Court Opinion

ID: 9700679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:43:34.323956+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:13.322030
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent on the same rationale that I have expressed today in my dissent in State v. Patten, 457 A.2d 806 (Me.1983). Specifically, there is no showing here of any exigent circumstance justifying the avoidance of the delay associated with obtaining a search warrant and, thus, permitting application of the so-called “automobile exception” to the warrant requirement. The question presented by this case is not whether the search here was within the scope of a search legitimately conducted under the “automobile exception” to the warrant requirement. Cf. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 349-50, 88 S.Ct. 507, 509-10, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, 580-81 (1967). Rather, the issue is whether, in the time, place, and circumstances of the search actually conducted, any warrantless search of the van was legitimate under that exception.
Here, I suggest, there is even less basis for a finding of the existence of the requisite exigency than is present in Patten II. If anything, the record here makes a positive showing of the absence of any such exigency. The record establishes, without dispute, that the defendant was ordered out of the van, the van was locked at that time, the defendant and the other occupant, Sprague, were arrested, and the possession and control of the locked van was secured by the police officers. The defendant and Sprague were then removed from the scene in the custody of the officers and secured in jail. The locked van was Impounded and removed to the police station on the premise that there was probable cause to believe the van had been used to transport contraband. It quite escapes me how, in such combination of circumstances, there could be even the most remote danger that the defendant or Sprague or anyone else could secure access to the van to destroy evidence or to take possession of weapons contained within the van.
The basic tension in the constitutional theory of vehicular searches is between the constitutionally mandated preference for a warrant in the case of any search and the fleeting character of the opportunity to search that is occasioned by the easily mobile character of a vehicle. A realistic compromise resolution of this tension is intend*803ed to be achieved by the use of the “automobile exception” to the warrant requirement. Where probable cause to search a vehicle exists and the State shows that the mobility of the vehicle creates a substantial peril that the opportunity to search the vehicle will be lost by the delay required to obtain issuance of a search warrant by a magistrate, an “exigent circumstance” exists that justifies the warrantless search of the vehicle. Those two factual elements, (1) the existence of probable cause to search the vehicle and (2) an exigent circumstance, coalesce to relieve the constitutional tension by dispensing with the preference for the warrant.
The majority erroneously interprets Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970) to permit a warrantless search of the vehicle after the exigency that authorizes the search has disappeared.1 457 A.2d at 799-800. Chambers does not support that rationale. Further, the majority’s premise will not stand close scrutiny in principle precisely because that premise allows the applicability of the automobile exception to survive the reason for its application, in derogation of the constitutionally mandated preference for magisterial determinations of probable cause. Chambers, 399 U.S. at 51, 90 S.Ct. at 1981, 26 L.Ed.2d at 428. When, as here, the police themselves have, by their own acts, removed the exigent circumstance, there is no basis whatever on which to dispense with the warrant requirement.
The exigent circumstance must exist when the search is actually conducted. In Chambers, a true exigency existed at the time of the actual search. That fact is somewhat obscured by the sparse factual statement provided by the Court’s opinion. Its existence is not sufficiently subtle, however, to escape careful and objective analysis. Close examination of the facts and the Court’s careful language in Chambers display that the case was decided on the basis that an exigency did, in fact, exist on the record there before the Court when the search was carried out at the station house.
In Chambers, the vehicle in question was “seized” incident to the arrest. Chambers, 399 U.S. at 47, 90 S.Ct. at 1979, 26 L.Ed.2d at 426. The court found that there was probable cause for the arrest and, co-existing with it, probable cause “to search the car for guns and stolen money.” Chambers, 399 U.S. at 47-48, 90 S.Ct. at 1979, 26 L.Ed.2d at 426. The vehicle could have been searched without a warrant “on the spot,” that is, contemporaneously with the arrest. Chambers, 399 U.S. at 52, 90 S.Ct. at 1981, 26 L.Ed.2d at 428-29. The issue presented was whether the officers’ right to search the car without a warrant continued to exist for a reasonable period during which the car was removed from the scene of the arrest to the police station and promptly searched.
The court held that such a search could not be justified as a search “incident to *804arrest” because “the reasons that have been thought sufficient to justify warrantless searches carried out in connection with an arrest no longer obtain when the accused is safely in custody at the station house.” Chambers, 399 U.S. at 47, 90 S.Ct. at 1979, 26 L.Ed.2d at 426. However, the Court said that the search might also be legitimated in certain circumstances by the application of the “automobile exception” to the warrant requirement. Chambers, 399 U.S. at 47-51, 90 S.Ct. at 1979-81, 26 L.Ed.2d at 426-28.
Noting that in Dyke v. Taylor Implement Manufacturing Co., 391 U.S. 216, 88 S.Ct. 1472, 20 L.Ed.2d 538 (1968), the Court did not reach the question of whether warrant-less automobile searches were valid when the vehicle had been removed from the highway to be “parked outside a courthouse,” Chambers, 399 U.S. at 50, 90 S.Ct. at 1980, 26 L.Ed.2d at 427-28, the Court stated that Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), and its progeny do not “require or suggest that in every conceivable circumstance the search of an auto even with probable cause may be made without the extra protection for privacy that a warrant affords.” Chambers, 399 U.S. at 50, 90 S.Ct. at 1980-81, 26 L.Ed.2d at 428 (emphasis added). Thus, the issue to be resolved was the determination of the quality of those circumstances that would legitimate such a search. Noting the particular search problems created by the mobility of the automobile per se and the constitutional preference for a determination of probable cause by “a magistrate,” the Court determined the qualitative test of the legitimating circumstances was that “[o]nly in exigent circumstances will the judgment of the police as to probable cause serve as a sufficient authorization for a search.” Chambers, 399 U.S. at 51, 90 S.Ct. at 1981, 26 L.Ed.2d at 428.
The Chambers Court stated the holding of Carroll to be that “a search warrant [is] unnecessary where there is probable cause to search an automobile stopped on the highway; the car is movable, the occupants are alerted, and the car’s contents may never be found again if a warrant must be obtained. Hence, an immediate search is constitutionally permissible.” Chambers, 399 U.S. at 51, 90 S.Ct. at 1981, 26 L.Ed.2d at 428. The care with which that language bases the legitimate warrantless search on the existence of an exigency posing the peril of loss of the evidence concerning probable cause is compellingly patent and cannot, in reason, be ignored.
The Court in Chambers clearly thought an exigency creating a real peril of loss of the opportunity to search existed at the scene of the arrest because the vehicle “was a fleeting target for a search.” Chambers, 399 U.S. at 52, 90 S.Ct. at 1981, 26 L.Ed.2d at 428-29. All that the Court there held was that the existence of that exigency was not dissipated by the removal of the vehicle from a darkened parking lot to the police station for the safety and convenience of the officers in conducting a prompt search. That removal did not dissipate, without more, the existence of the exigency; “[t]he probable-cause factor still obtained at the station house and so did the mobility of the car....” Chambers, 399 U.S. at 52, 90 S.Ct. at 1981, 26 L.Ed.2d at 429. The Court did not find “unreasonable”2 the change of location of the car for the safety and convenience of the officers.
The Court clearly recognized that in accomplishing the removal of the vehicle to the station house, the officers exercised only a raw, possessory power to relocate the vehicle to a position in which an immediate exercise of their existing right to search the vehicle could be safely and effectively carried out. The vehicle was never im*805pounded in Chambers. The officers had, therefore, throughout the period in question, nothing more than a temporary possession of the vehicle and had no authority to deny its surrender on demand to any person who had a legal right to its possession, use, or ownership. The mobility of the vehicle, coupled with the tenuous character of the officers’ possession of it, continued the exigency that existed at the scene and at the time of the arrest. Chambers, therefore, stands for the proposition that when the existence of probable cause and exigent circumstances authorizes a search of a vehicle, a reasonable relocation of the vehicle, in order that the search may be promptly, safely, and effectively carried out, does not vitiate the existing right to search as long as both probable cause and exigent circumstances continue to exist at the time the search is actually conducted at the new location.
The present case is far removed from one in which the Chambers rule is properly applicable to justify a warrantless vehicle search. The police here had lawfully impounded the van in question and were thereby clothed with the legal authority to deny any person’s claim to possession or use of the van for a time sufficient to permit the issuance of a search warrant. Even if the requisite exigency existed when Bouchles and Sprague were arrested, it was dissipated completely with the impoundment of the van and the maintenance by the police of close, exclusive, and lawful possession of the van. On the demise of the exigent circumstance, there was reborn from its ashes the constitutionally mandated preference for a probable cause determination by a neutral and detached magistrate.
I see no reason why we should not conclude that this search was per se unreasonable because it was conducted without a warrant3 and because the State has failed to overcome the status of an unreasonable search by proof of any “exigent circumstance” justifying the application of the “automobile exception” to the warrant requirement.4 Policemen “engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime” are poorly equipped to perform the function of “a neutral and detached magistrate.” Shadwick v. City of Tampa, 407 U.S. 345, 350, 92 S.Ct. 2119, 2123, 32 L.Ed.2d 783, 788 (1972). A magistrate’s service to the interests of constitutional principle should be delegated to the police only when there exists some compelling exigency that justifies, in reason and in practice, the delegation. See United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 825, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 2173, 72 L.Ed.2d 572, 592 (1982) (Marshall and Brennan, JJ., dissenting).
I would affirm the suppression of the evidence seized from the van. In the absence of any exigency justifying the application of the automobile exception, the search was invalid because it was conducted without a warrant.5

