Court Opinion

ID: 9430868
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:46.196343+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.220978
License: Public Domain

Justice White,
concurring.
I write only to emphasize that this case does not present, and we have no occasion to address, the so-called “inadver*330tent discovery” prong of the plain-view exception to the Warrant Clause. See Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 469-471 (1971) (plurality opinion). This “requirement” of the plain-view doctrine has never been accepted by a judgment supported by a majority of this Court, and I therefore do not accept Justice O’Connor’s dissent’s assertion that evidence seized in plain view must have been inadvertently discovered in order to satisfy the dictates of the Fourth Amendment. See post, at 334. I join the majority opinion today without regard to the inadvertence of the officers’ discovery of the stereo components’ serial numbers. The police officers conducted a search of respondent’s stereo equipment absent probable cause that the equipment was stolen. It is for this reason that the judgment of the Court of Appeals of Arizona must be affirmed.