Court Opinion

ID: 9724462
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:57:28.056146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:00.654034
License: Public Domain

Otis, Justice
(dissenting).
In my opinion defendant’s father had no authority in fact or in law to consent to a search, without a warrant, of defendant’s personal belongings located in the closet of his bedroom. Hence, the evidence thereby obtained should not have been received in evidence.
U. S. Const. Amend. IV, adopted as Minn. Const, art. 1, § 10, provides as follows:
“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 warrant 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.”
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. ed. (2d) 1081, 84 A. L. R. (2d) 933, decided June 19, 1961, held that any evidence obtained by a search and seizure in violation of the Constitution is by the same authority inadmissible in a state court. The motion to suppress in the instant case was heard on May 18, 1962, nearly 11 months after the Mapp decision and it governs defendant’s rights in these proceedings.
*413Although illegally obtained evidence was admissible in state courts until the Mapp decision, the United States Supreme Court has long held that under the Fourth Amendment the search of a private dwelling without a warrant is unreasonable and a violation of the Federal Constitution, whether or not there is probable cause for believing evidence to be concealed on the premises.1
In a series of recent cases the Supreme Court has substantially narrowed the area in which there may be intrusions into a dwelling without a warrant, starting with Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 68 S. Ct. 367, 92 L. ed. 436. There the court held that the police were not justified in failing to get a search warrant before entering a residence where opium was being smoked. The court’s opinion stressed the factors which I believe are peculiarly applicable to the instant case (333 U. S. 13, 68 S. Ct. 369, 92 L. ed. 440):
“The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime. Any assumption that evidence sufficient to support a magistrate’s disinterested determination to issue a search warrant will justify the officers in making a search without a warrant would reduce the Amendment to a nullity and leave the people’s homes secure only in the discretion of police officers. Crime, even in the privacy of one’s own quarters, is, of course, of grave concern to society, and the law allows such crime to be reached on proper showing. The right of officers to thrust themselves into a home is also a grave concern, not only to the individual but to a society which chooses to dwell in reasonable security and freedom from surveillance. When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government enforcement agent.
*414“There are exceptional circumstances in which, on balancing the need for effective law enforcement against the right of privacy, it may be contended that a magistrate’s warrant for search may be dispensed with. But this is hot such a case. No reason is offered for not obtaining a search warrant except the inconvenience to the officers and some slight delay necessary to prepare papers and present the evidence to a magistrate: These, are never very convincing reasons and, in these circumstances, certainly are not' enough to by-pass the constitutional requirement. No suspect was fleeing or likely to take flight. The search was of permanent premises, not of a movable vehicle. No evidence or contraband wás threatened with removal or destruction, except perhaps the fumes which we suppose in time would disappear.” (Italics supplied.)
In holding unreasonable the search of a dwelling occupied by gamblers, where policy numbers were seized, the court reiterated the views expressed' in the Johnson case and said that only in a grave emergency is there justification for failing to present the facts to a magistrate. McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 454, 69 S. Ct. 191, 193,93 L. ed. 153, 158.
One other noteworthy decision is Jeffers v. United States, 88 App. D. C. 58, 187 F. (2d) 498, affirmed sub nom. United States v. Jef-fers, 342 U. S. 48, 72 S. Ct. 93, 96 L. ed. 59. There the defendant was charged with purchasing narcotics which were found in a hotel apartment occupied by defendant’s aunts, who permitted him to use their premises although he had a room of his own elsewhere in the same building. The contraband evidence was confiscated by police admitted to the aunts’ room by a hotel employee. The Supreme Court held that under the Fourth Amendment defendant had standing to object to the seizure.
The question then arises as to whether in the instant case the consent of defendant’s father foreclosed defendant’s constitutional rights.2 *415What I regard as a decisive pronouncement on this question is Jones v. United States, 362 U. S. 257, 80 S. Ct. 725, 4 L. ed. (2d) 697, which has rendered state and Federal decisions prior to March 28, 1960, of little assistance in resolving this issue.3 Jones involved a search and a seizure of narcotics found in an awning outside the window of an apartment occupied by defendant as an invitee or guest. While defendant had a key to the premises, his home was elsewhere, and he paid no rent to the person who was actually the tenant. On defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence, the prosecution asserted defendant had no standing to invoke the Fourth Amendment since the contraband was found in an area which was not defendant’s home. In rejecting that contention, the United States Supreme Court stated (362 U. S. 266, 80 S. Ct. 733, 4 L. ed. [2d] 705):
