Court Opinion

ID: 9836972
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-02 03:15:46.711681+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:19.628282
License: Public Domain

*212SULLIVAN, Judge
(concurring in part and in the result and dissenting in part):
Duty requires me to write separately in this case.*
I agree with the result reached by the majority, but I cannot find, as they did, that the Altus, Oklahoma, Police Department’s Officer Mills had probable cause to search appellant’s car at the Ford dealership. At the time Officer Mills entered appellant’s car to move the stereo components so he could copy down the serial numbers, all Mills knew was that there had been some recent car burglaries in the city of Altus (this is probably true of every major city in America on every day in recent times) and that appellant’s car had stereo equipment in it with “cut wires.” The Supreme Court has held that moving items to obtain serial numbers is a search. Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 324, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987). However, there must be probable cause to justify a warrantless search of an automobile. California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 111 S.Ct. 1982, 114 L.Ed.2d 619 (1991), and United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982); cf. United States v. Perry, 925 F.2d 1077 (8th Cir.1991).
In my view, the majority is not only wrong on the probable cause involving the Mills’ search, but such a ruling is a dangerous one for the Fourth Amendment. Such a ruling would allow Officer Mills to search any car in Altus, Oklahoma, where he saw some stereo equipment with cut wires or any other objects that he thought could have possibly been stolen in recent car burglaries. Mills should not have that broad authority to search cars. The majority’s ruling in this case lowers the standard from probable cause to “possible cause.” See State v. Wilson, 279 Md. 189, 367 A.2d 1223 (1977); Cleckley v. State, 42 Md.App. 80, 399 A.2d 903 (1979).
Nevertheless, I agree with the majority that the conviction here can be affirmed. Initially, I note that there was no evidence seized in Mills’ search that was used in the prosecution of appellant. Moreover, the evidence in the car was admissible against appellant because it followed the untainted “plain viewing” of the evidence by the military investigators and the subsequent search based on the voluntary consent of appellant.

 There are two opposite views on writing separate opinions at an appellate court. At one extreme is the school grounded on the views of people like Thomas Jefferson, who strongly felt that each appellate judge should write separate or seriatim opinions. Letter to Justice Johnson, October 27, 1822, 12 The Works of Thomas Jefferson 246-252 (Paul L. Ford, ed.). Of the Jefferson school were advocates like Judge Brockenbrough, who felt that "the people had surely a right to expect that each judge should assign his own reasons for the vote which he gave.” Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall 448 (Henry Holt and Company, New York). Another extreme view I have observed is in the remarks of a Federal Appeals Court judge who once said he seldom dissented because it made no difference and it may offend the other two judges of the panel on which he may be sitting.
I take somewhat of a middle ground and dissent or write separately when I feel it is necessary or appropriate to add my reasons to my vote. As Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo said prior to his elevation to the Supreme Court, sometimes a dissent or a separate opinion in the future becomes the law or the controlling point in the law. An example of Cardozo’s idea can be found in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). It is Justice Harlan's concurring opinion in Katz at 360, 88 S.Ct. 507 that now dominates the area of the law governing the "expectation of privacy” aspect of the Fourth Amendment. See Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 177, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984); Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 250, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 114 L.Ed.2d 297 (1991) (does not even identify the separate opinion, it is so firmly accepted).