Court Opinion

ID: 9577163
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:32:13.965496+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:20:02.817754
License: Public Domain

TOBRINER, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
The present case presents two issues: (1) the admission of evidence obtained by the police examination of defendant’s automobile; and (2) the admission of the police tape recordings of the conversation between defendant and his wife at the jail. I believe that in both instances the trial court should have suppressed the proffered evidence.
On the issue of the evidence acquired through examination of the automobile, I agree with the conclusion and reasoning of Justice Sullivan. In my opinion, the suppression of this evidence is required by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971) 403 U.S. 443 [29 L.Ed.2d 564, 91 S.Ct. 2022]. Despite the divergent views expressed by the justices in that case, and the absence of a single majority opinion, the fact remains that the United States Supreme Court ordered *314suppression, of the evidence obtained by examination of Coolidge’s car. Unless we can find and articulate some reasonable distinction between the facts of Coolidge and of the present case, we must conclude that the Supreme Court would also exclude the evidence at issue in the present case.
In both Coolidge and the instant case the crime was committed inside the defendant’s automobile. In both cases the defendant was arrested inside his home; his car was parked outside the residence and in plain sight from the public streets. In Coolidge the police had an invalid search warrant; here they had no warrant at all. In both cases the police impounded the cars, examined them meticulously, and through this examination discovered evidence introduced against defendant. In both cases the defendant objected to the introduction of the evidence, and in both the state sought to uphold the evidence on the ground that the automobile was evidence of the crime in plain sight from public vantage.
Justice Burke contends, in effect, that because Coolidge did not yield a clear majority opinion, that the decision of the Supreme Court in that case may be disregarded by this court. I would maintain to the contrary, that when a case comes before us which is in all material facts identicál to Coolidge, we must treat the result reached in Coolidge as controlling, and exclude the evidence in question. I have stated briefly the material facts of this case and of Coolidge and can find no reasonable basis to distinguish the two cases.
With respect to the admissibility of the tape recordings of the conversation between defendant and his wife, I agree with the conclusion and reasoning of Justice Burke.
Peters, J., concurred.