Court Opinion

ID: 9635964
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:11:09.565381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:35:49.097471
License: Public Domain

NEBEKER, Associate Judge
(concurring) :
While I believe the able trial court judge properly held there was a reasonable basis for seizing the handkerchief and its contents for examination, I concur that we should not finally dispose of this case without a determination whether, under the circumstances, and in any event, the evidence was voluntarily surrendered. Patently guilty people are often insulated from prosecution by suppression of evidence through a process of microscopic analysis and comparison of facts in one case as compared with those of decided cases. Such a technical and finite approach to criminal law enforcement, aside from producing so many opinions that support can be found for any ruling, tends to stray from the basic thesis of the Fourth Amendment decisions — reasonableness. If admissibility of evidence can be sustained on any reasonably available basis, courts in my view, should do so.