Court Opinion

ID: 9559250
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:25:01.945319+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:23.163935
License: Public Domain

THOMAS, Justice,
dissenting.
I cannot discern that anything the deputy sheriff did in this ease was unreasonable or was not sanctioned by sound legal authority. Consequently, I would affirm Morris’ conviction, and I must dissent from the contrary ruling by the majority of the Court. The focus in this case must be upon Morris’ condition and the situation confronting the deputy sheriff, not simply upon the fact that a wallet was examined.
The approach of the Illinois Supreme Court is far more sound:
We cannot agree with this line of reasoning, for as indicated by the great number of search and seizure cases before the courts today there is no iron-bound rule that governs all such cases regardless of circumstances. The constitutional prohibition is against unreasonable searches and seizures and what is reasonable or unreasonable is dependent upon the facts of each individual case. We have no quarrel with any of the cases cited by the defendant but no one of them meets the facts of this case. Here the officers were summoned to investigate the circumstances involving a distressed person. They found him in a stupor, not intoxicated apparently, for there was no odor of alcohol. But he was totally disoriented and incoherent, unable to answer their questions as to Ms condition or identity. For all they knew he may have been a diabetic in shock or a distressed cardiac patient. The officers were faced with an entirely different set of facts requiring different guide lines. TMs was an emergency situation where the welfare of the individual was at stake.
This court has recently discussed a similar emergency situation in People v. Smith, 44 Ill.2d 82, 254 N.E.2d 492 [(1969)]. Though not determinative of the case, we commented that it was reasonable and appropriate for the police to remove a wallet from the clotMng of a seriously wounded and semiconscious person and that the damaging evidence contained therein was admissible in evidence at Ms later trial. We stated that it was reasonable to consider that the wallet might provide information of value in the handling of the wounded man, e.g., information concerning his blood type, being a diabetic, being unable to tolerate certain medications or anesthetics, religious affiliation, and that, in fact, had the officer failed to secure the wallet, a criticism of his professional conduct could not be lightly dismissed. We concluded that under such circumstances the constitutional rights of defendant would not be infringed.
Other jurisdictions have determined the specific point here at issue. In People v. Gonzales, 182 Cal.App.2d 276, 5 Cal.Rptr. 920 [ (1960) ], a case involving a charge of illegal possession of narcotics, it was held that where defendant was found either unconscious or nearly so with a knife wound, a search made for identification of defendant was reasonable and lawful and that the seizure of a package of marijuana from his pants pocket was not a violation of Ms constitutional rights. The court stated that after finding a man in defendant’s condition any alert and conscientious officer would be put on inquiry and the first step in the inquiry would be to clearly identify the victim, and that failure to do so would subject Mm to sever censure. It was stated further that reasonableness is not a mere matter of abstract theory but a practical question to be determined in each case in the light of its own circumstances. In United States v. Hickey, D.C., 247 F.Supp. 621 [ (1965) ], it was held that where an accused was so drunk when found in an alley that it was impossible for the police to be certain that he had even given them Ms correct name and address, a search of defendant to obtain his wallet was justified. The court stated that it was not only the right but the duty of the arresting officer to search an arrested person if necessary to determine his true identity and that where evidence of a greater offense is uncovered in such a search incident to his arrest for *939intoxication such evidence is admissible against him in his trial on the greater offense.
People v. Smith, 47 Ill.2d 161, 265 N.E.2d 189, 140-41 (1970) (emphasis added).
In that case, the officers were seeking identification on the defendant’s person and discovered marijuana in his back pocket. The court refused to suppress the evidence.
Other courts have ruled consistently. Vauss v. United States, 370 F.2d 250 (D.C.Cir.1966); People v. Gomez, 229 Cal. App.2d 781, 40 Cal.Rptr. 616 (1964); State v. Auman, 386 N.W.2d 818 (Minn.Ct.App.1986); Missouri v. Miller, 486 S.W.2d 435 (Mo.1972); Perez v. State, 514 S.W.2d 748 (Tex. Crim.App.1974). See United States v. Wilson, 524 F.2d 595 (8th Cir.1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 945, 96 S.Ct. 1415, 47 L.Ed.2d 351 (1976); Gilbert v. State, 289 So.2d 475 (Fla. Dist.Ct.App,1974), cert. denied, 294 So.2d 660 (Fla.1974).
There can be no question that the community caretaking function is an appropriate role for law enforcement officers. In the AmeRican Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice, the function is described:
Complexity of police task
⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜
(b) To achieve optimum police effectiveness, the police should be recognized as having complex and multiple tasks to perform in addition to identifying and apprehending persons committing serious criminal offenses. Such other police tasks include protection of certain rights such as to speak and to assemble, participation either directly or in conjunction with other public and social agencies in the prevention of criminal and delinquent behavior, maintenance of order and control of pedestrian and vehicular traffic, resolution of conflict, and assistance to citizens in need of help such as the person who is mentally ill, the chronic alcoholic, or the drug addict.
