Court Opinion

ID: 9718010
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:14:57.003803+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:56.789211
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE McCORMICK, dissenting: I accept the often pronounced adage that truth is stranger than fiction. However, when sworn testimony exceeds the bounds of human experience, it takes on a fairy tale-like quality and we should give very little credence to it. In a fairy tale all things are possible. Princes spring from frogs, princesses wear glass slippers and straw can be spun into gold. In life there are limits. My common sense and experience in the affairs of life tell me that there is not a grain of truth to the State’s case. The trial court’s findings of fact are incredible and clearly erroneous. A good fairy tale starts off with a scene that sets up the problem. The good King says, "I will betroth my beautiful daughter and give all the riches of my kingdom to the one who can perform these feats.” Usually there follows a litany of impossible tasks: slay the impenetrable, ferocious dragon, extinguish the fires of the tumultuous volcano or prove to the magistrate that Turnipseed consented to the search of her apartment by the police. Hence, the police here, taking up the gauntlet like Mother Goose or the Brothers Grimm, wove the following tale of conquest: The police responded to a report of a woman with a gun in a public housing project. Upon entering the high-rise building, the police observed Turnipseed, who fit the description of the woman with the gun, in the lobby of the building arguing with some of her neighbors. A verbal altercation, but no weapon they observed. The officers approached and inquired. They learned from the neighbors that the argument was over a debt they owed to Turnipseed for the purchase of crack cocaine. The neighbors asked the officers, in the name of the peace, to plead with Turnipseed on their behalf for an extension of time to pay the drug debt. It is indeed comforting to know that the citizenry has such confidence in our constables to amiably and peaceably resolve any dispute; that they would feel so comfortable disclosing drug transactions and in seeking their assistance to obtain an extension of time for payment. The Officer Friendly and community policing programs have made inroads into dissipating traditional community distrust in ways heretofore unimaginable. Positively Homeric. (Elvis lives.) The officers, however, informed the neighbors that they were not charged with that office and could not "help with these problems.” Their charge was to thwart the villain who was reported to wield a gun. The good neighbors also then availed themselves of the opportunity to weave straw into gold. "Hence, good lords,” the neighbors said, "it was Turnipseed who did threaten us with the weapon of which you speak.” With that, one of the officers performed a protective pat-down search of Turnipseed’s person, which revealed what she had therein concealed: a couple of rounds of ammunition and a packet of cannabis. Turnipseed was placed under arrest and "Mirandized” in the building lobby. No criminal complaint did the good neighbors sign, nor did the officers’ report reveal what they did find on Turnipseed’s person or make reference to the good neighbors’ request for their assistance with the drug debt. The golden threads of the police officers’ picturesque tale do not end at this point. Instead, the warp of their tapestry becomes more twisted. According to the officers, Turnipseed, now under arrest, in custody and duly "Mirandized,” was taken by the police officers to her apartment, on the fifth floor, to look for a gun. In front of Turnip-seed’s apartment door, on the public portion of the premises, the police officers, versed in the constitutional limitations on unreasonable search and seizure, inquired as to whether they could enter Turnip-seed’s apartment. "Why, yes, kind sirs,” Turnipseed replied, "I have nothing to hide.” Thus, "Forsooth,” say the officers, "Turnipseed consented to our entry into her apartment.” Turnipseed’s "consent” proved to be the most enormous fabrication since the wolf told little Red Riding Hood that he was her grandmother. Under arrest, in the custody of two police officers and duly "Mirandized,” Turnipseed opened the apartment door with her key. Upon entering, she began walking quickly, almost trotting, to the back bedroom. The police gave chase. Turnipseed, they knew, was under arrest and suspected of having a gun in her apartment. Oh, if only they had handcuffed Turnipseed or at least physically restrained her! Obviously, upon reflection, Turnipseed remembered that her fabrication had been quite imprudent. She did have something to hide. Turnipseed "entered the bedroom to the right” and ran toward an opened safe, which was on top of a closed safe. She slammed the safe door shut, locking the door. She was immediately handcuffed by one of the police officers. However, before Turnipseed slammed and locked the safe door, both police officers, while in hot pursuit of Turnipseed, observed plastic bags inside the safe, in plain view, "containing a white powdery substance.” The officers suspected the substance to be narcotics. Also in the apartment, again in plain view, were rounds of ammunition scattered on the floor, a box of ammunition near the bed, a couple of expensive high-tech scales, a large bowl containing a pasty substance, "which looked like it typically could be used to make the base for *** crack cocaine,” and all sorts of pipes and other drug paraphernalia. Turnipseed’s fabrication had been most imprudent indeed. The police carried the two locked safes to the police station where, lo and behold, without the aid of the U.S. Constitution or judicial process, but with hammer and crowbar, they forcibly opened the doors to both safes and removed the contents without mar. Back to reality! Despite what they witnessed and all that they saw, the officers failed to mention the plain violation of the law in their police report. They did not indicate that they saw the white powdery substance inside the safe, while pursuing Turnipseed before she slammed the safe’s door shut. Quite the contrary, the police report states that Turnipseed was arrested after the police opened the safe and that the one small bag of cannabis was found in her coat during a custodial search after the arrest. Factual details, however, have little place in fairy tales. Turnipseed also testified that the police searched her in the lobby, found nothing, and did not arrest or "Mirandize” her. Turnipseed further stated that as she opened her apartment door the police forced their way in, handcuffed her to a weight bench, and broke down the door to her son’s bedroom where the safes were located. At the police station, Turnipseed stated that she did not know the combinations to the safes and refused to sign a consent form for the search of her apartment. A lugubrious account of sobering facts, destroying the very fiber of this most carefully woven tale. The trial court resolved the issue of credibility in favor of the State and everyone lived happily forever after. Everyone, that is, except Turnipseed, the people, and the United States Constitution. For never was there a tale of more misdeed, than this of the State and Miss Turnipseed.