Court Opinion

ID: 9602359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:53:33.008706+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:02.903571
License: Public Domain

BERMAN, Judge,
dissenting.
Respectfully, I dissent.
The majority holds that no infringement of defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights occurred when the police, in executing a warrant to search defendant’s house, seized a safe there found, transported it to another location, and, without obtaining an additional warrant, forcibly opened it without defendant’s consent. I cannot concur in such a holding.
As stated in United States v. Martin, 600 F.2d 1175 (5th Cir. 1979):
“For Fourth Amendment purposes, the opening of the safe constituted an encroachment upon Appellees’ reasonable expectation of privacy wholly separate from and much more intrusive than the initial seizure.”
And, in the instant case there was, as in Martin, “no apparent exigency or other justification for the warrantless conduct . . . . ”
Furthermore, “[tjhere may be cases 'in which, on balance, [it should be ruled] that specific authorization should have been obtained before doing damage to property in order to successfully execute a search warrant.” State v. Thisius, Minn., 281 N.W.2d 645 (1978), cited by the majority. In my view, we have before us today exactly such a case.
The instant case is distinguishable from those cited by the majority in that the latter cases did not involve a heightened reasonable expectation of privacy, see Martin, supra, nor did the searches considered in those cases entail substantial damage, see Thisius, supra.
Since, in my view, defendant’s safe was searched illegally, the evidence found therein should not have been admitted at his trial. Accordingly, I would reverse and remand for a new trial.