Court Opinion

ID: 9856981
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 07:09:24.221276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:37:41.717030
License: Public Domain

BISTLINE, Justice,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I concur with Parts I and III of the majority opinion, however, I am unable to agree with their resolution of Part II dealing with the legality of the search.
The majority correctly frames the issue in Part II as “whether the defendant’s disposal of the evidence was precipitated by unlawful police conduct, in violation of the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution, and/or article I, section 17 of the Idaho Constitution.” This Court’s resolution of the issue, however, is blatantly incorrect. The majority reasons that because Officer Graybill did not touch Rawlings, but simply requested that Rawlings turn around so he could pat Rawlings down for a wallet, no impermissible search for identification occurred, and Rawlings was not coerced by unlawful police activity to abandon his property. A better analysis has been fashioned by the Court of Appeals, and it is appropriate to quote a portion of that opinion:
Rawlings contends that the search was an illegal warrantless search not within any judicially recognized exception. The state submits that we need not reach this issue because Rawlings threw the aspirin bottle before the officer had an opportunity to conduct the search, thus negating any inference that Rawlings’ disposal of the bottle was prompted by the threat of the search. The state avers that, without a nexus to the allegedly unlawful conduct, the discarded evidence was ‘abandoned.’
However, Graybill’s testimony, concerning the stop, demonstrates that Rawlings threw the bottle only after Graybill directed him to submit to the identification search.2 Although Graybill did not conduct the search, his demand upon Rawlings clearly constituted a sufficient initiation or threat of a search, which, if unlawful, would be deemed unconstitutionally coercive. See United States v. Newman, 490 F.2d 993, 995 (5th Cir.1974); Fletcher v. Wainwright, 399 F.2d 62 (5th Cir.1968). See also RINGLE, SEARCHES & SEIZURE, § 8.4(a), at 8-38.4. Thus, we must determine whether Graybill was constitutionally authorized to conduct such a search.
The fourth amendment ‘provides protection to the owner of every container that conceals its contents from plain view.’ United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 822-23 [102 S.Ct. 2157, 2172, 72 L.Ed.2d 572] (1982). A search of a wallet, like that of a purse or other bag carried on the person, ‘is undoubtedly a severe violation of the subjective expectations of privacy.’ New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 338 [105 S.Ct. 733, 741, 83 L.Ed.2d 720] (1985). Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable under the fourth amendment, subject only to a few specifically established and will delineated exceptions. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 [88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); State v. Bottelson, 102 Idaho 90, 92, 625 P.2d 1093, 1095 (1981). The burden rests with the state to demonstrate that a warrantless *936search was carried out pursuant to one of those exigencies. Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 760 [99 S.Ct. 2586, 2591, 61 L.Ed.2d 235] (1979); Bottelson, 102 Idaho at 92, 625 P.2d at 1095.
In the present case, the state admits the search was warrantless but maintains that Graybill conducted a valid search justified under the ‘stop-and-frisk’ exception, recognized in Terry, 392 U.S. at 1 [88 S.Ct. at 1868]. The Terry-frisk exception permits an officer who has validly detained a person, and who has reason to believe that the person is armed and dangerous, to conduct a limited self-protective pat-down search for weapons while conducting the inquiry. Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 93-94 [100 S.Ct. 338, 343-44, 62 L.Ed.2d 238] (1979); United States v. Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 906 (9th Cir.1973). The purpose of this limited search is not to discover evidence of crime, but to allow the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence. Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146 [92 S.Ct. 1921, 1923, 32 L.Ed.2d 612] (1972).
[W]e [now] address the dispositive issue in the case: whether Graybill was justified in commencing a search for Rawlings’ wallet in order to determine his identity. The state contends that the search was justified under Terry and its progeny as a limited intrusion reasonably necessary to conduct the investigation. The Supreme Court decision in Adams v. Williams established that an officer may make ‘a brief stop of a suspicious individual, in order to determine his identity.’ 407 U.S. at 146 [92 S.Ct. at 1923] (emphasis added). The state contends that a necessary corollary to this police authority is the officer’s right to search the suspect for proof of identification. Without such a right, the state continues, the right to ascertain the suspect’s identity is rendered a mere fiction. In so arguing, the state maintains that a frisk under Terry is not restricted to a search for weapons. We disagree.
