Court Opinion

ID: 9643850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:41:49.551835+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:04.409793
License: Public Domain

Bois, J.,
dissenting: We have recently held that the “governmental interest in protecting the confinement area and the individual to be confined, and the integrity of the police in the administrative handling of the defendant’s personal belongings while he is incarcerated, outweighed the individual’s right to privacy in his possessions.” State v. Levesque, 123 N.H. 52, 57, 455 A.2d 1045, 1048 (1983); Illinois v. Lafayette, 103 S. Ct. 2605 (1983); see also South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976)
This pronouncement not only reaffirmed but also strengthened this court’s unanimous holding in State v. Maxfield, 121 N.H. 103, 427 A.2d 12 (1981).
Because the stated purpose of a routine administrative inventory search is the protection of the interests of an individual in custody, as well as those of the police and of society, I can see no difference between the search of a person in protective custody because he is “intoxicated and incapacitated” within the meaning of RSA ch. 172-B (Supp. 1981) and that of one who is in custody or under arrest because of the commission of a crime. And I must therefore respectfully dissent.