Colorado Supreme Court People v. Berow 83SA498 83SA506

Decided October 9, 1984.

   Berow and her husband lived in a hotel, and went on a vacation to California.  Before leaving, they asked the manager to watch their room and "arrest any intruders."  While they were gone, the manager found the door had been tampered with and thought he saw someone inside.  He called the cops.  Even though the door had been tampered with, it was apparently still secured from inside by a chain lock.  Believing that a burglary was in progress, the officer forced entry.

   No one was found inside, but while searching only in areas where a person could hide the officer found a hash pipe and some marijuana plants.  He left the apartment, got a search warrant, returned and seized the evidence.  The trial court suppressed the evidence and the people appealed.

   The Colorado Supreme Court held that the apparent in-progress burglary constituted exigent circumstances justifying the officer's entry, and that additionally the hotel manager had apparently been given authority to consent to the officer's entry.  Once inside, the officer found the items in plain view and did not deviate from the original purpose of the search until he had obtained a warrant.  The order suppressing the evidence was reversed.

US Supreme Court US v. Leon 82-1771

Decided July 5, 1984

   An untested confidential informant made some allegations against some people, the cops investigated at great length, and eventually applied for a search warrant for three houses.  The warrant application was reviewed by several deputy district attorneys before making its way to the magistrate, who found that there was probable cause.  The warrant was issued, and evidence obtained from the searches led to several arrests (including Leon's) for conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine.

   The defendants moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the warrant was not supported by probable cause.  The trial court held that this was a close case, and that the investigating officer had acted in good faith in his investigation, but that the affidavit did not contain sufficient information and the warrant should not have been issued.  Accordingly, the evidence was suppressed.  The people appealed.

   The case gets more interesting when the court discusses the exclusionary rule.  Essentially, the exclusionary says that if evidence is obtained as the result of unlawful police conduct, then that evidence may not be introduced in the prosecution's case in chief (the evidence can still be used for other purposes, such as for cross-examining the defendant and for testimony in front of a grand jury).  And there's nothing in the Constitution which guarantees the suppression of unlawfully obtained evidence; the fourth amendment establishes the people's right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, but it doesn't say anything about what should happen with evidence that is obtained when that right is violated.  The exclusionary rule was a sanction created by the courts to ensure that law enforcement would not systemically violate people's rights.

   That's a key point: the exclusionary rule doesn't exist to vindicate someone's rights (that's what lawsuits are for).  The exclusionary rule exists to discourage police misconduct, and so it should only be applied in circumstances where it will actually accomplish that goal.  In a case like this one, the police had already done everything they could to comply with the law.  They sought the guidance of a neutral magistrate by applying for a search warrant, and they were entitled to rely on the magistrate's judgment.  When the police are acting in good faith reliance on a search warrant they believe to be valid, but that warrant is later found to be invalid for some reason, the evidence is still admissible.  And so the good faith exception was born.

   Of course, this exception won't save a warrant that obtained by presenting faulty information to a judge when the officers knew or should have known that the information was false.  It also won't help if the warrant is obviously invalid (such as warrants that don't particularly describe the place to be searched or the item to be seized), warrants that are based on affidavits obviously devoid of probable cause, or "rubber stamped " warrants (meaning warrants issued by a judges who will grant anything just because the cops asked for it).

US Supreme Court New York v. Quarles 82-1213

Decided June 12, 1984

   This decision created the well-known public safety exception to Miranda.

   A couple of cops were approached by a woman who claimed that she had just been raped by a man with a gun.  She described the suspect, and said that he had gone to a particular supermarket.  The cops went to that store, where the found Quarles (who matched the suspect description).

   As soon as he saw the cops, Quarles took off running.  They chased, lost sight of him briefly, but caught him a moment later.  He was held at gunpoint, handcuffed, and searched, and there were at least four cops present.  He was in possession of an empty shoulder holster.

   One of the cops asked Quarles "Where's the gun?"  Quarles nodded to some boxes and told him the gun was over there.  After recovering the gun, the officer read Quarles the Miranda warnings.  Quarles waived his rights, and made some additional incriminating statements.

   The trial court suppressed the gun and Quarles' statements, reasoning that all of that evidence was tainted by the officer's failure to read Miranda before asking Quarles where the gun was.  The prosecution appealed all the way to the US Supreme Court.

