Court Opinion

ID: 9518955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:05:49.44808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:39:21.202352
License: Public Domain

RATLIFF, Presiding Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion but would go further and declare Indiana Code section 14-2-9-1 unconstitutional insofar as it purports to confer upon conservation officers the authority to enter upon private property without a warrant simply upon having good reason to believe they will secure evidence of a violation of certain game laws. Conservation officers are subject to the same constitutional restrictions as other law enforcement officers. The legislature may not extend authority which transcends constitutional limitations.
Both the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Article 1, Section 11 of the Constitution of Indiana protect people from unreasonable searches and seizures, and provide that no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the thing to be seized. Icannot equate good reason to believe with probable cause and believe that Ind.Code § 14-2-9-1 approves a lesser standard than that mandated by both the federal and state constitutions. Further, the showing of probable cause merely authorizes the issuance of a warrant, it does not dispense with the warrant requirement. If the officers named in the statute are entitled to enter upon private property without a warrant, that entry must be justified by both the existence of probable cause and some exigent cireum-stance which is within the recognized exigent cireumstance exception to the warrant requirement. Those exceptions are clearly delineated in Judge Garrard's opinion in Sayre v. State (1984), Ind.App., 471 N.E.2d 708, 714 as quoted in the majority opinion. Because Ind.Code § 14-2-9-1 purports to grant powers to the officers therein named *288which exceed the constitutional limitations upon the exercise of such powers, it violates both the state and federal constitutions.