Court Opinion

ID: 9427221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:20:03.148538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:03.717210
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rbhnqtjist,
dissenting.
I agree with my Brother Stevens, for the reasons expressed in his dissenting opinion in Marshall v. Barlow’s, Inc., ante, at 328, that the “Warrant Clause has no application to routine, regulatory inspections of’ commercial premises.” Since in my opinion the searches involved in this case fall within that category, I think the only appropriate inquiry is whether they were reasonable. The Court does not dispute that the entries which occurred at the time of the fire and the next morning were entirely justified, and I- see nothing to indicate that the *517subsequent searches were not also eminently reasonable in light of all the circumstances.
In evaluating the reasonableness of the later searches, their most obvious feature is that they occurred after a fire which had done substantial damage to the premises, including the destruction of most of the interior. Thereafter the premises were not being used and very likely could not have been used for business purposes, at least until substantial repairs had taken place. Indeed, there is no indication in the record that after the fire Tyler ever made any attempt to secure the premises. As a result, the fire department was forced to lock up the building to prevent curious bystanders from entering and suffering injury. And as far as the record reveals, Tyler never objected to this procedure or attempted to reclaim the premises for himself.
Thus, regardless of whether the premises were technically “abandoned” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, cf. Abel v. United States, 362 U. S. 217, 241 (1960); Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57 (1924), it is clear to me that no purpose would have been served by giving Tyler notice of the intended search or by requiring that the search take place during the hours which in other situations might be considered the only “reasonable” hours to conduct a regulatory search. In fact, as I read the record, it appears that Tyler not only had notice that the investigators were occasionally entering the premises for the purpose of determining the cause of the fire, but he never voiced the slightest objection to these searches and actually accompanied the investigators on at least one occasion. App. 54-57. In fact, while accompanying the investigators during one of these searches, Tyler himself suggested that the fire very well may have been caused by arson. Id., at 56. This observation, coupled with all the other circumstances, including Tyler’s knowledge of, and apparent acquiescence in, the searches, would have been taken by any sensible person as an indication that Tyler thought the *518searches ought to continue until the culprit was discovered; at the very least they indicated that he had no objection to these searches. Thus, regardless of what sources may serve to inform one’s sense of what is reasonable, in the circumstances of this case I see nothing to indicate that these searches were in any way unreasonable for purposes of the Fourth Amendment.
, Since the later searches were just as reasonable as the search the morning immediately after the fire in light of all these circumstances, the admission of evidence derived therefrom did not, in my opinion, violate respondents’ Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. I would accordingly reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court of Michigan which held to the contrary.