear for drugs.” A plastic bag containing cocaine was found lodged between Bazy’s buttocks. A trooper then reached into Bazy’s pants and pulled out the bag. The search occurred “on the grassy edge of the roadway between [Bazy’s] car and a patrol car” and Bazy “was not exposed to the view of oncoming traffic, as the view was obstructed by the patrol car and by a trooper standing in front of him.” Id. at 3. The defendant contended that the search was overly intrusive and not justified at the time and place, and that the public location of the search was embarrassing and humiliating. Id. The court found that the search, “[w]hile plainly more than a pat-down search,” was nonetheless still limited in scope and intensity such that it did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 7. The court recognized that other less intrusive means for searching Bazy may have been available but said that “ ‘[t]he reasonableness of any particular governmental activity does not necessarily or invariably turn on the existence of’ ” these less intrusive means. Id. (citations omitted). The court refused to “second guess the troopers on this procedure. The court [was] satisfied . . . that the troopers took the necessary and reasonable precautions to prevent the public exposure of the defendant Bazy’s private parts.” Id.
The search in the instant case took place at approximately 1:30 A.M. at the intersection of two streets in Fayetteville. The record does not reveal the conditions at the time, and defendant’s objection was that he did not want the officer to “search [his] rear” in “the middle of the street.”
Here the evidence does show that prior to the search Officer Cook asked defendant to step behind the open car door of his vehicle and that he positioned himself between defendant and the car door on the outside. Officer Cook said he took these steps “because [he] didn’t want to expose [defendant] to other cars, the public, to embar*118rass him, that sort of thing.” Defendant did not dispute this testimony. Considering the totality of the circumstances, I believe that the officers here, like the trooper in Bazy, took “the necessary and reasonable precautions to prevent the public exposure of defendants] . . . private areas.” While there may have been other less intrusive means of conducting the search, I agree with the Bazy court that the availability of those less intrusive means does not automatically transform an otherwise reasonable search into a Fourth Amendment violation.
Just as the court in Bazy was unwilling to second guess the procedures used by the officers in that case, I am unwilling to second-guess the trial court’s finding here that the officers’ conduct during the search did not violate defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights. The trial court in ruling on defendant’s motion to suppress had the arguments of both parties before it and was in a superior position to evaluate the reasonableness of the search. I do not believe defendant is entitled to a new trial, and I would affirm the trial court in all respects.