Court Opinion

ID: 9791150
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:06:44.493054+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:34.479964
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Justice
(dissenting):
Once again a majority of this Court, I respectfully submit, declines to apply the law of search and seizure as laid down by the United States Supreme Court.
Defendant argues that the search by Officer McGiven on October 9 violated his legitimate expectation of privacy in the backyard of the residence, and was therefore illegal.1 The plurality opinion responds that the officer made his observation from a place where he had a right to be—a driveway serving the residence—and since the plants were plainly visible from that vantage point, defendant could not entertain any such expectation of privacy.
The starting point for the analysis of a search is the proposition that “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 specifi*713cally established and well-delineated exceptions.” 2 The only possible exception to the search warrant requirement present here is the “plain view” exception.3
The “plain view” exception was exhaustively examined and explained in Coolidge v. New Hampshire.4 There the Supreme Court stated:
What the “plain view” cases have in common is that the police officer in each of them had a prior justification for an intrusion in the course of which he came inadvertently across a piece of evidence incriminating the accused. The doctrine serves to supplement the prior justification—whether it be a warrant for another object, hot pursuit, search incident to lawful arrest, or some other legitimate reason for being present unconnected with a search directed against the accused—and permits the warrantless seizure. Of course, the extension of the original justification is legitimate only when it is immediately apparent to the police that they have evidence before them; the “plain view” doctrine may not be used to extend a general exploratory search from one object to another until something incriminating at last emerges.5 (Emphasis added.)
Here, Officer MeGiven’s initial intrusion on the property was for the express purpose of searching for the marijuana plants which Mr. Smith had told McGiven were there. Thus, while it is true that the driveway by which McGiven entered the property may have afforded an implied invitation to the public to enter the property, that invitation cannot be constitutionally extended tó encourage entrance by a police officer onto the property, without a warrant, for the purpose of searching for evidence about which he received prior information. MeGi-ven’s observation of the plants was not inadvertent in that he did not have “some other legitimate reason for being present unconnected with a search directed against the accused.”
The necessary consequence of the illegal search here is the exclusion as evidence of all fruits of that search.6 This would include all of the plants and the containers holding them, photographs of the plants, the results of any chemical analysis of the plants, and all testimony of Officer McGi-ven relating to his initial observation of the plants and his subsequent surveillance of the premises.
Turning now to the seizure of the plants on October 12, that seizure also violated the Fourth Amendment. As was noted, ante, the plants and their containers were seized immediately following the arrest of defendant. The plurality opinion seeks to justify the seizure as one incident to a lawful arrest. The State goes to great length in its brief to show probable cause for the arrest of defendant. However, the existence of probable cause to arrest, in and of itself, does not legitimate a warrantless search, for as the Supreme Court pointed out in Coolidge, supra:
[N]o amount of probable cause can justify a warrantless search or seizure absent “exigent circumstances.”7
The conclusion that the seizure was incident to arrest flies in the face of United *714States Supreme Court decisions defining the limits of that exception to the warrant requirement. In Chimel v. California,8 the Court stated:
When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or to effect his escape ... In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee’s person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. And the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like rule . . . There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of the arres-tee’s person and the area “within his immediate control”-—construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.9
The record here reflects that defendant was arrested while standing near his automobile in the driveway to the house. There is no indication that he made any move toward any of the plants. The plants were not on his person, nor within his “immediate control” as that term is defined for purposes of the “incident to arrest” exception to the warrant requirement. Therefore the seizure of the plants was constitutionally infirm, and the fruits of that seizure inadmissible.
As the evidence supplied by the illegal search and seizure described above is constitutionally inadmissible, it is clear that there was insufficient evidence here to convict defendant of the crime of production of a controlled substance. I would therefore reverse the District Court and remand for entry of judgment of not guilty.10
MAUGHAN, J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of WILKINS, J.

. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967).

. Id., at 357, 88 S.Ct. at 514 (footnotes omitted).

. This exception was first formally enunciated in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971) (see Note, The Plain View Doctrine in Nebraska, 57 Neb. L.Rev. 209 (1978) at n. 3). The other exceptions include (1) searches incident to arrest, Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 46 S.Ct. 4, 70 L.Ed. 145 (1925); (2) automobile exception, Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 5.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970); (3) hot pursuit, Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967); (4) emergency situations, Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966); (5) consent, Zap v. United States, 328 U.S. 624, 66 S.Ct. 1277, 90 L.Ed. 1477 (1946) (see, Williamson, The Supreme Court, Warrantless Searches, and Exigent Circumstances, 31 Okla. L.Rev. 110 (1978) at n. 5).

. 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971).

. Id., at 466, 91 S.Ct. at 2038.

. Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961).

. 403 U.S. at 468, 91 S.Ct. at 2039.

. 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969).

. Id, at 762-763, 89 S.Ct. at 2039-2040.

.Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); Greene v. Massey, 437 U.S. 19, 98 S.Ct. 2151, 57 L.Ed.2d 15 (1978); State v. Murphy, Utah, 617 P.2d 399 (1980).