Court Opinion

ID: 9692654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:59:29.11986+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:35.859006
License: Public Domain

MOSER, P.J.
(dissenting). To begin with my reasons for dissent, I first note that the majority opinion overlooks the historical facts found by the tried court. Therefore, they have to be explicated here. On September 30, 1987, Milwaukee detective deputy sheriff Edmund Banaszak (Banaszak) was assigned three arrest warrants for Murdock. Two warrants were for possession of controlled substances, and one was for battery while armed with a knife. Banaszak and three other detectives assigned to arrest Murdock were also told that Murdock had previously pointed a weapon at a woman.
Banaszak and his three colleagues went to the Milwaukee rooming house where Murdock lived. After arriving at the rooming house, the officers were advised that Murdock had rented room "2," but was at that time moving into room "15," which was adjacent to room "2" and joined by a doorway.1 At the suppression hearing, Banaszak stated that he knocked on the door to room "15," announced the presence of the police, heard movement within the room, and waited from ten to fifteen minutes for a response. When the door finally opened, he and his three colleagues walked in with their weapons drawn. The dimensions of the room were either ten feet by twelve feet or twelve feet by fourteen feet. Banaszak ordered the three people in the room to "hit the floor." They complied immediately, and while lying on their stomachs, their hands were handcuffed behind their *212backs. Banaszak handcuffed Murdock, and while still bending over Murdock, observed detective Eugene Welch (Welch) holding a .22 caliber bullet which Welch found on a shelf in a small pantry. The pantry area was adjacent to the room, and was located three to four feet from Murdock's head as he lay face down and handcuffed on the floor. At that time, Banaszak also saw Welch open the middle drawer of a set of drawers built into the pantry wall, and extract a sawed-off rifle.
On cross-examination at the suppression hearing, Banaszak testified that Murdock's room was stabilized before the rifle was found. His testimony was as follows:
Q Mr. Banaszak, you testified that you have been a member of the Sheriffs Department for approximately 21 years; is that correct?
A Twenty-two.
Q Twenty-two years. Have you received training in proper arrest procedures?
A Yes.
Q Would it be correct to say that the first matter to be taken care of in arresting someone is to ensure that that person being arrested is subdued and cannot flee?
A No.
Q What would be the first step in that procedure?
A Stabilizing the area.
Q What do you mean by stabilizing the area?
A Making sure everybody I observed there [sic] actions and that they're not in any position to injure anyone.
Q Did you take that step in this case?
A Yes.
*213Detective Welch testified similarly as follows:
Q So, every single person in that room had been more or less placed under control with handcuffs behind their backs and they were laying on the floor?
A Yes.
The detectives provided further uncontested testimony which established that throughout the arrest there was no struggle, no evasive action taken, no resistance and no escape attempts by anyone. In short, Murdock and his two guests immediately cooperated with every police request.
The trial court found that all of the above was historical fact, and particularly stressed that Murdock and his two guests were face down, with their hands handcuffed behind their backs, when Welch found the bullet, proceeded to rummage through the drawers in the pantry, and ultimately removed the sawed-off rifle. Furthermore, Banaszak was bent over Murdock's prone body, and Welch was positioned between Murdock and the weapon.
The trial court noted that while the officers had a right to be on the premises to make a lawful arrest and to seize the bullet, they did not have the right to make a further search on the pretense that because Murdock's head was approximately three to four feet from the pantry area, they feared for their safety. The trial court also noted that the officers had the situation under complete control, that the area was stabilized, and that there was no resistance. It therefore held that the search was unreasonable and unwarranted. In so doing, the court rejected the State's argument that it accept as a bright-line rule that a search of a home is an extension of the law, as authorized by the United States Supreme Court *214in New York v. Belton,2 and the Wisconsin Supreme Court in State v. Fry,3 involving constitutionally valid automobile searches.
The majority opinion here rejected the trial court's determination that the search was illegal, and held that the search was valid because it was a logical extension of Belton and Fry. I disagree because the majority has disregarded the trial court's findings of historical facts, and has literally created its own. Also, Belton and Fry involved automobile searches which were incident to arrest and where the areas searched were within the control of the arrestee. Those cases did not involve searches of homes, and thus their extension to this case is limited.
In reviewing an order suppressing evidence, the trial court's findings of evidentiary or historical facts must be upheld unless they are against the great weight and clear preponderance of the evidence.4 I believe the majority opinion ignores the uncontroverted historical facts obtained from the testimony of Banaszak and Welch. When they entered Murdock's home, all four detectives had their weapons drawn. Banaszak ordered Murdock and his two guests to the floor. They immediately complied. After the three men had their hands handcuffed behind them, and were lying facedown on the floor, and *215while Banaszak was leaning over Murdock's prone body, Welch found a bullet on a shelf in the pantry. Welch was standing in the pantry, between Murdock and the drawers he was opening. The trial court found that the detectives had "stabilized the area" by making sure that Mur-dock and his guests were not in any position to injure any one, and that every person in the room was placed under control.
It is on these historical facts that the trial court concluded that the detectives were in control of the area, that Murdock could not secure the weapon, and that therefore the search was constitutionally unreasonable. Whether a search is reasonable is a question of constitutional fact.5 Such findings of constitutional fact are reviewed by appellate courts independently.6 On review of these constitutional fact findings, an appellate court cannot ignore the trial court's findings of historical facts. Rather, we must apply constitutional principles to the facts as found.7 However, the majority here has ignored the trial court's findings of historical facts. In addition, the majority has adopted a bright-line rule relative to home searches, and determined that the search of Mur-dock's home was reasonable because every arrest must be presumed to present a risk of danger to the arresting officer(s). In support of this presumption, the majority cites to a federal uniform crime report which suggests that during 1987, twenty-seven police officers were killed in arrest situations. Those deaths are tragic, but they are not presented in the record of the case before this court, and cannot be used to support a rejection of the trial *216court's historical and constitutional fact finding. Under the facts of this case, Murdock could not secure the weapon found by Welch, and thus there was an unwarranted, unreasonable search through the drawers in the pantry of his home.
I further reject the majority's finding as constitutional fact that the unwarranted search was reasonable because of the possibility that the evidence might be destroyed. There is absolutely no historical evidence in the record, argument to the tried court, ruling by the trial court or argument in the appellate briefs tendered to this court on the issue of destruction of evidence. Such a finding of constitutional fact by this court has no merit.
The United States Supreme Court has held that there are two justifications for an unwarranted search of a home incident to a lawful arrest: (1) if there is a need to remove any weapons that the arrestee might try to use to resist arrest, or (2) to prevent the destruction or concealment of evidence.8 The Supreme Court distinguished the necessity and inherent reasonableness of searching an arrested person, or an area that the arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon, by stating that there is
no comparable justification, however, for routinely searching any room other than that in which an arrest occurs — or, for that matter, for searching through all the desk drawers or other closed or concealed areas in that room itself. Such searches, in the absence of well-recognized exceptions, may be made only under the authority of a search warrant.9
The Court also held that trial court decisions regarding claimed illegal searches incident to a lawful arrest must be approached on a case-by-case basis to determine if a *217search is reasonable under the fourth amendment.10 This test is still the law in this country concerning the validity of a search of a home incident to a lawful arrest.11 This court has no authority to change existing law, and we are bound by the mandates of the Supreme Court. The fact of the matter is that the majority opinion is not a logical extension of the United States Supreme Court's decision in Chimel, as construed in Belton and Fry. Instead, the majority opinion arrogates to itself the power to reverse Chimel. No federal or state lower courts can reject a United States Supreme Court construction of the federal Constitution; it is the duty of inferior courts to administer the Constitution as construed by our highest court.12
Thus, after finding historical facts, trial courts must then determine whether arresting officers properly searched an arrest scene. If an item is found pursuant to such a search, a trial court must ascertain whether the search incident to the arrest was valid because the item found, such as the weapon here, was in an area accessible to the arrestee, and that the arrestee might grab it in an attempt to resist arrest. Under the historical facts of this case, no such determination can be made.
I thus conclude that the majority opinion finds constitutional facts that cannot be derived from the historical facts. I differ, and would hold that the trial court's determination that the search of the pantry drawers was unreasonable was correct, because under the fourth amendment, one's home is entitled to special dignity and sanctity, and fundamentally, searches such as this are *218per se unreasonable.13 Furthermore, I would affirm the trial court's finding as historical fact that the weapon found was in an area which Murdock could not possibly access, thus the search was unreasonable. I would therefore affirm the trial court's decision.

