Court Opinion

ID: 9546452
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:29:32.255991+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:28.572325
License: Public Domain

NIX, Judge
(dissenting).
The search herein was made approximately one and one-half hours after the *817arrest, with a warrant that all parties agreed was invalid. The officers admitted that they signed no affidavit to obtain the search warrant and to his knowledge, never swore to anything. If they had properly obtained the warrant this question would never have been before the Court. To obtain a search warrant is a simple thing, and may be rightly done with the least effort. In this writer’s opinion the search was entirely too remote from the arrest to be done without a valid search warrant. The car was left unattended during the one and one-half hours heretofore mentioned and the keys to said vehicle were in custody of the police. I sincerely believe that this set of facts in this case squarely fit those related in Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 84 S.Ct. 881, 11 L.Ed. 2d 777. In that case, the Supreme Court said:
“The rule allowing contemporaneous searches is justified, for example, by the need to seize weapons and other things which might be used to assault an officer or effect an escape, as well as by the need to prevent the destruction of evidence of the crime — things which might easily happen where the weapon or evidence is on the accused’s person or under his immediate control. But these justifications are absent where a search is remote in time or place from the arrest. Once an accused is under arrest and in custody, then a search made at another place, without a warrant, is simply not incident to the arrest.”
and:
“The search of the car was not undertaken until petitioner and his companions had been arrested and taken in custody to the police station and the car had been towed to the garage. At this point there was no danger that any of the men arrested could have used any weapons in the car or could have destroyed any evidence of a crime * * *”
And, page 884:
“Nor since the men were under arrest at the police station and the car was in police custody at a garage, was there any danger that the car would be moved out of the locality or jurisdiction. See Carroll v. United States, supra, 267 U.S. at 153, 45 S.Ct. at 285, 69 L.Ed. 543. We think that the search was too remote in time or place to have been made as incidental to the arrest and conclude, therefore, that the search of the car without a warrant failed to meet the test of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment, rendering the evidence obtained as a result of the search inadmissible.”
The Preston case was reversed and remanded.
As Justice Jackson wrote in the Brine-gar case, [Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160-188, 69 S.Ct. 1302, 1313, 93 L.Ed. 1879] and most brilliantly, wrote:
“The Fourth Amendment states: ‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’
These, I protest, are not mere second-class rights but belong in the catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart. Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government. And one need only briefly to have dwelt and worked among a people possessed of many admirable qualities but deprived - of these rights to know that the human personality deteriorates and dignity and self-reli-*818anee disappear where homes, persons and possessions are subject at any hour to unheralded search and seizure by the police.
But the right to be secure against searches and seizures is one of the most difficult to protect. Since the officers are themselves the chief invaders, there is no enforcement outside of court.
Only occasional and more flagrant abuses come to the attention of the courts, and then only those where the search and seizure yields incriminating evidence and the defendant is at least sufficiently compromised to be indicted. If the officers raid a home, an officer, or stop and search an automobile but find nothing incriminating, this invasion of the personal liberty of the innocent too often finds no practical redress. There maybe, and I am convinced that there are, many unlawful searches of homes and automobiles of innocent people which turn up nothing incriminating, in which no arrest is made, about which courts do nothing, and about which we never hear. Courts can protect the innocent against such invasions indirectly and through the medium of excluding evidence obtained against those who frequently are guilty. Federal courts have used this method of enforcement of the Amendment, in spite of its unfortunate consequences on law enforcement, although many state courts do not.”
These indispensible rights should never be chipped away but should be preserved and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution should be held in the utmost esteem whether it be relative to a man’s home or his automobile which has long been declared one of his effects.
I am of the opinion that the search was illegal and the evidence taken from the trunk of the car should have been suppressed.