Court Opinion

ID: 9618852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:18:16.544138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:32.578174
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Justice,
with whom CONNOR, Justice, joins, concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I am in agreement with the court’s holding that the police had probable cause to arrest McCoy, and further agree that the war-rantless stationhouse search of his person was not too remote in the time and place to the arrest to qualify as a search incident to arrest. I also join in the majority’s attempt to limit the boundaries of warrantless incidental searches of the person. More particularly, I have no difficulty with, and specifically concur in, the adoption of the following restrictions upon warrantless searches of the person: that the arrest must be valid; that the arrest must not be used as a pretext for a search; that the warrant-less search must be conducted contemporaneously to the arrest; and the search must be incident to an arrest for a crime for which there is a likelihood that evidence of the particular crime is concealed on the person of the arrestee. Despite the foregoing, I find that I cannot agree with the court’s conclusion that the intensity of the search at issue here can be sustained on the basis of the Supreme Court of the United States’ interpretation of the Fourth Amendment.
I think an appropriate point of departure in stating my views is an observation recorded by Justice Frankfurter in the course of his dissent in United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69, 70 S.Ct. 430, 94 L.Ed. 653, 662 (1950). There Justice Frankfurter said :
It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment.1
*140Possession of cocaine is a serious violation of our laws and the opprobium attached to such an offense is not insignificant. In my view, the constitutional implications of this case far exceed its factual limitations. Yet it is against the factual setting of this case that the fundamental rights expressed in Article I, Section 14 of the Alaska Constitution must be considered. There Alaska’s Constitution provides:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses and other property, papers, . and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. No Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.
What is involved in this appeal are the constitutionally protected rights of security of the persons, papers, and effects of all citizens, including McCoy, against unreasonable governmental searches and seizures. In regard to the law of searches and seizures, it is fundamental that
‘searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment — subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.’ The exceptions are ‘jealously and carefully drawn,’ and there must be ‘a showing by those who seek exemption * * * that the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative.’ 2
In my view the fact that a warrantless search incident to an arrest is an exception to the warrant requirement is controlling here. For in order to justify noncompliance with Alaska’s constitutional mandate, it must appear that the necessity arising from, or the exigencies of, the situation made it imperative that the search of the packet be carried out without the prior approval of a judge. This analysis in turn requires examination of the common law bases of the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement which the prosecution relies on in this case.
In Rabinowitz, both Justice Minton, writing for the majority, and Justice Frankfurter, in his dissent, agreed that the right to search the person of the arrestee incident to an arrest has long been recognized in England and in this country. In Justice Frankfurter’s view this right of search is rooted in necessity. Dual rationales are advanced by Justice Frankfurter to this exception to the requirement of a search warrant:
[Fjirst, in order to protect the arresting officer and to deprive the prisoner of potential means of escape * * * and, secondly, to avoid destruction of evidence by the arrested person. * * * From this it follows that officers may search and seize not only the things physically on the person arrested, but those within his immediate physical control.3
More recently the Supreme Court, in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762-763, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, 694 (1969), in setting limits upon the scope of a premises search incident to a warrantless arrest, reiterated the rationale of the incidental search exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment in the following manner:
When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the *141person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer’s safety might well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee’s person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction.
Thus it is clear that it has long been the view of the Supreme Court that the exception permitting a warrantless search incident to a lawful arrest is grounded on the twin rationales alluded to by Justice Frankfurter in his dissent in Rabinowitz. In my view these rationales perform dual functions in the resolution of issues arising from searches of the person. On the one hand, they provide the theoretical and practical justification for departure from the constitutional requirement that searches be conducted pursuant to warrants. On the other hand, these same rationales furnish appropriate criteria for delineation of the intensity of a warrantless search of the person incident to a lawful arrest. For it strikes me as logical to conclude that once the possibility of the arrestee’s escape is prevented, the officer’s safety insured, and the danger of concealment and destruction of evidence of the crime for which the arrest, is made eliminated, then there no longer exists any necessity, or exigency, justifying continuation of the warrantless search of the person of the ar-restee. Therefore, at the moment Officer Weaver gained control over the small opaque packet, the danger of its destruction or concealment passed, and thus no exigency or necessity remained to justify the officer’s opening of the packet without first obtaining a search warrant. In order to lawfully search the interior of the small packet and seize its contents, once the dangers of concealment or destruction were no longer relevant considerations, it was incumbent upon the police to persuade a neutral and detached judge to issue a search warrant authorizing the search of the packet for evidence of the crime of forgery.4
I think this analysis is in accord with the general underlying purposes of both the federal and Alaska constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures. The basic protection afforded by these respective constitutional guarantees is to shield the individual’s privacy against generalized exploratory intrusions by government officials. Unless all exceptions to the search warrant provisions are carefully drawn to require a showing of necessity for any departure from the warrant requirement, these constitutional prohibitions will be rendered ineffectual. The need to draw these exceptions carefully is of paramount significance because the great bulk of searches, both of the person and of premises, are warrantless searches conducted incident to arrests.5 The search at issue in this case is reflective of the norm rather than the exception.
I do not embrace the majority’s sanguine conclusion that searches of the person, because of inherent physical limitations, present less danger of unrestrained search than searches of premises. Nor can I read Article I, Section 14 of the Alaska Constitution as creating a hierarchy of protected rights with the right of security of the person accorded a low station in this hierarchy. Nor can I subscribe to the theory that notions of common sense can be employed to subvert a clear constitutional preference for searches conducted pursuant to search warrants. Rather than adopt the majority’s concept of spatial limitations regarding warrantless *142searches, I read Alaska’s Constitution as requiring that the intensity of all warrant-less searches of the person be limited by the necessity, or exigency, which provides the basis for the exception.
Thus I reach the conclusion that it was constitutionally impermissible for the officers in this case to search the interior of the packet and seize its contents once they had gained possession and control of it, because at that point there was no danger that McCoy could either conceal or destroy the packet. This is not to say that it is unconstitutional for a police officer, incident to a lawful arrest, to conduct a search for weapons in order to effect the arrest with all practicable safety to the officer, arrestee, and others. It is also permissible for the arresting officer, incident to a lawful arrest, to conduct a search for evidence of the commission of the offense for which the arrest has been made, provided there is a likelihood that evidence of this particular crime is concealed on the person of the arrestee. It is clear that such warrantless searches are permissible and may be conducted if, and to the extent that there is reasonable cause to believe that it is necessary to effectuate these purposes.6 On the other hand, the limitations, I would adopt require that once the officer has gained possession and control over items such as containers, packets, and billfolds which might contain evidence of the crime for which the arrest is made, it then becomes incumbent upon, and it is the duty of the officer, to obtain a search warrant in order to conduct a search of the interior of such articles. Again this is so because after the officer has gained possession and control of an article, it is no longer in the power of the person arrested to destroy or conceal the article or its contents and thus the rationale for the warrantless intrusion no longer exists.
Admittedly, the test I would adopt, and its application to the particular facts of the case at bar, is not required by any decision of the Supreme Court of the United States which has construed the Fourth Amendment. On the other hand, no decision of that Court has really dealt with the question of intensity of warrantless searches of the person. Given the pervasiveness of the practice of warrantless searches incident to lav/ful arrests, I view this area of search and seizure law as singularly appropriate for the development and explication of constitutional principles. In articulating our role in constitutional adjudications under the Alaska Constitution, we have said that our task involves more than passive deference to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States when parallel state constitutional provisions are at issue. More to the point in Baker v. City of Fairbanks, 471 P.2d 386, 402 (Alaska 1970), we said this court "should be moving concurrently to develop and expound the principles embedded in our constitutional law.” 7
Although no decision of the Supreme Court of the United States appears controlling here, I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that none of the Supreme Court cases on stop and frisk or search and seizure8 offer any guidance as to the proper mode of analysis of the packet search issue in the case at bar. Admittedly these decisions are all *143distinguishable, yet I think a fair distillation furnishes the basis for formulation of a rule that the intensity of a warrantless search should be limited to the purpose which justifies its exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of a warrant.9 Nor do I find the majority’s expediency-rubber-stamp prediction either necessary or compelling. It assumes that our trial judges will default in the performance of their judicial obligations by automatically granting applications for warrants, and further assumes that this court will condone such practices.10 Granted it is time consuming to obtain a warrant, but this is precisely one of the factors which our Founding Fathers weighed in fashioning constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.11 For my part, I would rather a neutral judge determine whether a warrant should issue and read the constitution as having made this very choice.
Unless one is prepared to hold that once a person is arrested all expectations of privacy arc destroyed, I believe the limitations on warrantless incidental searches as espoused in this separate opinion comport with the underlying purposes of our constitutional provisions proscribing unreasonable searches and seizures.12 The alternative invites unrestricted intrusions into the arrestee’s body cavities and his body, together with minute inspections of his wearing apparel and all items of property found on the arrestee’s person.

. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2032, 29 L.Ed.2d 564, 576 (1971) (footnotes omitted).

. United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 72, 70 S.Ct. 430, 94 L.Ed. 653, 663-664 (1950) (citations omitted).
In the prior case of Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652, 655 (1914), Justice Day, by way of dictum, said that it had always been recognized under English and American law that the government had the right “to search the person of the accused when legally arrested, to discover and seize the fruits or evidences of the crime.” Weeks mai’ks the Supreme Court of the United States’ earliest approval of the warrant-less search incident to a lawful arrest.

. The record is inconclusive as to whether either officer could have demonstrated probable cause for the belief that the packet contained cocaine or any other unlawful drug.

. ALI Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure, Part II, Search and Seizure, xviii-xx (Tent. Draft No. 3, 1970).

. The purposes being to effect the arrest and to insure the safety of the arresting officer and others, as well as to prevent the concealment or destruction of evidence of the commission of the crime for which the arrest was made.

. See also State v. Browder, 486 P.2d 925, 936 (Alaska 1971) ; Glasgow v. State, 469 P.2d 682, 686 (Alaska 1970); Roberts v. State, 458 P.2d 340, 342 (Alaska 1969).

.Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) ; Sibron v. New York (and companion case, Peters v. New York), 392 U.S. 40, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968) ; Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, 694 (1969) ; Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971).

. Compare Caver v. Kropp, 306 F.Supp. 1329 (E.D.Mich.1969), in which an approach similar to that taken in this opinion was used. See AS 12.35.070.

. Given the smallness of the packet and other revelant facts in this record, I think it unlikely that the police would have been successful in obtaining a search warrant for the interior of the packet.

. In the case at bar it appears that it was no great burden on the police to obtain a search warrant authorizing the search of the two pieces of luggage McCoy had with him at the airport, as well as a search warrant for McCoy’s home.

.Even United States v. DeLeo, 422 F.2d 487 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1037, 90 S.Ct. 1355, 25 L.Ed.2d 648 (1970), which is relied upon by the majority, recognizes this principle. There the court said:
While the legal arrest of a person should not destroy the privacy of his premises, it does — for at least a reasonable time and to a reasonable extent — take his own privacy out of the realm of protection from police interest in weapons, means of escape, and evidence.
Id. at 493 (footnotes omitted).