 See State v. Warfield, 184 Wis. 56, 60, 198 N.W. 854, 856 (1924). A person's rented room in a rooming house is his/her home for purposes of determining whether a reasonable or unreasonable search and seizure has taken place under the Wisconsin Constitution, art. I, sec. 11, and the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution.

 453 U.S. 454 (1981). The Supreme Court reversed the New York State Court of Appeals, and held that it was proper for police to search an automobile glove compartment while the defendant stood outside the automobile.

 131 Wis. 2d 153, 388 N.W.2d 565 (1986). Our supreme court extended Belton to allow a police search of an automobile glove compartment when the defendant was out of the automobile, handcuffed and sitting in a police automobile.

 State v. Guzy, 139 Wis. 2d 663, 671, 407 N.W.2d 548, 552 (1987).

 See State v: Flakes, 140 Wis. 2d 411, 426, 410 N.W.2d 614, 620 (Ct. App. 1987).

 Fry, 131 Wis. 2d at 171, 388 N.W.2d at 574.

 State v. Owens, 148 Wis. 2d 922, 931, 436 N.W.2d 869, 873 (1989).

 Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763 (1969).

 Id.

 Id. at 765.

 See Belton, 453 U.S. at 460.

 See South Carolina v. Bailey, 289 U.S. 412, 420 (1933).

 See Laasch v. State, 84 Wis. 2d 587, 594, 267 N.W.2d 278, 283 (1978).