Court Opinion

ID: 9762904
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:33:42.314689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:38.404539
License: Public Domain

*653LAMBERT, Justice,
concurring.
Despite the views expressed hereinafter, but being unable to meaningfully distinguish between the case at bar and the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S.-, 113 S.Ct. 2130, 124 L.Ed.2d 334 (1993), which construed the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, I am compelled by Article YI of the Constitution of the United States to concur in the result reached by the majority. Nevertheless, I write separately to express my disagreement with the Dickerson case.
Simply stated, the issue is whether a police officer, rightfully engaged in a Terry1 pat-down search, may seize an item encountered which is known or reasonably believed to be contraband.
There is no conceptual difference between the plain-view and the so-called “plain-feel” doctrine. In each instance, the information gained is by sensory perception and only the degree of certainty, if any, would differ. It has long been the law that an officer engaged in a lawful search may seize any item of contraband within his plain view. Michigan v. Long 463 U.S. 1032, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983). This recognizes that one sworn to enforce the law should not be required to turn a blind eye to the commission of a crime in his presence simply because the initial search was for something other than the contraband discovered. It also recognizes that the constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure do not protect from seizure those items unintentionally encountered in the course of a lawful search. Said otherwise, there is nothing unreasonable about the seizure of items of contraband when the search which brought about the discovery was lawful.
The decision of the Supreme Court in Minnesota v. Dickerson amounts to hairsplitting in the extreme. The opinion acknowledges the right of police officers to conduct a Terry patdown search in a proper ease, but prohibits seizure of contraband discovered in the course of the search unless the contraband is immediately apparent as such.2 Thus, to justify seizure under the Dickerson requirements, the police officer must, on discovery of an item or object on the person of a suspect, simultaneously conclude that the object is not a weapon and that it is contraband other than a weapon. Such decisions must be made instantaneously and as a part of. the same thought process. No further inquiry as to the nature of the object is permitted.
It is unrealistic to require such superhuman conduct. A far more rational rule would be to permit seizure of any item of contraband discovered in the course of a Terry search. Of course, no search would be permitted after it was determined that the suspect was unarmed, but any item suspected of being contraband and discovered in the course of the search for weapons should be subject to seizure and the convoluted process required by Dickerson entirely avoided.
REYNOLDS, J., joins this concurring opinion.

. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).

. The conduct held to be improper was when “the officer determined that the lump was contraband only after ‘squeezing, sliding and otherwise manipulating the contents of the defendant's pocket’ — a pocket which the officer already knew contained no weapon.” Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2138, 124 L.Ed.2d at 347.