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION STANDARDS FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE § 1-1.1(b) (2d ed. 1986 Supp.).
Major current responsibilities of police
In assessing appropriate objectives and priorities for police service, local communities should initially recognize that most police agencies are currently given responsibility, by design or default, to:
⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜
(e) aid individuals who are in danger of physical harm;
⅛ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜
(f) assist those who cannot care for themselves;
⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜ ⅜
(k) provide other services on an emergency basis.
American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice § 1-2.2 (2d ed. 1986 Supp.).
After quoting from the Standards, LaFave states the proposition unequivocally:
If a reasonable and good faith search is made of a person for such a purpose, then the better view is that evidence of crime discovered thereby is admissible in court.
2 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 5.4(c), at 525 (2d ed. 1987) (footnote omitted). If the person of a defendant can be searched under these circumstances, a wallet in the person’s possession and casually left in the police vehicle surely enjoys no greater protection. This must be especially true when the defendant apparently acquiesced in the examination by the officer.
The foregoing authorities, following what is sometimes referred to as the emergency doctrine, are far more persuasive to me than the two cases from the Oregon Court of Appeals relied upon by the majority. State v. Paasch, 117 Or.App. 302, 843 P.2d 1011 (1992), and State v. Morton, 110 Or.App. 219, 822 P.2d 148 (1991), both involved lost property, a wallet and a purse, and both involved a continuation of the search after identification had been found. The same factual discrepancy is found in State v. May, 608 A.2d 772 (Me.1992).
The facts of this case involve far more than a lost wallet. If we accept the view of the facts most favorable to the State, as we are bound to do, Morris was far less competent *940and coherent than the majority depicts him. He kept lapsing in and out of consciousness; was startled and confused when he recovered consciousness; was confused and disoriented; and even stated he thought he had lost the T-shirt he was wearing some two years previously. More pertinent to these facts is the case of State v. Newman, 49 Or.App. 313, 619 P.2d 930 (1980), in which the Court of Appeals of Oregon reversed a pretrial order suppressing evidence obtained from a search of the defendant’s purse. The defendant was discovered in an apparently intoxicated condition, but the court concluded there was no medical emergency. It held, however, that in evaluating one of his options, that of taking Newman home, the officer needed her home address, or the name and number of someone to call. The Supreme Court of Oregon reversed the Court of Appeals, limiting the question to: “Can the police without a warrant in a noneriminal and nonemergen-ey situation search the property of an intoxicated person for identification at the time the person is taken into custody for transportation to a treatment or holding facility?” State v. Newman, 292 Or. 216, 637 P.2d 143, 145-46 (1981), cert. denied, 457 U.S. 1111, 102 S.Ct. 2915, 73 L.Ed.2d 1321 (1982). I find LaFave’s critique of this decision to be apt:
The curious approach of the Oregon Supreme Court in reversing does not cast any doubt upon the wisdom of the language quoted in the text. Ignoring the fact that the officer acted for the purpose of gaining facts upon which he could decide which alternative disposition would be appropriate, the court misstated the issue as being whether “it was necessary for the police officer to know the name of the person that he was going to transport to the treatment or holding facility.”
2 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 5.4(c), at 526 n. 37 (2d ed. 1987).
Similarly, in this ease, after articulating the fact that the deputy sheriff asked Morris whether there might be found in his wallet any phone numbers of friends, the majority simply ignores the reason for looking for the wallet in the vehicle was so that prospect might be investigated. Instead, the majority treats the case as simply a lost-wallet ease from that point forward. The majority acknowledges the community caretaker function, but does not go forward with that analysis as the courts upon which I rely have done.
We recognized the very function at issue here in Roose v. State, 759 P.2d 478, 483 (Wyo.1988), when we said:
While it is clear the inspection of an arres-tee’s wallet may be proper under an inei-dent-to-arrest rationale, the examination also may be properly conducted under an inventory search rationale or to provide assistance to the police in ascertaining or verifying the arrestee’s identity. Illinois v. Lafayette [462 U.S. 640, 103 S.Ct. 2605, 77 L.Ed.2d 65 (1983)], supra; State v. Brown, 291 Or. 642, 634 P.2d 212 (1981); 2 LaFave, Search & Seizure, supra. As stated in the case of State v. Brown, 291 Or. 642, 634 P.2d at 219, the Oregon Supreme Court stated that “[a] search of person is construed to include clothing and the opening of small closed containers like cigarette boxes and wallets.” Therefore, it was reasonable for the officer to take appellant’s wallet and search its contents.
Even though there might be inventory justification for the examination of Morris’ wallet, I am satisfied that the examination was accomplished “to provide assistance to' the police in ascertaining or verifying” Morris’ identity and to identify a friend or relative who might assist him. Roose, 789 P.2d at 483.
No error was committed by the trial court in admitting the evidence taken from Morris’ wallet, and his conviction should be upheld.