Court Opinion

ID: 9605883
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:42:57.238392+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:30.857313
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
RICHARDSON, C.J..
WITH WHOM OGATA. J., JOINS
I dissent.
I would affirm the denial of defendant-appellant’s motion to suppress the evidence seized from her purse. The issue raised by this appeal is the validity of a search, in the execution of a warrant to search premises for marijuana, of a purse belonging to a visitor, which was seized from her after she picked it up off the floor, stood up, and started to walk to the bathroom.
To determine whether the search in this case was unreasonable, the protection of individual privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment must be balanced against the public interest in effective law enforcement of narcotics violations. United States v. Johnson, 475 F.2d 977, 978 (D.C. Cir. 1973). I would uphold this search on two grounds: First I consider the search of the purse to be valid as a search of the premises, not of defendant’s person, and second, I believe the police acted reasonably in this case to prevent the destruction of contraband.
As to the first ground, it is a generally accepted principle that the police may not search the person of either residents or visitors who are present during the execution of a warrant to search premises only. See United States v.Di Re, 332 U.S. 581(1948); but see Brown v. State, 498 S.W.2d 343 (Tex. Crim. App. 1973). Other jurisdictions have held that a search of personal effects such as a briefcase, bag or purse which are not within the physical possession of an individual is not a search of the person and therefore is permissible. United States v. Teller, 397 F.2d 494 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 937 (1968); United States v. Riccitelli, 259 F. Supp. 665 (D. Conn. 1966); United States v. Johnson, supra; see United States v. Micheli, 487 F.2d 429 (1st Cir. 1973) (concurring *591opinion of Campbell, J.).
Hence, I would hold that the search of the defendant’s purse in this case was not one of her person and therefore permissible under the warrant for the premises. Although she subsequently picked the purse up when the police entered the premises, the purse was not being “worn” on her person, but resting separately from her on the floor “in the immediate vicinity of her person. ’ ’ I believe that to consider the purse an extension of her person under the circumstances “would be to suggest that a warrant to search premises may be frustrated by the device of simply picking up the guilty object and holding it in one’s hand.” Walker v. United States, 327 F.2d 597, 600 (D.C. Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 956 (1964).
In United States v. Teller, supra, the defendant had entered the premises and placed her purse upon a bed while the police were conducting the search. The Court of Appeals upheld the search on the grounds that:
Defendant’s purse lying on the bed was merely another household item subject to the lawful execution of the search warrant which the federal agents held and were enforcing. (Citation omitted). Id. at 497.
The court distinguished between the “wearing” of a purse, i.e., when a woman is carrying a purse in harmony with her clothing, from a situation in which a purse is not in the physical possession of its owner, and consequently cannot be viewed as an “extension of her person.”
In United States v.Riccitelli, supra, the police entered the premises in execution of the warrant and observed two women sitting at a table. A purse was in the center of the table between them. The court reasoned that because the defendant did not have physical possession of her purse at the time of the police’s search, it was subject to seizure under the authority of the warrant for the premises notwithstanding her status as a visitor:
The pocketbook in plain view on the table was an obvious receptacle which reasonably should have been inspected to determine whether it contained property described in the warrant for seizure. (Citations omitted). Id. at 666.
*592A search of a briefcase which was found on premises designated in the search warrant was permitted in United States v. Micheli, supra. During the search, the agents discovered the appellant’s briefcase on the floor under a desk. The majority’s rationale in allowing the search was that the appellant was not a mere visitor, but a co-owner of the premises named in the warrant. I believe the concurring opinion of Judge Campbell who viewed this ruling as eviscerating the authority conferred by a valid warrant to search premises to be more cogent. He believed that to require the police to search an individual’s personal effects only if they knew at the time of the search that a close relationship or nexus between the person and the premises existed would impose an impractical burden on the investigative powers of the police. He stated:
[I] think the cause for issuance of the original warrant allows a search of relevant personal effects not in the possession of their owner as well as of all other relevant objects on the premises. The contraband or incriminating evidence covered by the warrant is as likely to be within briefcases or bags just brought on the premises as within other objects on the premises. Id. at 433.
In United States v. Johnson, supra, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the validity of a search of a purse which was sitting on a coffee table in front of the defendant. The police, armed with a warrant to search for narcotics on the premises, knocked at the door and announced their identity. Upon hearing a noise within the apartment followed by the sound of a window breaking, they executed a forced entry. The police entered the living room and saw the defendant sitting on a couch with her purse on a coffee table in front of her. They searched the purse which yielded narcotics and arrested her. The issue before the court in Johnson was the same as in the instant case:
. . . whether the scope of the search warrant embraced an object in the apparent possession of a person not an occupant of the premises searched. Id. at 978.
In finding the search “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment, the Court reasoned:
*593[W]e note that the search was of a purse resting separately from the person of its owner. As such, it was not being “worn” by appellee and thus did not constitute an extension of her person so as to make the search one of her person. (Citations omitted)
. . . the police could reasonably have believed that items sought and described in the warrant had been concealed in the purse, and, notwithstanding appellee’s status as a visitor on the premises, could have searched the purse in pursuit of items for which the warrant issued, (footnotes omitted). Id. at 979.
In Walker v. United States, supra, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the seizure of a “purse wallet” and paper bag from the person of the defendant in the execution of a warrant to search the premises for narcotics. When the police officer arrived at the premises, he discovered the door open and that he could see the defendants within. After announcing his identity and that he had a search warrant, he saw one defendant pass the wallet and bag to the other defendant. The officer thereupon entered the premises and seized the two items, which were subsequently found to contain narcotics. The court held that under the circumstances, the authority of the warrant embraced the seizure of the wallet and bag. It was not unreasonable to suppose that they were receptacles for heroin. Because the two items would clearly be within the ambit of the warrant had they been on a table or on the floor, they should not be immune from search merely because they were within a defendant’s physical possession.
This court recently considered the issue of the protection of an individual from unreasonable governmental intrusion under a search warrant for premises in State v. Davenport, 55 Haw. 90, 516 P.2d 65 (1973). There we upheld the search of a wallet and matchbox lying on a dresser top within four feet of the bed on which defendant Davenport, not named in the warrant, but a resident of the premises, had been sleeping at the time of the warrant’s execution. In executing the warrant, police rousted Davenport out of bed and herded him along *594with other occupants into another room prior to conducting a particularized search of Davenport’s bedroom. In sanctioning the search we stated:
Certainly a matchbox and a wallet, which are plausible repositories for marijuana and which are exposed on the top of a table, are not beyond the scrutiny of police officers executing a warrant which describes “marijuana” as the thing to be seized. Id. at 100, 516 P.2d at 72.
I believe that a woman’s purse is similar in nature to a man’s wallet which we held searchable under the circumstances in Davenport, supra. A purse cannot gain the peculiar status of an “extension of the person” per se when it is picked up by its owner as in this case.
Turning to the second ground for upholding this search, we recognized in Davenport, supra at 99, 516 P.2d at 71, that because drugs are by their nature easily destroyed or secreted, forced entry by the police onto a premises may be vindicated under certain circumstances. Moreover, due to the mobility of such contraband we held that a warrant “gives the officers executing it authority to search, in a reasonable manner, whatever spots within the described premises their professional experience indicates may be used as a cache.” Id. at 100, 516 P.2d at 72.
Flushing contraband down the toilet is a convenient means of disposal. Therefore, the police in this situation would have been derelict in their duty had they not acted quickly to ascertain whether evidence was about to be destroyed when the defendant picked up her purse and headed toward the bathroom.