. The impoundment of the van also distinguishes this case from Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973), in which the seized vehicle was removed to a garage seven miles away from the police station. 413 U.S. at 436, 93 S.Ct. at 2525, 37 L.Ed.2d at 712. This case is also distinguishable from Cady because the police officers in Cady “did not have actual, physical custody of the vehicle....” 413 U.S. at 446, 93 S.Ct. at 2530, 37 L.Ed.2d at 717-18, and the vehicle was simply removed “like an obviously abandoned vehicle, [as] it represented a nuisance.” 413 U.S. at 447, 93 S.Ct. at 2531, 37 L.Ed.2d at 718.
Thus, the police in Cady, in contradistinction to the police in this case, had neither an exclusive right to possession of the vehicle nor the power to control access to it. The presence of that right and power make a critical difference, in my opinion, in the result of the analysis of the entire question of the existence of an exigency sufficient to justify dispensing with the requirement of a warrant. When the police do not have effective control over, and access to, the vehicle, an exigency may well exist permitting the search to protect the general public from the danger of, for example, an intruder removing a revolver from the trunk of the vehicle, as in Cady. When, however, the police have lawful possession of the vehicle by im-poundment, and they have legal and actual control of access to the vehicle, it is impossible to say that they are under any exigent pressure to avoid the delay of obtaining a warrant before conducting a search.

