Court Opinion

ID: 9618797
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:17:23.468226+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:32.232102
License: Public Domain

Brachtenbach, J.
(dissenting) — I dissent. The officer had in custody an admitted minor in possession of alcohol. The minor initiated the journey to his room to obtain identification.1
*719The majority holds that the plain view exception fails because the officer did not have a prior justification for the intrusion. What the majority fails to explain convincingly is why the officer was not entitled to keep the arrested person within his sight. The majority's conclusion does not rest upon any cited authority, but only upon its bare assertion. That conclusion is inconsistent with existing precedent, which indicates the officer was entitled to be where he was. Given this right, all elements of the plain view doctrine were satisfied.2
State v. Brown, 132 N.J. Super. 180, 333 A.2d 264 (1975), is precisely on point and contrary to the majority. Defendant was arrested in a motel parking lot on drug charges, and asked if he could go to his motel room to get his jacket. The police consented and accompanied defendant to his room. Upon entry, the police observed in plain view what they believed to be illegal drugs. The appellate division held that the drugs were admissible because considerations of police safety and prevention of a possible escape gave the police the right to enter defendant's room. The possibility of escape was admittedly remote in the present case, but concern for police safety was no less compelling than in Brown.
Other cases indicate that if a defendant is arrested at his dwelling and asks for access to some other room, the police may search that room before or after granting his request. United States v. Mason, 523 F.2d 1122, 1126 (D.C. Cir. 1975); United States v. Wright, 577 F.2d 378, 381 (6th Cir. 1978); United States v. DeMarsh, 360 F. Supp. 132, 137 n.4 (E.D. Wis. 1973); see Kelder, Criminal Procedure, 30 Syracuse L. Rev. 15, 68 (1979). If Officer Daugherty had the right to search defendant's room, he obviously had the right to enter it.
*720A host of cases hold that if a defendant is arrested at his dwelling, and is allowed to go to another part of it for some purpose, the police may accompany the defendant there and any evidence they inadvertently observe is admissible under the plain view doctrine. See, e.g., United States v. Di Stefano, 555 F.2d 1094, 1101 (2d Cir. 1977) (officer could accompany defendant to another room "to maintain a 'watchful eye' on her and to assure that she did not destroy evidence or procure a weapon"); Moffett v. State, 291 Ala. 382, 281 So. 2d 630 (1973), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1161, 39 L. Ed. 2d 114, 94 S. Ct. 924 (1974); People v. Stevens, 38 Cal. App. 3d 66, 113 Cal. Rptr. 49 (1974); People v. Green, 14 Ill. App. 3d 972, 304 N.E.2d 32 (1973), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 972, 41 L. Ed. 2d 1143, 94 S. Ct. 3179 (1974); People v. Mann, 61 Misc. 2d 107, 113, 305 N.Y.S.2d 226 (1969) ("certainly reasonable" for police to accompany defendant to bedroom and "keep him under continuous surveillance while he was putting on his clothing"); 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 6.4, at 420-21 (1978).
In all of the cases cited above, except Brown, the defendant was allowed to move about after being arrested in his dwelling, as contrasted to being arrested outdoors as in the present case. This is not a difference of constitutional magnitude which distinguishes the cited cases from the present case. The focus of those cases was not on the locus of arrest, but rather on the reasonableness of searching the room an arrestee requests to enter, or the reasonableness of accompanying an arrestee when he is permitted to move about his dwelling. The rationale of those cases (concern for police safety, avoiding possible destruction of evidence, and discouraging potential escape attempts), which found such police conduct reasonable, is equally persuasive when an arrestee outside his dwelling requests to enter it. As the arrestee moves about of his own volition, whether from one area of his dwelling to another or from outside his dwelling to inside it, the right of the police to make plain view seizures must necessarily expand correspondingly. See Kelder, *721supra at 68; United States v. Griffith, 537 F.2d 900, 905 (7th Cir. 1976); United States v. Mason, 523 F.2d 1122, 1125-26 (D.C. Cir. 1975) (by implication). I would hold that, as a general rule, "[w]here a person in custody asks to be given access to an area, he has no basis to object that the arresting officers" (Mason, supra at 1126) accompany him to that area and keep him in view.
The officers meticulously observed the defendants' Miranda rights and advised both defendants of their absolute right to require a search warrant. They were advised that their consent must be voluntary and that they had a right to refuse consent. After conferring, the defendants consented to the search.
I would affirm the decisions of the trial court and the Court of Appeals.
Stafford and Horowitz, JJ., concur with Brachten-bach, J.
Reconsideration denied December 31, 1980.

This is not a case where the police arrested a defendant outside his home and then took him inside for the purpose of conducting a warrantless search of his dwelling. Shipley v. California, 395 U.S. 818, 23 L. Ed. 2d 732, 89 S. Ct. 2053 (1969).

The majority correctly notes that the plain view doctrine is applicable only if the police inadvertently observe what they immediately know is evidence from a place they are entitled to be. The “inadvertence" and "immediate knowledge" requirements were clearly satisfied in this case.