Court Opinion

ID: 9739691
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:19:31.908792+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:07.127641
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(concurring in part and concurring in result in part).
I concur on Issue III, sufficiency of the evidence, and Issue IV, severance. I disagree with the majority’s language or treatment of all other issues and concur in result only.
1. Both Krebs (the owner) and Davis (his companion and passenger) had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the interior, glove compartment and trunk of the automobile. Therefore, both have standing to challenge illegal searches and seizures of same. See generally 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure §§ 11.3(c) & 11.3(e) (2d ed. 1987) (Court's analysis in Rawlings generally unsound and is an ill-considered application of the Mancusi-Rakas expectation-of-privacy rule).
In Rakas, [] the Supreme Court made clear that a defendant can have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area searched, or the object seized, if he can *592show a possessory interest in them. The Court held that the defendants’ fourth amendment claims in that case must fail because they “asserted neither a property nor a possessory interest in the automobile, not an interest in the property seized.” Rakas, 439 U.S. at 148, 99 S.Ct. at 433. The Court held that the defendants were “mere passengers” in the vehicle searched and that “passengers qua passengers” had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the glove compartment, the area under the seats, or the trunk of the vehicle in which they were riding. Id. at 148-49, 99 S.Ct. at 433.
State v. Villines, 304 Ark. 128, 801 S.W.2d 29, 30 (1990).
Unlike Rakas, Davis was more than a “passenger qua passenger.” Krebs and Davis had traveled across the State in this car. Davis surely had personal belongings in the interior and trunk as he had been living out of this car during the course of their intrastate travels. The fact that he kept his asthma medication in the glove compartment is certainly an indication of the fact that this car was, for the most part, his temporary home. Clearly, Davis was more than a “mere passenger” * and had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the interior of the car, the glove compartment, and the trunk. See Villines, 801 S.W.2d at 30-31. See also 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 11.3(e) (2d ed. 1987).
The Supreme Court’s decision in Rakas v. Illinois, rejecting the notion that a passenger gains standing to object to search of a car merely by his lawful presence and adopting instead a narrower expectation-of-privacy test, does not conflict with the notion that, at least in some circumstances, a person may have standing by virtue of the fact that his personal property is in the car. The Court in Rakas emphasized that in that case the defendants asserted no “interest in the property seized,” and that the decision was not to be read as saying “that such visitors could not contest the lawfulness of the seizure of evidence or the search if their own property were seized during the search.”

Id.

2. The second question is whether the officers had Kreb’s consent to search the interior and glove compartment of the automobile. Under these circumstances, this question turns on whether the trial court believed the testimony of the officers over that of the defendants. It did, and we are bound by that finding of fact. “Quite simply, this issue comes down to the trial court’s judging credibility. It was in the position to observe the witness testifying, and we give due regard to its superior position to judge credibility.” State v. Zachodni, 466 N.W.2d 624, 628 (S.D.1991) (citation omitted). See also Nemeti, 472 N.W.2d at 480 (Sabers, J., dissenting). Therefore, there was consent.
3. Since there was no consent to search the trunk, the third question is whether there was probable cause, at that point, to search the trunk. In arguing that “probable cause existed” “within the automobile exception to the warrant requirement,” the State’s brief claims that:
Davis and Krebs could not have been held until a search warrant for the trunk was obtained. If that process could have been used, a search warrant would have been obtained for the trunk.
These statements by the State appear to allege that, at the time the police searched the trunk, they did not have probable cause to arrest Davis and Krebs.
In Beck v. Ohio [379 U.S. 89, 85 S.Ct. 223, 13 L.Ed.2d 142 (1964) ], the Supreme Court declared that police have probable cause to effect an arrest when:
... the facts and circumstances within their knowledge and of which they [have] reasonable trustworthy infor*593mation [are] sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing that the [suspect] had committed or was committing an offense.
Charles H. Whitebread and Christopher Slobogin, Criminal Procedure § 3.03 (2d ed. 1986). Clearly, based upon the findings that the trial court made, not only did the police have probable cause to search the trunk, they also had “facts and circumstances within their knowledge” sufficient to establish probable cause to arrest Davis and Krebs.
4. Finally, I concur in the holding of Issue II, other bad acts evidence, and simply submit that we have now properly overruled this court’s prior holding in State v. Itzen, 445 N.W.2d 666 (S.D.1989). As I stated therein, “[t]he evidence of the other incidents [was] admissible because [it] tend[s] to prove that defendant committed the third incident.” Id. at 670 (Sabers, J., dissenting). The same reasoning would apply here under the plan or modus operandi exception where identity is in issue.

 LaFave defines persons who are "merely passengers” as persons not asserting either a property or possessory interest in the vehicle, nor an interest in the property seized. "[C]ertain passengers are not 'merely passengers’ in the sense in which that phrase was used in Rakas, so that they do have a justified expectation of privacy at least as to certain areas in the vehicle." 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 11.3(e) (2d ed. 1987 & Supp.1993).