. The Court stated:
It was not unreasonable in this case to take the car to the station house. All occupants in the car were arrested in a dark parking lot in the middle of the night. A careful search at that point was impractical and perhaps not safe for the officers, and it would serve the owner’s convenience and safety of his car to have the vehicle and the keys together at the station house.
Chambers, 399 U.S. at 52 n. 10, 90 S.Ct. at 1981 n. 10, 26 L.Ed.2d at 429 n. 10.

. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. at 357, 88 S.Ct. at 514, 19 L.Ed.2d at 585; Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 486, 84 S.Ct. 889, 891, 11 L.Ed.2d 856, 859 (1964); Jones v. United States, 357 U.S. 493, 499, 78 S.Ct. 1253, 1257, 2 L.Ed.2d 1514, 1519 (1958); Niro v. United States, 388 F.2d 535, 540 (1st Cir.1968); State v. Dunlap, 395 A.2d 821, 824-25 (Me.1978); cf. Colorado v. Bannister, 449 U.S. 1, 2-4, 101 S.Ct. 42, 42-44, 66 L.Ed.2d 1, 3-4 (1980) (per curiam).

. United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 52, 72 S.Ct. 93, 95, 96 L.Ed. 59, 64 (1951); Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14-15, 68 S.Ct. 367, 369, 92 L.Ed. 436, 440-41 (1948); see State v. Walker, 341 A.2d 700, 703 (Me.1975); cf State v. Cress, 344 A.2d 57, 64 (Me.1975); State v. Stone, 294 A.2d 683, 689 (Me.), application for bail denied, 409 U.S. 908, 93 S.Ct. 212, 34 L.Ed.2d 169 (1972); State v. Chapman, 250 A.2d 203, 208-10 (Me.1969).

. The “inventory search” exception to the warrant requirement cannot save this search. South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 376, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 3100, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000, 1009 (1976), carefully and explicitly limits the “inventory search” exception to the warrant requirement to circumstances involving non-pre-textual, standard inventories, conducted solely to secure the contents of the vehicle inventoried against loss or harm. The Court specifically notes in its opinion that “there is no suggestion whatever that this standard procedure, essentially like that followed throughout *806the country, was a pretext concealing an investigatory police motive.” Opperman, 428 U.S. at 376, 96 S.Ct. at 3100, 49 L.Ed.2d at 1009 (emphasis added).
In Opperman, the police had absolutely no reason to expect the car in question would contain any contraband, much less any probable cause to so believe. It was impounded and removed from its street location solely because it was illegally parked overnight. It was the absence of any investigatory “police motive” which there made possible the conclusion that the inventory was non-pretextual. It is impossible to find any United States Supreme Court case upholding a search of a motor vehicle as valid strictly on the basis of the inventory search exception in which, simultaneously with the alleged inventory search, the police officers possessed probable cause to believe that contraband or evidence of crime was to be found within the vehicle.
In the present case, the suppression justice found the inventory search pretextual because it was “clearly designed to locate the two ounces of cocaine which the agents had probable cause to believe was inside the van.” Any claim of an inventory search at a time when those doing the searching have probable cause for the search on independent bases, but have not obtained a warrant, must be viewed as extremely suspect if not presumptively pretex-tual. Further, the evidence before the suppression justice clearly supported his finding of pretext and that finding should not be cavalierly overridden. We may overturn the factual predicates of that conclusion only if we find “clear error.” State v. Rand, 430 A.2d 808, 821 (Me.1981); State v. Dunlap, 395 A.2d 821, 824 (Me.1978). The record here before the suppression justice will not support such a finding. See Harmon v. Emerson, 425 A.2d 978, 982 (Me.1981).