Court Opinion

ID: 9534240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:37:51.432739+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:53.173935
License: Public Domain

RUCKER, Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I concur in the result reached by the majority. I take issue with that portion of the majority opinion which implies that consumption of the marijuana cigarette burning down to a small butt did not represent destruction of evidence. True, the evidence the defendant ultimately sought to suppress concerned methamphetamine. However, focusing on the ultimate target of the seizure does not resolve the question of whether the officers were justified in conducting a warrantless search in the first instance. As the majority correctly points out “[e]xigent circumstances justifying a warrantless search exist where the police have an objective and reasonable fear that the evidence is about to be destroyed.” Opinion at 102 quoting Esquerdo v. State, 640 N.E.2d 1023, 1027 (Ind.1994). Here a marijuana cigarette, the evidence giving rise to probable cause for an arrest, was being consumed. I agree with the State that destruction of this evidence was imminent. If not imminent, then it is at least reasonable to presume the evidence would have been completely destroyed by the time the officers, at 10:30 on a Saturday night, located a Magistrate, obtained a search warrant, and returned to execute the warrant. Nonetheless, because home entry should rarely be sanctioned when there is probable cause to believe that only a minor offense has been committed, I agree that in this instance the warrantless entry was improper.