Court Opinion

ID: 9764350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:19:26.639713+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:55.686628
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Judge,
dissenting.
The recent United States Supreme Court decision of United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982), held that police officers who have legitimately stopped an automobile and who have probable cause to believe that contraband is sealed somewhere within it “may conduct a search of the vehicle that is as thorough as a magistrate could authorize in a warrant ‘particularly describing the place to be searched.’ ” 102 S.Ct. at 2159. The officers in Ross searched the trunk of a car after receiving information that an individual was selling narcotics which he kept in the trunk of his car. The officers’ search of the trunk revealed a closed brown paper bag and a zippered red leather pouch. In the bag they found a number of glassine bags containing a white powder, later determined to be heroin. When they unzipped the pouch, they discovered $3,200 in cash.
“A lawful search of fixed premises generally extends to the entire area in which the object of the search may be found and is not limited by the possibility that separate acts of entry or opening may be required to complete the search. Thus, a warrant that authorizes an officer to search a home for illegal weapons also provides authority to open closets, chests, drawers, and containers in which the weapon might be found. A warrant to open a footlocker to search for marijuana would also authorize the opening of packages found inside. A warrant to search a vehicle would support a search of every part of the vehicle that might contain the object of the search. When a legitimate search is under way, and when its purpose and its limits have been precisely defined, nice distinctions between closets, drawers, and containers, in the case of a home, or between glove compartments, upholstered seats, trunks, and wrapped packages, in the case of a vehicle, must give way to the interest in the prompt and efficient completion of the task at hand.
“This rule applies equally to all containers, as indeed we believe it must. One point on which the Court was in virtually unanimous agreement in Robbins was that a constitutional distinction between ‘worthy’ and ‘unworthy’ containers would be improper. Even though such a distinction perhaps could evolve in a series of cases in which paper bags, locked trunks, lunch buckets, and orange crates were placed on one side of the line or the other. The central purpose of the Fourth Amendment forecloses such a distinction. For just as the most frail cottage in the kingdom is absolutely entitled to the same guarantees of privacy as the most majestic mansion, so also may a traveler who carries a toothbrush and a few articles of clothing in a paper bag or knotted scarf claim an equal right to conceal his possessions from official inspection as the sophisticated executive with the locked attaché case, (footnotes omitted) [456 U.S. at 820, 822, 102 S.Ct. at 2170, 2171]
a * * *
“The scope of a warrantless search of an automobile thus is not defined by the nature of the container in which the contraband is secreted. Rather, it is defined by the object of the search and the places in which there is probable cause to believe that it may be found. [456 U.S. at 824, 102 S.Ct. at 2172]
a * * *
“If probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies the search of every part of the vehicle and its contents that may conceal the *364object of the search.” 456 U.S. at 825, 102 S.Ct. at 2172.
In the case at bar, the officers had developed probable cause to believe the contraband taken during the course of the robbery would be located in the automobile. Thus, they were authorized to search the entire automobile and any containers therein, where the contraband could have been concealed. The search of Esco’s briefcase was proper and the trial court properly denied appellant Eseo’s motion to suppress.
I dissent.
Before the court en banc.