Court Opinion

ID: 9470983
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:22:36.06728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:13.500289
License: Public Domain

MURNAGHAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
It is with no joy that I write to announce dissent. Nevertheless, the facts as to whether an exigency existed, justifying the jettisoning of Fourth Amendment safeguards, are the facts. Buel Lee Shepherd was not free to drive his vehicle away. His car keys had been impounded even before the trunk of the car had been opened.1 The motorcar rested not on the public highway, where vehicles whizzing by emphasize the predominance of mobility, but on private property legitimately employed by Shepherd as a parking area. There were no less than two policemen so that, even apart from the possible availability of a warrant through telephonic or wireless communication, one of them could have remained guarding the car and insuring its immobility while the other proceeded with the arrested Shepherd to a place where a warrant could be obtained.
Consequently, there simply was no exigency, and, absent it, no justification for disregard of the Fourth Amendment requirement that a warrant be obtained. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967).

. The insistence that Shepherd surrender his car keys, and the fact that the burden (which was never met) properly rested on the shoulders of the police who were trying to justify a warrantless search and seizure to prove whether or not Shepherd had been arrested made irresistible the conclusion that Shepherd was effectively immobilized before the search of the trunk, and, a fortiori, of the opaque containers, took place.