“* * * We do not lightly depart from this course of decisions by the lower courts. We are persuaded, however, that it is unnecessary and ill-advised to import into the law surrounding the constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures subtle distinctions, developed and refined by the common law in evolving the body of private property law which, more than almost any other branch of law, has been shaped by distinctions whose validity is largely historical. Even in the area from which they derive, due consideration has led to the discarding of these distinctions in the homeland of the common law. * * * Distinctions such as those between ‘lessee,’ ‘licensee,’ ‘invitee’ and ‘guest,’ often only of gossamer strength, ought not to be determinative in fashioning procedures ultimately referable to constitutional safeguards.
“* * * No just interest of the Government in the effective and rigor*416ous enforcement of the criminal law will be hampered by recognizing that anyone legitimately on premises where a search occurs may challenge its legality by way of a motion to suppress, when its fruits are proposed to be used against him.” (Italics supplied.)
In concluding, the court emphasized that where the police do not have convincing evidence of the need for an immediate search it is essential that there be an application for a warrant so that evidence in the possession of the police may be weighed by an independent judicial officer “whose decision, not that of the police, may govern whether liberty or privacy is to be invaded.” 362 U. S. 270, 80 S. Ct. 736, 4 L. ed. (2d) 708.
The Jones decision was followed by Chapman v. United States, 365 U. S. 610, 81 S. Ct. 776, 5 L. ed. (2d) 828, which applied the exclusionary rule where a landlord had consented to a raid of his tenant’s premises by police officers. The government there contended that where the owner of the premises found they were being used for criminal purposes he had authority to enter as a matter of right and bring the officers with him. The court held that the purpose of entering was to search for distillery equipment and rejected the argument that the illegal conduct of the tenant forfeited his rights and revested possession in the landlord, pointing out that the landlord had no knowledge of the tenant’s illegal use before the unlawful entry occurred.
By the same reasoning, I suggest that in the instant case the state cannot justify the owner’s reentry of defendant’s bedroom on the theory he only wished to divest himself of any property on the premises which did not lawfully belong there.
Finally, in Stoner v. California, 376 U. S. 483, 84 S. Ct. 889, 11 L. ed. (2d) 856, rehearing denied, 377 U. S. 940, 84 S. Ct. 1330, 12 L. ed. (2d) 303, consent given by a hotel clerk to search a guest’s room was held not to foreclose the guest’s right to invoke the Fourth Amendment. The language of the court in Stoner, I believe, should govern the disposition of the case before us (376 U. S. 489, 84 S. Ct. 893, 11 L. ed. [2d] 860):
“It is important to bear in mind that it was the petitioner’s constitutional right which was at stake here, and not the night. clerk’s nor the *417hotel’s. It was a right, therefore, which only the petitioner could waive by word or deed, either directly or through an agent. It is true that the night clerk clearly and unambiguously consented to the search. But there is nothing in the record to indicate that the police had any basis whatsoever to believe that the night clerk had been authorized by the petitioner to permit the police to search the petitioner’s room.” (Italics supplied.)
In a number of cases which have considered the effect of a parent’s consent to search the home of an accused without a warrant, the court has simply found that the premises did not constitute the residence of the child and hence he had no standing to invoke the Fourth Amendment.4
In other cases where a parent’s or grandparent’s consent was held effective, the opinions failed to show in what part of the premises the confiscated evidence was found, or indicated it was found in an area common to the use of all the household.5 One court has held that where the mother has given consent, the son’s right to object is waived unless asserted by timely motion to suppress the evidence.6 Still another ruled that a daughter may not consent to a search of her mother’s belongings on premises owned by the daughter, and that evidence thus obtained is inadmissible in Federal court. Holzhey v. United States (5 Cir.) 223 F. (2d) 823. In that case, as in this., the search was without a warrant and exploratory in nature.7 In the instant case, the police officer made no claim he was searching for any particular evidence against defendant but stated only that he was looking for “any possible evidence that could connect him with [the robbery].”
*418We are not here dealing with an infant or adolescent child whose conduct a parent has the right and duty to supervise and control. On the contrary, defendant was an emancipated adult who had occupied these premises as his home for more than 15 years. I find nothing in such parent-child relationship from which implied consent to a search and seizure of the kind here involved may be inferred. With or without the payment of rent, I submit the Constitution requires that defendant’s privacy be respected and that his clothing located in living quarters exclusively occupied by him be insulated from intrusion without a warrant as long as he remained in his father’s home with his father’s consent.
I respectfully submit that Roberts v. United States (8 Cir.) 332 F. (2d) 892,8 on which the majority relies does not support its position. There the court held that the evidence in question — a bullet in the ceiling — was found in an area “jointly occupied and controlled” by the defendant and his wife, the latter having given consent to the search. The premises were in her possession. More significantly, however, the court held the search was reasonable because, in contrast to the instant case, “the search did not extend to the personal effects of the appellant.” (332 F. [2d] 897.) (Italics supplied.) Here the defendant’s bedroom and closet were not jointly occupied by defendant and his father, and the gun sought to be suppressed was found concealed in defendant’s clothing. Under these circumstances, I submit the Roberts case compels reversal, and the motion to suppress as to the gun. should have been granted.

Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 32, 46 S. Ct. 4, 6, 70 L. ed. 145, 149; McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 453, 69 S. Ct. 191. 192. 93 L. ed. 153. 157.

Consent must be freely given. State ex rel. Branchaud v. Hedman, 269 Minn. 375, 380, 130 N. W. (2d) 628, 631; Channel v. United States (9 Cir.) 285 F. (2d) 217, 221; Higgins v. United. States, 93 App. D. C. 340, 209 F. (2d) 819; Judd v. United States, 89 App. D. C. 64, 190 F. (2d) *415649; United States v. Roberts (D. D. C.) 179 F. Supp. 478. On the subject of standing, see also Weeks, Standing to Object in the Field of Search and Seizure, 6 Ariz. L. Rev. 65.

Woodard v. United States, 102 App. D. C. 393, 254 F. (2d) 312; Tomlinson v. State, 129 Fla. 658, 176 So. 543; Morris v. Commonwealth, 306 Ky. 349, 208 S. W. (2d) 58; Gray v. Commonwealth, 198 Ky. 610, 249 S. W. 769; People v. Galle, 153 Cal. App. (2d) 88, 314 P. (2d) 58; People v. Gorg, 45 Cal. (2d) 776, 291 P. (2d) 469.

Rees v. Peyton (E. D. Va.) 225 F. Supp. 507; United States v. Maroney (W. D. Pa.) 220 F. Supp. 801.

Morris v. Commonwealth, 306 Ky. 349, 208 S. W. (2d) 58; Combs v. Commonwealth (Ky.) 341 S. W. (2d) 774; Commonwealth v. McKenna, 202 Pa. Super. 360,195 A. (2d) 817.

Maxwell v. State, 236 Ark. 694, 704, 370 S. W. (2d) 113, 119.

See, also, Reeves v. Warden (D. Md.) 226 F. Supp. 953, 960; State v. Evans, 45 Hawaii 622, 631, 372 P. (2d) 365, 372; Bellam v. State, 233 Md. 368, 370, 196 A. (2d) 891, 892; State v. Pina, 94 Ariz. 243, 383 P. (2d) 167.

See, 49 Minn. L. Rev. 565.