Court Opinion

ID: 9669583
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:00:24.779163+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:58.083096
License: Public Domain

TERRIE LIVINGSTON, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s opinion in several respects. First, as to the question of appellant’s standing, the majority points to inconsistent positions the State has taken regarding standing. However, it is really appellant who has taken inconsistent positions on standing.
When appellant testified at the suppression hearing, he denied giving officers consent to search and said that if he had been asked for consent to search he would have told them to ask his mother because it was
not his truck. “Because it wasn’t my vehicle.... I can’t consent [sic] something that’s not mine.... I don’t have possession of the truck.” Therefore, while I agree with the majority’s position that the appellant had standing to contest to the search because the trial court found he had permission to drive the truck, I cannot agree that the State was the only party that took inconsistent positions.
In appellant’s first point he challenges the validity of the search pursuant to the search warrant claiming that the vehicle was not located within the scope of the warrant. The majority goes to great lengths to conclude that the trial court erroneously determined that the vehicle was “within the curtilage of the home,” the language used in the description for location for vehicles in the search warrant. While I agree with the majority that a street is a public place, I do not agree that a sidewalk, on this record, is. Further, whether the sidewalk is within the curti-lage of the premises to be searched is irrelevant. The vehicle was located partially in the driveway of the premises and partially in the adjacent public street. Therefore, the only question to be addressed by the trial court and now by us was whether a vehicle that is partially parked on a street and partially parked in a driveway is within the “premises” of the subject house as described.
The trial court specifically found, as a matter of fact, that the truck was partially located in the driveway of the subject premises and therefore actually within the “premises to be searched.” The trial court found
based upon a part of the vehicle actually extending onto the property, the amount of the vehicle in the Court’s mind *118doesn’t matter, but the Court finds that a small percentage of the vehicle was placed on — was on the actual property of the premises, therefore justifying a search of the remainder of the vehicle that extended onto the public street parking area.
So even if it’s not curtilage, the vehicle is still partially on the premises as premises is defined, versus curtilage of the property.
The search warrant authorized a search of the “premise, to include all vehicles and detached buildings within the curtilage therein named and described [as] 3521 Ave D.” Two officers testified the truck was partially in the driveway, which is actually on the premises and which is within the warrant. Therefore, we do not need to reach the question of whether the vehicle was located within the curtilage because the trial court found, as a matter of fact, that the truck was located in the driveway. This finding is supported by the testimony of the two officers. From this factual finding flows the inescapable legal conclusion that the vehicle was located on the premises.
Therefore, I would conclude that the search warrant itself authorized the search of the vehicle because it was located on the premises described within the search warrant. Because I would uphold the search of the vehicle on this basis, I believe the discussion regarding the automobile exception and consent is unnecessary. For all these reasons, I would affirm the judgment of the trial court.