Court Opinion

ID: 9792873
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:38:23.658714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:01:20.502909
License: Public Domain

Reed, C.J.
(dissenting)—I am unable to concur with the majority's holding that the decision in Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 61 L. Ed. 2d 235, 99 S. Ct. 2586 (1979) renders the warrantless search of the suitcases unconstitutional. As limited to its facts, that case requires a warrant where the police have probable cause to believe the particular personal luggage contains contraband. In Sanders, as in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 53 L. Ed. 2d 538, 97 S. Ct. 2476 (1977), the police bided their time and permitted the container to be placed in a vehicle, conceivably so that their search could be justified under Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 69 L. Ed. 543, 45 S. Ct. 280, 39 *794A.L.R. 790 (1925).1 It could be argued the police thus contrived to create their own exigent circumstances.
In the present case, the trial court specifically found that the officers had no prior information that the contraband would be located in a particular container; their only information was that it was located somewhere in the vehicle. As such they had no independent probable cause to seize a particular object in the vehicle and then, having restricted its mobility, obtain a warrant to search its contents. Clearly, the officers were engaged in a Carroll-type search when they opened the trunk and observed the suitcases.
In its efforts to bring this case within the Sanders rule, the majority stresses the prior "cursory" examination of the car's interior (for "plain view" evidence, according to one deputy). Thus the majority concludes that by a process of exclusion the probable cause was transferred from the vehicle to the suitcases; a fine legal distinction but one uncalled for by the facts. If Sanders is applied to this situation, police would be required to eliminate all possible hiding places and to then obtain warrants to search any closed container(s) which might be a repository for contraband. Such an interpretation would place a cumbersome and undue burden on police activities in legitimately searching a vehicle which they have probable cause to believe contains contraband or other fruits of a crime.
In sum the majority has added yet another dimension to the rules enunciated in Chadwick and Sanders. Prior to those decisions the cases were legion upholding the search of articles or containers found in the course of a Carroll-type search.21 would heed the admonition of Chief Justice *795Burger, the author of Chadwick, concurring in the result of Sanders, 442 U.S. at 767-68, when he states:
[Sanders] simply does not present the question of whether a warrant is required before opening luggage when the police have probable cause to believe contraband is located somewhere in the vehicle, but when they do not know whether, for example, it is inside a piece of luggage in the trunk, in the glove compartment, or concealed in some part of the car's structure.[3] I am not sure whether that would be a stronger or weaker case for requiring a warrant to search the suitcase when a warrantless search of the automobile is otherwise permissible. But it seems to me it would be better to await a case in which the question must be decided.
(Last italics mine.) Additionally, history has already proven the prescience of Justice Blackmun, who warns in his dissent at 442 U.S. page 772:
The problems of distinguishing between "luggage" and "some integral part of the automobile," [Sanders, at 763]; between luggage that is within the "immediate control" of the arrestee and luggage that is not; and between "personal luggage" and other "containers and packages" such as those most curiously described [Sanders, at 764 n.13] will be legion.[4] The lines that will be drawn will *796not make much sense in terms of the policies of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. And the heightened possibilities for error will mean that many convictions will be overturned, highly relevant evidence again will be excluded, and guilty persons will be set free in return for little apparent gain in precise and clearly understood constitutional analysis.
I must say I subscribe to the view of Justice Blackmun that:
... it would be better to adopt a clear-cut rule to the effect that a warrant should not be required to seize and search any personal property found in an automobile that may in turn be seized ¿nd searched without a warrant pursuant to Carroll and Chambers. . . . Such an approach would simplify the constitutional law of criminal procedure without seriously derogating from the values protected by the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.
Sanders, 442 U.S. at 772.
In conclusion, however, I submit that neither Chadwick nor Sanders governs the present case and this court should await a decision which does before affirming a suppression of the suitcase contents.
Reconsideration denied May 13, 1981.

In Chadwick the government abandoned its lower court argument based on the "automobile exception" of Carroll.

See for example: United States v. Tramunti, 513 F.2d 1087, 1104 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 832, 46 L. Ed. 2d 50, 96 S. Ct. 54 (1975); United States v. Anderson, 500 F.2d 1311 (5th Cir. 1974); United States v. Soriano, 497 F.2d 147 (5th Cir. 1974) (en banc), reaffirmed without published opinion sub nom. United States v. Aviles, 535 F.2d 658 (1976); United States v. Stevie, 578 F.2d 204 (8th Cir. 1977), reversed en banc, 582 F.2d 1175 (8th Cir. 1978). See also United *795States v. Finnegan, 568 F.2d 637 (9th Cir. 1977) (sustaining immediate search of suitcase removed from an automobile despite argument that Chadwick mandated opposite result).

The trial court found:
"Deputy Davidson, from his prior training and experience of fifteen (15) years as a law enforcement officer, knew that Marihuana is transported inside paper bags, spare tires, inside tires on a vehicle, under the seats of vehicles, inside the upholstery of vehicles, in hollowed areas of the frame of vehicles, in false compartments in the fenders or bumpers of vehicles, in suitcases carried in vehicles, in the glove compartment of vehicles, in the doors of vehicles, and in other spaces or containers."

See for example: Liichow v. Maryland, 288 Md. 502, 419 A.2d 1041 (Ct. App. 1980) (translucent plastic bag); United States v. Markland, 635 F.2d 174 (2d Cir. 1980) (plastic thermal beverage bag); United States v. Jimenez, 626 F.2d 39 (7th Cir. 1980) (paper bag); United States v. Benson, 631 F.2d 1336 (8th Cir. 1980) (tote bag); Hinkel v. Anchorage, 618 P.2d 1069 (Alaska 1980) (purse); People v. George, 110 Cal. App. 3d 528, 168 Cal. Rptr. 44 (1980) (vest pocket).