Court Opinion

ID: 9604084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:14:21.870228+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:11.275929
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Chief Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I am in agreement with the court’s resolution of all issues raised in this appeal with the exception of the intensity of the *849search issue. More particularly, I am of the view that, even assuming Officer Lewis had the right to examine Schraff’s wallet, the officer’s opening of the folded aluminum foil packet constituted an unreasonable search under Article I, Section 14 of the Alaska Constitution.
The precise issue of the permissible intensity of warrantless searches incident to arrest was previously before this court in McCoy v. State, 491 P.2d 127 (Alaska 1971). There McCoy contended that once a foil packet had been removed from his person, the police officer was not endangered by any weapons that might have been concealed in the foil packet and any evidence therein was safe from destruction. In these circumstances McCoy asserted that in order to look inside the packet, the officer should have first obtained a search warrant. After accurately stating that “[t]his argument raises the most troublesome questions presented in this appeal, and has provoked considerable disagreement among the members of this Court,” 1 the majority in McCoy held that the war-rantless search of McCoy’s packet was sustainable as coming within the exception to the warrant requirement for searches of the person incident to a lawful arrest.
I deem this an appropriate occasion to briefly reiterate the views I expressed in my dissenting opinion in McCoy. There I stressed Justice Frankfurter’s analysis of rationales underlying the exception which permits search of the person of the ar-restee incident to an arrest. In Justice Frankfurter’s view this exception was recognized :
[F]irst, 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.2
In my dissent in McCoy, I expressed the opinion that these rationales provide the theoretical and practical justification for departure from the constitutional requirement that searches be conducted pursuant to warrants. Further, I stated that these same justifications provide relevant criteria for delineation of the permissible degree of intensity of a warrantless search of the person incident to a lawful arrest. Applying these thoughts, I concluded in McCoy that
once the possibility of the ar-restee’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 arrestee. ... 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.3 (footnote omitted)
Following my McCoy analysis, I am led to the conclusion that once Officer Lewis gained control and possession of Schraff’s wallet and the aluminum foil packet, the danger of destruction, or concealment of its contents dropped out of the case.4 *850Thus, no exigency or necessity remained to justify Officer Lewis’ opening of the packet without first having obtained a search warrant.5
Mention should also be made of the majority’s treatment of the “plain view” doctrine and the expertise of the officer who conducted the search. In Erickson v. State, 507 P.2d 508, 514-15 (Alaska 1973) (footnotes omitted), we said “ . this court has repeatedly cautioned that a search without a warrant is per se unreasonable unless it clearly falls within one of the narrowly defined exceptions to the warrant requirement. . . . ‘[A]ny new exception to the warrant requirement, no matter how reasonable in terms of its purpose, is viewed with caution.’ ”6 Of importance to the case at bar is the discussion of plain view found in Erickson. In holding that the contents of a locked suitcase were not in plain view, we alluded to Justice Traynor’s statement that
[i]t is inherently impossible for the contents of a closed opaque container to be in plain view regardless of the size of the container or the material it is made of. A search of the container is necessary to disclose its contents.7
Of particular significance here is the rejection in Erickson of “constructive” plain view which is seemingly employed by the majority in the instant case by virtue of its reliance upon Lewis’ drug expertise as justification for both the seizure and the search of the packet. Again looking to Justice Traynor in Erickson, this court quoted with approval the following passage from his opinion in People v. Marshall, 69 Cal.2d 51, 69 Cal.Rptr. 585, 588, 442 P.2d 665, 668 (Cal.1968). There Justice Tray-nor wrote:
This contention overlooks the difference between probable cause to believe contraband will be found, which justifies the issuance of a search warrant, and observation of contraband in plain sight, which justifies seizure without a warrant. However strongly convinced officers may be that a search will reveal contraband, their belief, whether based on the sense of smell or other source, does not justify a search without a warrant.8
*851On the basis of the foregoing, I further conclude that Officer Lewis’ expertise cannot furnish legal justification for the war-rantless search which was carried out here. Nor can the search of the packet be sustained under this court’s prior plain view decisions.9

. 491 P.2d at 131.

. United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 72, 70 S.Ct. 430, 437, 94 L.Ed. 653, 663-64 (1950) (citations omitted).

. 491 P.2d at 141.

. I cannot accept the majority’s statement that “. . . the packet was not firmly within police custody at the time that it was ' seized.” In the case at bar there were apparently two police officers in the tavern attempting to cope with one fairly coherent but i>assive individual (Jones) and the completely inebriated and incapacitated appellant. The record is devoid of any indication that either Jones or Sehraff represented any sort *850of physical threat to the officers present in the tavern.
In my view, the packet in the instant case was not any less fully secured by the police than was the evidence in State v. Spietz, 531 P.2d 521 (Alaska 1975), and Daygee v. State, 514 P.2d 1159 (Alaska 1973).

. In 1975 a majority of the Supreme Court of California essentially endorsed the position taken by the MeCoy dissent. See People v. Longwill, 14 Cal.3d 943, 123 Cal.Rptr. 297, 538 P.2d 753 (1975) ; People v. Norman, 14 Cal.3d 929, 123 Cal.Rptr. 109, 538 P.2d 237 (1975) ; People v. Brisendine, 13 Cal.3d 528, 119 Cal.Rptr. 315, 531 P.2d 1099, 1105-10 (1975).

. In support of the text the following decisions of this court were cited: McCoy v. State, 491 P.2d 127, 132 (Alaska 1971) ; Bargas v. State, 489 P.2d 130, 132 (Alaska 1971) ; Ferguson v. State, 488 P.2d 1032, 1035-37 (Alaska 1971) ; Rubey v. City of Fairbanks, 456 P.2d 470, 474 (Alaska 1969) ; Sleziak v. State, 454 P.2d 252, 256 (Alaska), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 921, 90 S.Ct. 252, 24 L.Ed.2d 702 (1969) ; Weltz v. State, 431 P. 2d 502, 505-07 (Alaska 1967) ; Ellison v. State, 383 P.2d 716, 719 (Alaska 1963).

. 507 P.2d at 513, quoting People v. Marshall, 69 Cal.2d 521, 69 Cal.Rptr. 585, 589, 442 P.2d 665, 669 (1968).

. In State v. Spietz, 531 P.2d 521, 523 (Alaska 1975), the police, in effecting an arrest, saw through an open door on the porch of defendant’s home marijuana inside the home. In affirming the superior court’s suppression order, we said that plain view alone is never enough to justify the warrantless seizure of evidence. In Spietz this court identified the requirements for invocation of the plain view doctrine as follows: the prior intrusion has to be legally justifiable; the plain view discovery must be inadvertent; and there must be exigent circumstances which justify the seizure of the plain view evidence at the moment rather than later, pursuant to a warrant.

. Since two of our colleagues, are not participating in this appeal, I leave for a more appropriate occasion discussion of Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U.S. 260, 94 S.Ct. 488, 38 L. Ed.2d 456 (1973), and United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973). As of this date this court has not decided whether to follow the Supreme Court’s approval of extensive warrantless searches of the person of the arrestee. In these cases the only restrictions the Supreme Court drew was that the police may not engage in patently abusive conduct which shocks the conscience and offends Due Process.