Post details: NJ: Sufficient exigency shown for automobile exception where confederates or interlopers could get at car

02/09/10

Permalink 10:13:13 am, by fourth, 533 words, 135 views   English (US)
Categories: General

NJ: Sufficient exigency shown for automobile exception where confederates or interlopers could get at car

Under New Jersey’s heightened standard of exigency for an automobile search (tied with a preference for telephonic warrants where exigency is lacking), the state showed exigency because of actions of confederates or potential interlopers. State v. Lewis, 411 N.J. Super. 483, 987 A.2d 135 (2010):

We conclude that the facts of this case are closer to the facts in Pena-Flores than to those in Fuller and that, applying the factors relevant to an exigency analysis identified in the Pena-Flores-Fuller opinion, the State made a sufficient showing of exigent circumstances to uphold the search in this case. The stop of defendant's van occurred at night in a Plainfield neighborhood known for high crime and drug sales. As in Pena-Flores, the police had no reason to anticipate in advance that defendants would be involved in drug activity because the targets of their investigation were Courtney and Porter, not defendants. Moreover, the stop of defendant's car occurred at a location where it could be readily observed by persons in the neighborhood, such as the five or six people who congregated in the area after the stop. If they drove by, the occupants of the Camry who apparently had purchased drugs from defendants also would have been likely to observe the van and assume that it contained drugs. Therefore, it cannot be said in this case, as in Fuller, that "[t]here is nothing in the record to suggest that [defendants] had cohorts who might have come on the scene." 198 N.J. at 32.

Moreover, although a second police car arrived on the scene after the stop, the search of the car and leather case had already been completed before then. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the officers in the second police car would have been available to detain defendants while Detectives Black and Staten applied for a warrant, because the officers involved in the Courtney-Porter investigation were responsible for searching four different residences, a car, and the persons of Courtney and Porter, and according to Detective Black, "were stretched out kind of thin."

In addition, unlike in Fuller, defendants had not been placed under arrest when Detective Black searched their car. In fact, while we agree with the trial court's conclusion that Detective Alston's observation of Jason Lewis engaging in an apparent drug transaction with Courtney, who was one of the targets of the warrants, and Detective Black's observation of Jerome Lewis apparently discarding something between the seats of the car, provided probable cause to believe there were drugs in the car, it does not automatically follow that those observations, by themselves, without the discovery of drugs, would have been sufficient to establish probable cause to arrest defendants. See State v. Chippero, N.J. , (2009) (slip op. at 15-20) (discussing the distinction between probable cause to search and probable cause to arrest). Consequently, if the circumstances confronted by the police officers in this case were found not to have been exigent, the police may have been required to temporarily detain defendants during the period required to seek a warrant.

For all these reasons, we conclude that the State made a sufficient showing of exigent circumstances under the factors set forth in Pena-Flores to justify a warrantless search under the automobile exception.

PermalinkPermalink

Pingbacks:

No Pingbacks for this post yet...

FourthAmendment.com

Notes on Use

September 2010
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
<< <     
      1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30    

Search




© 2003-10
Online since Feb. 24, 2003

To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $
Contact / About

 www.johnwesleyhall.com
 www.LawofCriminalDefense.com

Fourth Amendment cases,
citations, and links [New]

Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court (Home)
Federal Appellate Courts
  First Circuit
  Second Circuit
  Third Circuit
  Fourth Circuit
  Fifth Circuit
  Sixth Circuit
  Seventh Circuit
  Eighth Circuit
  Ninth Circuit
  Tenth Circuit
  Eleventh Circuit
  D.C. Circuit
  Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG
State courts

Google Scholar
Advanced Google Scholar
Google search tips
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate Courts
LexisONE free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions

Most recent SCOTUS cases:
2010-11 Term:
  None yet

2009-10 Term:
  Michigan v. Fisher, 130 S. Ct. 546, 175 L. Ed. 2d 410, decided Dec. 7 (per curiam) (ScotusWiki)
  City of Ontario v. Quon, 130 S.Ct. 2619, 177 L. Ed. 2d 216, decided June 17 (ScotusWiki)

2008-09 Term:
  Herring v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 695, 172 L.Ed.2d 496, decided Jan. 13 (ScotusWiki)
  Pearson v. Callahan, 129 S. Ct. 808, 172 L. Ed. 2d 565, decided Jan. 21 (ScotusWiki)
  Arizona v. Johnson, 129 S. Ct. 781, 172 L. Ed. 2d 694, decided Jan. 26 (ScotusWiki)
  Arizona v. Gant, 129 S. Ct. 1710, 173 L. Ed. 2d 485, decided April 21 (ScotusWiki)
  Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding, 129 S. Ct. 2633, 174 L. Ed. 2d 354, decided June 25 (ScotusWiki)

Research Links:
  Supreme Court:
  SCOTUSBlog
  SCOTUSWiki
  S. Ct. Docket
  Solicitor General's site
  SCOTUSreport
  Briefs online (but no amicus briefs) 
  Curiae (Yale Law)
  Oyez Project (NWU)
  "On the Docket"–Medill
  S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com
  S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com

  General (many free):
  LexisWeb
  Google Scholar | Google
  LexisOne Legal Website Directory
  Crimelynx
  Lexis.com $
  Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
  Findlaw.com
  Findlaw.com (4th Amd)
  Westlaw.com $
  F.R.Crim.P. 41
  www.fd.org
  DOJ Computer Search Manual
  USSS computer search website


  ACLU on privacy
  Privacy Foundation
  Electronic Privacy Information Center
  Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
  Section 1983 Blog

"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced."
—Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984).

"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today."
— Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting).

"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property."
—Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765)

"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment."
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)

"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth."
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).

"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable."
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987)

"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected."
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967)

“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)

“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989)

"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards

"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp]

“You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
—Pepé LePew

"There is never enough time, unless you are serving it."
—Malcolm Forbes

"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)

Archives

Misc

XML Feeds

What is RSS?

Who's Online?

  • Guest Users: 48

powered by
b2evolution