Court Opinion

ID: 9624272
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 06:56:31.891431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:42.233703
License: Public Domain

BURKE, Justice,
concurring.
I agree that any error in this case was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. In my view, however, there was no error. Thus, I would affirm the judgment of the superior court upon that ground rather than by resort to the doctrine of harmless error.
I think the police were entitled to enter Finch’s motel room without a search warrant to prevent the removal or destruction of evidence. Undoubtedly, they had probable cause to believe that there was evidence of an assault in the room. Such evidence might reasonably have included blood spots or stains; the weapon used to commit the assault, or fragments thereof; fingerprints of the assailant, perhaps on the weapon itself; and other physical evidence tending to corroborate the victim’s account of the incident.
Such items, in large part, were of a sort that could have been quickly removed or destroyed. For example, it would have been an easy matter to wipe all fingerprints from the weapon or to remove blood spots, or at least make those items far more difficult, if not impossible, to detect and analyze. The time necessary to obtain a search warrant certainly far exceeded that which would have been required for the removal *1200or destruction of much of this important evidence, and an officer at the door would do nothing to prevent such activity by one already in the room.
In my opinion, these considerations, together with the fact that the alleged assailant had made a specific threat to remove all evidence of the incident, provided sufficient danger of removal or destruction of evidence to justify the warrantless intrusion. The majority’s contrary conclusion, that a warrant was required, is, I believe, entirely unreasonable under the circumstances. It simply ignores the realities of the situation.