Court Opinion

ID: 9726659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:02:37.04636+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:29.622189
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
dissenting.
I join in the dissent of Boslaugh, J. While the record is somewhat confusing, it establishes without contradic*643tion that the State Patrol investigator was aware that Schrader rented the pasture on which the shed was located. The officer thought that the lease also included' the building, and that the defendant Schrader had a valid claim to the shed. The State Patrol officer was the only one with territorial jurisdiction to act.
The majority opinion takes the position that officers may seize property without any probable cause for the seizure of that property simply because someone tells them to do so, and even though the person requesting the seizure claims no interest in the property and no right to dispose of it. The opinion implies that officers may seize property without probable cause simply because they are requested to do so by a stranger, and that the officers have no duty to determine what interest or ownership the stranger may have. The opinion assumes that any person who might have authority to consent to a search of premises also has the right to consent to a seizure without probable cause of any property on the premises, whatever its nature. It also assumes that such a consent cures a complete lack of probable cause, in spite of a lack of ownership or right of control in the person giving the consent.
Everyone involved in the seizure here knew that Krejci claimed no right, title, or ownership in the property seized and had no authority to dispose of it. Everyone involved proceeded on the assumption that the property to be seized had been placed in the shed by the defendant Schrader. Those facts should be enough to invalidate a warrantless seizure without probable cause and without any valid permission or consent for the seizure. On the facts here the majority opinion makes the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable seizures disappear without a trace in a maze of judicial interpretation. The inside of a rented shed becomes an “open field,” and all expectations of privacy vanish because the only entrance to the shed is protected by barbed wire rather than a door, and the shed was lo*644cated outside “the curtilage.” George III would have thoroughly approved such an interpretation, but to many Americans that concept of individual rights is as unacceptable now as it was 200 years ago.
“The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 88 S. Ct. 507, 19 L. Ed. 2d 576. The seizure here was unlawful and unreasonable. The evidence seized should have been excluded.