Court Opinion

ID: 9676441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:24:41.229811+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:48.682165
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. This is another assault on the Bill of Rights.
Reference is made to my concurrence in part, concurrence in result in part in State v. Flittie, 425 N.W.2d 1, 6-7 (S.D.1988). State v. Opperman, 247 N.W.2d 673 (S.D.1976) (Opperman II), was eroded by Flit-tie. Here, we again see Opperman II being whittled away.
Contents of the wallet are not within plain view. This State Supreme Court has the power to provide an individual with greater protection under the state constitution than does the United States Supreme Court under the federal constitution. Op-perman II at 674-75. If we base decisions on “standardized and uniform policies” of any given police department, we are deciding cases, not upon our state constitution, but upon the whim and caprice of each hamlet, town and city in this state. A “standardized policy” in Podunk might be flagrantly unconstitutional. Law enforcement myopia often seizes a police department and it takes the Bill of Rights to correct its vision.
It is our duty to prevent law enforcement agencies from overstepping their bounds. Fundamentally, the judicial system exists to protect political, economic and social rights which inure to the dignity and freedom of the individual as secured by constitutional government.
This is an “inventory” case. This officer searched through all the compartments of the wallet. Compartments within the wallet were opaque, and the officer could not see them. Now, for the final blow: An inventory (is that not what the State contends it had to perform?) was never filed on the contents of the wallet.