   The Court explained that the Miranda warnings aren't actually constitutional rights themselves, but court-created procedural safeguards which protect the Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination.  At the time that the court had created this safeguard, it accepted that requiring officers to Mirandize suspects would result in fewer convictions.  But this situation is different: the gun which was discarded somewhere in the store posed a safety risk.  The court held that unlike the risk of a later acquittal, a present risk of physical harm is more important than the procedural safeguard of Miranda warnings.  The court also noted that Quarles' incriminating statements weren't obtained by the sort of coercion that Miranda was intented to prevent.  So the court created a narrow exception to Miranda, allowing unwarned statements in circumstances like these to be used as evidence by the prosecution (as long as those statements are the result of the sort of questioning which is necessary to address a safety risk).

US Supreme Court US v. Jacobsen 82-1167

Decided April 2, 1984.

   FedEx employees accidentally damaged a package with a forklift, and so they examined the contents of the package (apparently there's a policy that they do that with damaged goods for insurance reasons).  They found that the package contained nothing except baggies of white powder, so the called the police.  A federal agent arrived (by then the FedEx employees had put the cocaine back in the package, but didn't seal it), reopened the package, and extracted a small sample from the baggies with a knife.  It tested positive for cocaine, and the feds got a warrant for the house that the cocaine was being shipped to.  Jacobsen et al were arrested at that house, charged with and convicted of possession with intent to distribute.  They appealed their conviction, arguing that the warrant was obtained as the result of an illegal search and seizure.

   The US Supreme Court explained that the Fourth Amendment restricts two different categories of government actions: searches (where the government infringes an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable) and seizures (where the government interferes with a person's possessory interest in the item being seized).  The Fourth Amendment only protects against government actions.  If a private person conducts a search that would be unreasonable for a police officer, that search does not violate the Fourth Amendment.  So the initial search by the FedEx employees doesn't require the suppression of any evidence.

   The rule for subsequent warrantless searches by law enforcement are that they can not expend the scope of the original private search.  Jacobsen's expectation of privacy in the package was compromised by the actions of the FedEx employees (the same as it would have been if he had given the package to a third person who had chosen of his own accord to open it for the police).  Once an expectation of privacy is compromised by a private person, the police are not required to ignore information obtained from that source.  And reexamining the cocaine wasn't likely to reveal any information other than what the feds already knew from the FedEx employees.  So even though the cocaine was repackaged when the feds got there, the agents were within their authority when they took it out of the package to examine it. 

   Holding on to the package instead of allowing it to continue on to its destination was a seizure, but it was held to be a reasonable one because the package obviously contained contraband.  Field testing the cocaine (which involved removing a trace amount with the knife and destroying it) was a more serious seizure, because it was permanent.  This was still held to be reasonable, because the courts balanced the government's interests in enforcing drug laws against the defendant's possessory interest in the cocaine.  Since people do not have a legitimate possessory interest in contraband, since the outcome of the test was virtually certain before the test was conducted, and since the amount removed for the test was so slight, the government's interests were held to outweight Jacobsen's interests in this case, and the seizure was held reasonable.

   Jacobsen et al's convictions were upheld.

US Supreme Court US v. Place 81-1617

Decided 6-20-83.

   Place was flying from Miami to New York when he somehow aroused the suspicion of law enforcement officers.  They contacted him, and he presented ID and consented to a search of his checked luggage.  The police did not search him, because his flight was due to leave in ten minutes.  As they released him, he made some remark about how he had recognized that they were police officers.  Because of this (?), they did a little more digging and figured out that he had listed fake addresses on his luggage tags.  They called the police in New York to let them know Place was coming.

   In New York, DEA agents contacted Place as he about to leave the airport with his luggage.  He made the same remark about knowing that they were cops.  They told him that based on their own observations and on information from Miami, they believed he was carrying narcotics.  They asked for consent to search his luggage, and he refused.  They told him that they were going to detain his luggage in order to get a search warrant, and gave him a choice to either accompany them or not.  He chose not.

   The DEA "detained" Place's luggage for about an hour and a half, then ran a dog on it.  The dog alerted on one of the two bags.  This was on a Friday, and they held on to the luggage until Monday when they got a warrant for the bag the dog had alerted on.  There was cocaine in there, and Place was later arrested.

   The trial court applied the reasoning of Terry v. Ohio to the DEA's "detention" of Place's luggage.  The Court of Appeals called bullshit on the 90 minute detention, and this case found it's way to the Supreme Court.

   The Court ruled that the authority to briefly detain people based on reasonable suspicion also applied to the detention of property, so the initial detention of the luggage was permissible.  The court also ruled that because a K9 sniff involves such limited intrusion, and only gives the police information about the presence of contraband (which people do not have a right to possess, and therefore have no legitimate privacy interest in), a K9 sniff is not a search for fourth amendment purposes and does not require probable cause.  Finally, although the court declined to put a specific time limit on investigative detentions, the court held that the facts of this case did not support a 90 minute detention of luggage.  So even though this decision expanded government authority to both detain property and conduct K9 sniffs, the police in this case violated the fourth amendment and Place's conviction was reversed.

