Court Opinion

ID: 9552122
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 19:05:00.709236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:25:40.371607
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ERICKSON
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The burden of proof, of course, was upon the district attorney to establish facts and circumstances which would bring the warrantless searches and seizures here within the exceptions to the warrant requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution. In my view, there was a total failure to do so and the conclusion of the district court that the evidence seized should be suppressed was proper.
Concerning the search and seizure of November 19, the consent of the ranch landlord was not sufficient to authorize the search of the pasture where the items were seized. Stover v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856; Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 81 S.Ct. 776, 5 L.Ed.2d 828; People v. Boorem, 184 Colo. 233, 519 P.2d 939; Condon v. People, 176 Colo. 212, 489 P.2d 1297. There is no evidence that the defendant granted his landlord authority to consent to an entry into the pasture for the purposes of the search; and the record discloses no consent whatsoever to the subsequent ranch searches. Similarly, the warrantless search of the truck located on private property, 150 yards from the public road, was not supported by the defendant’s consent.
The record is also devoid of substantial evidence from which it could be concluded that the items seized were in plain view, as is argued by the district attorney. No testimony was offered that the bee boxes and equipment, as seen from the airplane, were identifiable as property stolen from the Johnstons. Also, it was not established that the bee boxes on the *364flatbed truck, as viewed from the public road, were stolen property. The view from the air and the roadway of this equipment would at most raise a reasonable suspicion for the issuance of a warrant.
Nowhere in the record is there any suggestion of an emergency situation that timewise would preclude the officers from obtaining a search warrant. There was no demonstration of exigent circumstances that would justify the warrantless search.
Finally, the record does not support the district attorney’s contention that defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy regarding the pasture area and the flatbed truck, thus taking these searches outside the ambit of the Fourth Amendment. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576. In particular, the scant record in this case fails to support any finding that the prosecution met its burden of proof in showing that no expectation of privacy existed. To evade the warrant requirement by finding the Fourth Amendment totally inapplicable in this context is to invert the burden of proof and invite the prosecution to short-cut constitutional restraints upon intrusion by police officers.
In sum, the district attorney failed to sustain his burden or to justify the warrantless searches.