Although the Adams decision discontinued the Terry requirement that an officer harbor a reasonable apprehension of danger in order to justify investigative detentions, ‘Adams did not eliminate that requirement for any search conducted incident to the detention.’ State v. Zapp, 108 Idaho 723, 727, 701 P.2d 671, 675 (Ct.App.1985) (emphasis original). The scope of a search pursuant to an investigative stop is clearly confined to a search for the protection of the officer and those nearby. Any intrusion beyond that necessary to ascertain whether weapons are involved becomes a search for evidence which the police may not do without a warrant, except as an incident to a lawful arrest, or with the consent of the person concerned. As the United States Supreme Court unequivocally declared in Ybarra, ‘nothing in Terry can be understood to allow ... any search whatever for anything but weapons,’ and that it would continue to maintain the ‘narrow scope’ of the Terry exception. Ybarra, 444 U.S. at 93-94 [100 S.Ct. at 343]. We believe this pronouncement constitutes the highest authority on the subject and forecloses this Court from accepting the position urged by the state. We therefore hold that a search for identification is beyond the scope of Terry and that Graybill’s initiation of such a search was unlawful.
Assuming, however, that Ybarra has not laid to rest the question before us, and that there exists the limited exception for identification searches, as held in State v. Flynn, [92 Wis.2d 427], 285 N.W.2d 710, cert, denied, 449 U.S. 846 [101 S.Ct. 130, 66 L.Ed.2d 55] (1979) cited in 3 W. LAFAYE, SEARCH AND SEIZURE § 9.4(g), at 539 (2nd ed. 1987), we again must conclude that the particular search conducted in this case was unreasonable under the fourth amendment.
In sharp contrast to the circumstances presented in Flynn and its progeny, Graybill initiated the search for Rawlings’ wallet without providing Rawlings any reasonable opportunity to otherwise identify himself. The record is void of *937any evidence that Graybill even asked Rawlings his name. We note that, had Graybill obtained Rawlings’ name, birth date, and address, he could have run a radio check for warrants and other background information, which might also have revealed whether Rawlings was being truthful about his identity. Upon the record before us, however, we can scarcely conclude that GraybilPs conduct was ‘the least intrusive means reasonably available to verify or dispel the officer’s suspicion.’ Thus, even applying the analysis set forth in Flynn, we conclude that Rawlings’ failure, or in this case, his inability,3 [footnote 4 in original text] to produce the documentary proof of identity sought by the officer did not authorize the officer to conduct the search.
The state questions whether a suspect can defeat the purpose of an investigatory stop by refusing to provide, or claiming that he does not have, any identification. By framing the issue in this way, however, the state fails to distinguish between the suspect who refuses to cooperate and identify himself or herself to police and the one who does not produce documentary proof of identity [footnote omitted]. Where an individual is not carrying such proof, an identification search, no matter how broad, will not further the purpose of obtaining identification. The fact that a citizen happens to be without identifying papers does not provide a reasonable basis for a police search in the absence of probable cause [footnote omitted].
CONCLUSION
We hold that a frisk for identification falls outside of the purview of police conduct constitutionally permitted during an investigatory stop. The conclusion is inescapable that the officer’s command that Rawlings submit to such a search precipitated Rawlings’ attempt to divest himself of the contraband and the ultimate seizure of the evidence by police. Under these circumstances, the state’s theory of abandonment must be rejected. See United States v. Newman, 490 F.2d 993, 995 (5th Cir.1974); Fletcher v. Wainwright, 399 F.2d 62 (5th Cir.1968); RINGLE, SEARCHES & SEIZURE, § 8.4(a), at 8-38.4. Because the state’s evidence was obtained as a consequence of police conduct violative of the fourth amendment, it should have been excluded from evidence____
State v. Rawlings, Slip Op. CA-93 (1991).
Because Rawlings’ conviction should be reversed for the reasons stated in the opinion of the Court of Appeals, I decline to join the majority opinion.

. The transcript from the preliminary hearing contains the following:
COUNSEL: What continued in the conversation?
OFFICER GRAYBILL: I told him that he’d have to come with me—or no, actually, I asked him for some identification.
COUNSEL: Did he produce any?
OFFICER GRAYBILL: No he didn’t.
COUNSEL: And then what did you do?
OFFICER GRAYBILL: And I believe I asked him to turn around so that I could pat him down for a wallet.
COUNSEL: And what did you do then?
OFFICER GRAYBILL: At that point he—he drew back and threw something in his hand right towards the funeral home [a business adjacent to the parking lot].

. Although not a fact of record in this case, evidently Rawlings did not possess identification or a wallet on his person at the time he was stopped. According to his counsel’s representations at oral argument on this appeal, police later found Rawlings’ wallet in his car, parked several blocks away.