Court Opinion

ID: 9758379
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 23:26:12.866098+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:50.394547
License: Public Domain

John Mauzy Pittman, Chief Judge, dissenting. This is an appeal from a conviction of manufacturing methamphetamine in the presence of a minor. Appellant argues that the evidence seized during two warrantless searches of his trailer should be suppressed. The majority has reversed on the grounds that both searches were invalid. I dissent because I believe that the first search was valid, and because the items seized during the second search would have inevitably been discovered as a result of the initial, valid search of the premises. Mr. Wyles was the owner of a trailer. He testified that he believed that the former tenants had vacated the trailer after he took steps to evict them for nonpayment of rent so that, when he saw smoke coming from the trailer on March 5, he called the police because no one was supposed to be there. When Garland County Deputy Sheriff Ray Cameron arrived at the trailer in response to the criminal trespass complaint, appellant told him that he lived there and refused to let him in. Deputy Cameron then had his dispatcher call Mr. Wyles, who came to the scene and reaffirmed that no one was supposed to be living there. Mr. Wyles gave Deputy Cameron permission to enter the trailer. When Deputy Cameron did so he smelled a strong chemical odor and “saw a lady that was about eight months pregnant, and a little baby.” Deputy Cameron also saw syringes, generators, and chemicals suspected to be involved in the manufacture of methamphetamine. The chemical vapors were sufficiently strong to cause Deputy Cameron’s eyes to water, and he ordered all of the occupants to leave the trailer and called the Drug Task Force to the scene. The Drug Task Force arrived, was shown the “notice to quit” by Mr. Wyles and, based on Mr. Wyles’s permission, reentered the trailer and secured the items seen by Deputy Cameron. There were thus two warrantless searches, both of which were based on Mr. Wyles’s permission. I believe that the first search was valid. So long as a searching police officer reasonably believes that a person giving consent had authority to do so, the consent is valid, notwithstanding a later determination that the consentor had no authority. Norris v. State, 338 Ark. 397, 999 S.W.2d 183 (1999); Grant v. State, 267 Ark. 50, 589 S.W.2d 11 (1979). The question is whether, on the facts available at the moment, a person of reasonable caution would be warranted in the belief that the consenting party had authority over the premises. If so, the search is valid. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177 (1990). Here, Deputy Cameron had prior knowledge that Mr. Wyles was the owner of the trailer court, and there is no evidence that the deputy knew appellant or that appellant had ever rented the trailer. Furthermore, Deputy Cameron was not called to evict a holdover tenant but was instead sent to investigate a complaint of criminal trespass. When Deputy Cameron, after much knocking, induced appellant to answer the door, appellant made no claim of right to the property other than saying that he “lived there.” Despite the majority’s assertion to the contrary, Deputy Cameron did conduct a further investigation at this point by contacting the complainant for clarification. When Mr. Wyles arrived in response to Deputy Cameron’s call, Mr. Wyles told him nothing about the attempted eviction or appellant’s status as a tenant, but only that Mr. Wyles had noticed smoke coming from the trailer and that “no one was supposed to be living there.” Further investigation therefore was conducted in this case, and led only to further indications that appellant was indeed engaged in criminal trespass, the very offense Deputy Cameron had been called to investigate. Under these circumstances, I think it ludicrous to conclude, as the majority does, that Deputy Cameron could not reasonably believe that Mr. Wyles had authority to consent to the a search of the trailer. The second search, in my view, cannot be justified on these grounds because the Drug Task Force Officers were, on arrival, informed by Mr. Wyles that the matter was actually an eviction based on faulty process. They could not, at this point, reasonably rely on Mr. Wyles’s consent. Nor, in the absence of a more imminent danger, could they conduct a search solely on the basis of exigent circumstances pursuant to our holding in Loy v. State, 88 Ark. App. 91, 195 S.W.3d 370 (2004). They should have secured a warrant. Nevertheless, although the second search was illegal, the fruits thereof need not be suppressed because they would have inevitably been discovered because of the evidence obtained during the initial, legal search. The doctrine is explained in McDonald v. State, 354 Ark. 216, 225-26, 119 S.W.3d 41, 47 (2003), a case involving facts so similar to those presented here as to warrant quotation at length: McDonald advances a similar search-and-seizure challenge in connection with Sergeant Jones’s actions in recording the VIN number on the red four-wheeler parked in the front yard. We need not, however, address the propriety of those warrantless activities because the lawful discovery that the mule was stolen would have inevitably led to the discovery that the red four-wheeler was also stolen. Stated another way, even if we were to conclude that McDonald’s constitutional rights were violated, the circuit court’s denial of his motion to suppress would still be affirmed pursuant to the “inevitable discovery” doctrine. See, e.g., Thompson v. State, 333 Ark. 92, 966 S.W.2d 901 (1998). We have held that suppressed evidence is otherwise admissible if the State proves by a preponderance of the evidence that the police would have inevitably discovered the evidence by lawful means. Miller v. State, 342 Ark. 213, 27 S.W.3d 427 (2000). In 1988, this court adopted the Supreme Court’s rationale in upholding the “inevitable discovery” doctrine: This court cited Nix with approval in Mitchell v. State, 294 Ark. 264, 742 S.W.2d 895 (1988), where we stated,“[t]he state must prove the ‘inevitable discovery’ would have occurred by a preponderance of the evidence.” We find the standard adopted by the Supreme Court in 1984 well suited to the task of securing the goals of the exclusionary rule while assuring that the police are not placed in “a worse position than they would have been in if no unlawful conduct had transpired.” Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 445, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 2509-2510 (1984). Brunson v. State, 296 Ark. 220, 226, 753 S.W.2d 859, 861 (1988). We concluded in Miller that, even if the police officers’ conduct in entering the rear of the defendants’ residence after getting no response at the front door resulted in an illegal search, it was proper for the trial court to deny the defendants’ motion to suppress evidence seized from their home under the “inevitable discovery” doctrine, where an officer who was standing in a parking lot next to the defendants’ residence observed marijuana growing in their backyard. Miller v. State, supra. Similarly, in this case, the police lawfully recorded the VIN number on the stolen mule parked in the driveway. That information alone would have provided sufficient probable cause to procure the search warrant. Armed with a valid search warrant, the officers would have recorded the VIN number from the red four-wheeler and discovered that it was stolen. We are convinced that the State has established by a preponderance of the evidence that the police would have inevitably discovered the evidence by lawful means. In my view, the sights and smells apparent to Deputy Cameron during the initial, valid search would unquestionably have supported issuance of a warrant for the search of the trailer, and inevitable discovery has been established by a preponderance of the evidence. I would affirm on that basis, and I respectfully dissent.