Colorado Supreme Court People v. Reynolds 83SA346

Decided December 5, 1983

   Officers responded to a call that a gun had been fired during a domestic dispute, and that the reporting party's mother had locked herself in the bathroom.  When they got there, Reynolds admitted the police into the house and gave the police permission (entirely unnecessarily, in my opinion) to break down the bathroom door in order to render aid to his wife, who he said had been shot.  The cops broke down the door, and found Reynolds' dead wife in the bathroom.  Reynolds was subsequently arrested, and in continuing their search of the house (looking for additional victims), the police found additional evidence (including a revolver).  An hour and a half later, CSI photographed the scene, took measurements, and generally did what CSI does.  No warrant had been obtained. 

   The trial court ruled that the police had lawfully made entry into the residence based on the emergency exception to the warrant requirement.  The court also ruled that the evidence was discovered during a lawful search and validly seized under the plain view exception.  However, the pictures and measurements taken by CSI were suppressed because the court held that a warrant was required before CSI could do their thing (the emergency having apparently expired).  The people filed an interlocutory appeal.

   In its decision, the Colorado Supreme Court discussed three exceptions to the warrant requirement: exigent circumstances (in particular, the emergency exception), consent, and plain view.

   The emergency exception exists where there is "a colorable claim of emergency threatening the life or safety of another."  Searches under this exception must be limited to the scope of the emergency (so you can't go looking for gunshot victims in the kitchen drawer.  If they fit in there, the emergency has passed).  The circumstances of this case supported searching the entire house for victims, suspects, or weapons under the emergency exception.

   Consent exists where a person voluntarily waives his rights.  Consent may be limited in scope, time, area (or pretty much whichever way the person giving consent wants to limit it, although the court doesn't come right out and say that).  Consent was also present in this case (at least when the police were kicking down doors), although the district court did not consider it.

   The plain view exception allows police to seize incriminating evidence which they discover under three conditions: 1- the initial intrusion into the protected area must be valid (either under a warrant or an exception to the warrant requirement), 2- the discovery of the evidence must be inadvertent, and 3- the officer has to know that the evidence is incriminating (seems simple enough, but it apparently has to be said.  I almost hate to wonder who screwed that one up so that the court had to spell it out?).

   In this case, the items of evidence were validly seized under the plain view doctrine, pursuant either to consent or the emergency exception.  Now on to the recordings.  The court held that although 90 minutes had passed between the discovery of the evidence and the processing of the scene, the scene was processed as part of an ongoing investigation and was justified under the same circumstances that justified the initial entry and search.  The court didn't see any logic behind the suppression of pictures of lawfully seized evidence.  The suppression order was reversed, and the case remanded back to the trial court to determine whether or not the scene processing exceeded the scope of the original justified search.  Just like an emergency can't justify a general exploratory search, CSI processing of lawfully obtained evidence can't justify a further exploratory search.  If the processing expands beyond the previous search, then the evidence obtained can be suppressed.

US Supreme Court Illinois v. Lafayette 81-1859

Decided 6-20-83.

   Lafayette got into a fight with the manager of a theater, and was arrested for it.  He had a "purse-type shoulder bag" with him. :)

   At the station, Lafayette was ordered to empty his pockets (and purse) onto a table to be inventoried.  The arresting officer searched the purse as part of the inventory, and found meth.  Lafayette was charged with possession, but the state courts suppressed the evidence (holding that the search of his property wasn't valid either as a search incident to arrest, or as an inventory because Lafayette had a greater expectation of privacy in his purse than he would have in a car, and the purse could have just been secured without being searched).  The US Supreme Court reversed this decision.

   The court discussed the dwindling of a suspect's expectation of privacy during an arrest: At the time of an arrest, the police may search the suspect's person and the area under his immediate control.  This authority doesn't rest on the likelihood that the suspect is armed or in possession of evidence, but on the lawfulness of the arrest.  When an arrested person is subsequently taken to a police station (which is not always the case), the government's interests in searching the suspect may be even more compelling than the government's interests in searching at the time of the arrest.  Searches that would be too invasive to reasonably perform at the place of the arrest may reasonably be conducted at the police station.  The court also applied the reasoning of Opperman (vehicle inventories) to a prisoner's personal property, and held that inventories of a prisoner's property are a proper means for protecting that property while in police custody, protecting the police from allegations of theft, etc...

   The court also held that it didn't matter whether or not less intrusive means were available to protect the government's interests.  The relevant question is only whether or not the means actually employed by the police are reasonable.