Court Opinion

ID: 9770561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:09:56.121544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:18.518753
License: Public Domain

DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting.
Because the majority misconstrues the record in support of its finding that the search of Appellant’s vehicle was justified as a search incident to arrest, I respectfully dissent.
As the majority points out, when the prosecutor argued probable cause to search, counsel for Appellant asked, “Could I get a clarification from the State then, Judge? Are you alleging that this is a search incident to arrest?” The prosecutor responded “No.” The majority refers to this exchange as a “single isolated statement made during the middle of arguing another theory for upholding the search.” A careful reading of the record shows that this is simply not the case. Counsel for the State recognized that the search of the vehicle could not be justified as a search incident to arrest. And the trial judge agreed with him.
When counsel for Appellant attempted to argue that the search could not be justified as a search incident to arrest, he was not allowed to do so. More specifically he argued:
[COUNSEL:] We got a guy that’s arrested away from the car. It’s not a search incident to arrest, like in Belton verses New York or—
THE COURT: You don’t need to go into that.
The next day counsel for Appellant was again arguing the invalidity of the arrest. He concluded by stating: “Not that — not that it’s particularly germane to this case, because the State has already conceded that this was not an arrest — a search incident to arrest.”
It is clear that Appellant was not allowed to argue that the search was not a search incident to arrest because the State agreed that the search was not properly a search incident to arrest and because the court implicitly agreed with the State. In his oral findings of fact and conclusions of law, the trial judge specifically found that:
the route reversed [sic] by the officers in making the original arrest of the defendant, and then returning him to the automobile, did not carry them within plain sight of the syringe, which was in the console of the automobile.
And with the further finding that any return trip that might have been made by the officers would not have justified their — would not have placed them in a position where they should legally have been in order to make any such observation.
If a search incident to arrest were permissible under the facts presented to the trial court, the officers could have returned lawfully to Appellant’s car. They would then have been in a position to see the syringe in plain view. When the trial judge found no lawful reason for the officers’ returning to the car, he implicitly found the officers were not justified in placing themselves at or in the car for any reason.
Unlike New York v. Belton, 458 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), the officers in the case before us did not initiate the stop. They did not activate their lights. Instead they waited until Appellant pulled into the driveway, parked his car, got out, and began walking to the house. They did not suggest they were searching the area from which Appellant might gain a weapon or destroy evidence. Remember, Appellant *573was already walking toward the house when first confronted by the officers. The officers observed no violation of the law and did not testify they returned to the car to preserve evidence. There is, consequently, no suggestion that they knew of evidence to be found in the car.
The record reflects no exigent circumstances to avoid the constitutional and statutory warrant requirement. Appellant’s car was parked in the driveway on private property. The record shows Appellant was handcuffed and in the police ear when the officers went first to talk to the people in the house and then detoured to look in Appellant’s automobile “to see what all was in it.” Since the officers had taken the contents of Appellant’s pockets, they had his car keys. Nowhere do the officers state any reason they could not have locked the car, left one officer at the car, and called for a warrant if they indeed had probable cause to search. The State stipulated the white residue found on Appellant was not contraband. They saw the syringe which may or may not have provided probable cause after they went back to the car. The cocaine they found as a result of the search was under the seat in a black pouch inside a zipped blue bank bag. And again, there is no evidence Appellant fled from his car to prevent its search.
There is no evidence to contradict the trial court’s factual and legal finding that the officers had no lawful reason to return to Appellant’s car.
For this court now to hold the search proper as a search incident to arrest is fundamentally unfair because: (1) the State assured Appellant in open court that there was no attempt to justify the search as a search incident to arrest; (2) the trial judge told Appellant that there was no need to offer evidence to rebut that theory; and (3) the trial judge stopped Appellant when he attempted to present the law regarding this theory of admissibility. Additionally, the majority now substitutes its own finding of fact for that of the trial judge. The officers either had a lawful reason for returning to the car or they did not. The trial judge found they did not.
For these reasons I dissent to the thoughtful and diligently researched opinion of the majority,