Court Opinion

ID: 9627572
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:47:54.7965+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:47.142558
License: Public Domain

PARKS, Presiding Judge,
dissenting:
The search of appellant’s car was, as appellant contends in his ninth proposition of error, unreasonable and illegal under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and under Article 2 Section 30 of the Oklahoma Constitution. The fruits of said search should, therefore, have been suppressed at trial which mandates that the Judgment and Sentence appealed from be reversed.
This Court adheres to the following principles of constitutional law:
“The Fourth Amendment of our federal constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967).
The exceptions are jealously and carefully drawn, and there must be a showing by those who seek exemption that the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971).”
Castleberry v. State, 678 P.2d 720, 722-23 (Okl.Cr.1984), cert. granted 469 U.S. 979, 105 S.Ct. 379, 83 L.Ed.2d 315 (1984), aff'd mem. 471 U.S. 146, 105 S.Ct. 1859, 85 L.Ed.2d 112 (1985).
The majority states that the Castleberry police officers had probable cause-only to believe the contraband was inside containers located in the automobile and not the automobile itself. The majority tries to distinguish Castleberry by stating that in this case the police officers had probable cause to search appellant’s automobile. Not only has the majority misconstrued the finding and holding in Castleberry, they have also distorted the facts surrounding appellant’s arrest.
In Castleberry, the police received a telephone call from an informant who stated that the suspects were staying in a particular motel room, were driving a blue Thunderbird with Florida license plates and were carrying various narcotics in blue suitcases. While waiting outside the motel room and watching a blue Thunderbird with Florida license plates parked nearby, the police saw the suspects exit the motel room and throw blue suitcases into the trunk of the Thunderbird. The police immediately arrested the suspects and searched the Thunderbird and the blue suitcases. The Castleberry Court found that *86the suitcases should have been detained until a search warrant was obtained and held that the warrantless search of both the suitcases and the locked car was a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
In the instant case, there is not one fact in the record to establish probable cause to search appellant’s car for contraband. The police had not received information that appellant was dealing drugs or planting bombs from his car. See United States v. Johns, supra and United States v. James, supra (both cited by majority). The police had not seen appellant put anything in his car under suspicious circumstances. See United States v. Ross, supra (cited by majority). Moreover, appellant had not taken any contraband from the drug sale which could have been placed in the car other than the money, and it was found on appellant. Therefore, the search of appellant’s car cannot be justified under the probable cause and exigent circumstances exception to the requirement of a search warrant.
The majority also tries to justify the search by citing King v. State, 562 P.2d 902, 904 (Okl.Cr.1977), for the proposition that the initial search of appellant and his vehicle was proper since it was made incident to a valid custodial arrest. King and the cases cited therein involve inventory searches of vehicles being properly impounded after a valid custodial arrest and are not apposite to justify initial searches made incident to a valid arrest. The majority also cites Mahan v. State, 508 P.2d 703, 707 (Okl.Cr.1973), for the proposition that warrantless searches of a legally arrested person and his immediate surroundings are valid to secure fruits of the crime or evidence used to perpetrate the crime. While these propositions are stated in Mahan, they are not relevant to the holding therein, and Mahan can be factually distinguished from the instant case because all evidence seized and used at trial in Mahan was obtained after a search warrant was issued.
Searches made incident to a valid custodial arrest are strictly limited to a search of the arrestee and the area within the arres-tee’s immediate control, meaning the area from within which an arrestee might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762-3, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), reh’g denied 396 U.S. 869, 90 S.Ct. 36, 24 L.Ed.2d 124 (1969). Appellant had already exited his car when he was arrested. He clearly could not have gained access to items in the car’s trunk and there is nothing in the record to indicate he could have gained possession of items in the passenger compartment of the car, especially the glove box. Therefore, the warrantless search of appellant's automobile far exceeded the scope of the search incident to a valid arrest exception to the requirement of a search warrant.
Finally, the search of appellant’s car cannot be justified as an inventory search of an automobile that is being properly impounded. Inventory searches must be conducted pursuant to standardized impoundment procedures. Starks v. State, 696 P.2d 1041, 1042 (Okl.Cr.1985). See also Lee v. State, 628 P.2d 1172 (Okl.Cr.1981), and Kelly v. State, 607 P.2d 706 (Okl.Cr.1980). The only city ordinances contained in the record (O.R. 43,44) allow impoundment only when the vehicle will be left unattended on any street or highway. Appellant's car was in a private parking lot and was not subject to impoundment. See Lee, supra and Kelly, supra. Therefore, the police had no right to inventory search appellant’s car.
Drugs, drug paraphernalia and the weapon were seized during the illegal search of appellant’s car. Such evidence was clearly prejudicial to appellant. He could not have been charged with or convicted of Count IV, Possession of a Weapon While Committing a Felony, but for the evidence obtained from the illegal search. Moreover, the illegally seized evidence undoubtedly influenced the jury’s consideration of the other counts. Therefore, the Judgment and Sentence must be reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.