Court Opinion

ID: 9628810
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:32:22.934548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:11.733557
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE ERICKSON
specially concurring:
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but I cannot adopt the analysis which is offered as a foundation for the majority’s conclusion. A statute enacted by the General Assembly of this state, which is presumed to be constitutional and whose constitutional infirmity must be shown beyond a reasonable doubt, should not be struck down in summary fashion.
In Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U.S. 72, 90 S.Ct. 774, 25 L.Ed.2d 60 (1970), the Court analyzed a similar statutory authorization for warrantless seizures. In noting that the liquor industry had historically been subject to close governmental regulation, the Colonnade Court found the basis for an exception to the warrant requirement in two factors: (1) indications that licensing inspections were not always to be measured by the warrant requirement, see Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886), and (2) the promulgation by legislative authority of standards specifically regulating the procedures and scope of the inspection power. See Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, supra (“Congress had broad authority to fashion standards of reasonableness” for administrative searches in the liquor industry context); United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311, 92 S.Ct. 1593, 32 L.Ed.2d 87 (1972) (statute authorizing administrative searches was “carefully limited in time, place and scope”).
While this court has recognized the historical fact that the liquor industry has long been the subject of close supervision and inspection, see Granbery v. District Court, 187 Colo. 316, 531 P.2d 390 (1975), the instant statute is nonetheless defective in its generality. It establishes what we would construe to be the equivalent of a probable cause requirement (“reasonable information”), but allows the warrantless intrusion into “a«y place” and, apparently, at any time. Likewise, the scope and purposes of such a search are left to the discretion of any officer or other person authorized by the statute. These defects leave the inspection or search in the category of the “general searches” which the Colorado and United States Constitutions have always condemned. The unlimited grant of power makes searches authorized by this statute “unreasonable.” Accordingly, we need not address the full question of the role of the warrant requirement in this context.
These are the narrow and specific grounds upon which I would hold the statute unconstitutional. Broader issues are not subject to *31determination in this case.
MR. JUSTICE CARRIGAN joins me in this special concurrence.