Court Opinion

ID: 9759251
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:10:12.226896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:00.514121
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Justice,
dissenting.
The majority has erroneously treated two separate, independent searches of appellant’s bedroom as one and hence has erroneously concluded that evidence in “plain view” was constitutionally obtained. The knife which the victim identified at trial as having been used by appellant was recovered by police not during a protective search “to insure their safety” but during the same unjustified search of the bedroom which the majority holds resulted in the unconstitutional seizure of the gun. The conclusion is inescapable that not simply the gun but also the knife seized during that search was unconstitutionally obtained and that the admission of both of these weapons into evidence was reversible error. Thus I dissent.
Three police officers entered appellant’s apartment to arrest him. While two officers remained in the living room with appellant, Detective Stasiak made a cursory search of appellant’s bedroom. Detective Stasiak testified that during this search he saw “[j]ust the clothing and the fenders.”1 Detective Stasiak did not see the knife nor did he personally seize any evidence. Detective Stasiak returned to the living room, where he made a telephone call requesting “the crime lab to be sent to our location.”2 After this telephone call, Detective Stasiak and Detective Strunk undertook a search of “pretty much the whole apartment”3 while the third officer remained with appellant. It was during this second search, which Detective Stasiak testified was “in search for the gun,”4 that Detective Strunk entered appellant’s bed*325room. Detective Strunk looked under the mattress, where he found and seized the gun. At the same time he also discovered and seized the knife which was lying on the nightstand by the bed.
The Supreme Court of the United States has made clear that “plain view alone is never enough to justify the warrantless seizure of evidence.” Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 468, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2039, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971) (emphasis in original).
“What the ‘plain view’ cases have in common is that the police officer in each of them had a prior justification for an intrusion in the course of which he came inadvertently across a piece of evidence incriminating the accused.”
Id. at 446, 91 S.Ct. at 2038. See Byars v. United States, 273 U.S. 28, 29, 47 S.Ct. 248, 248, 71 L.Ed. 520 (1927) (“[a] search prosecuted in violation of the Constitution is not made lawful by what it brings to light”). On this record, as the majority properly recognizes, there was no justification for the “thorough search of the bedroom.” As the majority states, this warrantless intrusion “occurred after defendant was securely held and after it was apparent there was no one else in the apartment to endanger the officers.” 446 A.2d at 250. Where, as here, the police unjustifiably intrude upon a person’s privacy, any evidence seized during that unconstitutional intrusion whether concealed or in “plain view” is unconstitutionally obtained. See generally Burkoff, Bad Faith Searches, 57 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 70 (1982).
As the improper admission of the knife and gun, which were used to link appellant directly to the crimes with which he was charged, cannot be considered harmless error, the order of the Superior Court should be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.
FLAHERTY, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. Notes of Testimony at 86.

. Id. at 66.

. Id. at 101.

. Id. at 84.