Court Opinion

ID: 9742551
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:15:44.283508+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:33.530496
License: Public Domain

V. J. Brennan, P. J.
We concur, and adopt Justice Adams’ opinion in its entirety except as to the disposition of issue number 2. That issue being whether the trial court erred in admitting defend*522ant Unsworth’s boots and whether the officers had probable cause to seize the boots.
The defendant in her brief relies on People v Trudeau, 385 Mich 276; 187 NW2d 890 (1971), contending that here the viewing and seizing of the boots constituted an illegal search and seizure because it was warrantless. We feel, however, that the viewing of the boots was not a search; and, after examining the record, find that the viewing was reasonable.
We point out that at the time the defendant Unsworth was being interviewed by the detectives at the Dearborn police station, she had voluntarily appeared. The officers also had in their possession a description given by witnesses who were in the bar on the morning oí1 the murders, which description fit the defendant Unsworth. During this interview, one of the officers observed the sole of her boot and recognized that design as being similar to the design of, the boot imprint that was found by the garage in the snow. Upon this observation, he placed the defendant under arrest and asked her for the boots.
Armed with the above information as well as other specific facts, the officers had reasonable cause to take immediate steps to retrieve and examine the boots.
In People v Eddington, 387 Mich 551; 198 NW2d 297 (1972), the Court points out that where a detective had seized and examined the shoes of the defendant at the defendant’s apartment they consider the reasonableness of this seizure in the light of all of the circumstances and in that case found that he had to act with dispatch because the occasion warranted it. We point out that had the officers, at the time of their examination of defendant’s boots, not done so, the evidence could very *523well have been lost; the officers here "acted reasonably and with the dispatch the occasion warranted”. Moreover, unlike People v Trudeau, supra, where the officer was acting only on the similarity in the modus operandi of the crime for which Trudeau was under arrest, the officers in this case had more than a mere suspicion of defendant’s involvement.
We have examined the facts and the record in this matter and find that it was not error to admit defendant Unsworth’s boots in evidence.
Conviction affirmed.
T. M. Burns, J., concurred.