PA: Merely reaching in car to secure gun in plain view was reasonable under state’s more stringent automobile exception

It was reasonable for the officer to reach in an open door and secure a gun seen in plain view under Pennsylvania’s more stringent automobile exception. Commonwealth v. Saunders, 2024 Pa. LEXIS 1734 (Nov. 20, 2024) (and there’s three opinions; from the majority):

The existence of a different standard for plain view seizures is appropriate. This is because there is a distinction between “the limited intrusion of the seizure of evidence in plain view from the greater intrusion of an automobile search.” McMahon, 280 A.3d at 1073; see generally LaFave, supra, at §7.2 (relevant question “is what kinds of vehicle cases involve a sufficiently high degree of intrusion into privacy interests that before-the-fact judicial control is essential”). By definition, a plain view seizure from a car does not involve confiscation of an object shielded from public view. As such, as a general matter, “the seizure of an object in plain view does not involve an intrusion on privacy.” Horton, 496 U.S. at 141. See Commonwealth v. Petroll, 738 A.2d 993, 999 (Pa. 1999) (“There can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in an object that is in plain view.”); Gary, 91 A.3d at 150 (Todd, J., dissenting) (“When one rides in an automobile, he accepts that he himself and those items left uncovered on the dashboard or seat are no longer ‘private.'”) (citation omitted); see also Alexander, 243 A.3d at 202 (“[W]e adopt Justice Todd’s compelling analysis as our own.”).

Of course, we recognize Saunders’s principal complaint is not that police intruded upon any protected privacy interest he held in the stolen gun that was observed in plain view; rather, it’s that his privacy interest in the vehicle was supposedly invaded when Officer Ibbotson momentarily trespassed into it to seize the gun. See Saunders’s Brief at 10 (“A plain-view seizure thus cannot be justified it if is effectuated by unlawful trespass.”), quoting Collins v. Virginia, 138 S.Ct. 1663, 1672 (2018); see also Alexander, 243 A.3d at 202 (explaining “possessory and privacy interests can be different with respect to the vehicle itself versus items within that vehicle”). Again though, by its very nature, a plain view seizure from a car does not involve police intrusion into “features that let [car] users store items away from public view such as trunks, glove boxes, and internal storage compartments.” Alexander, 243 A.3d at 192. Hence, in the plain view seizure context, the police intrusion into the car, and the attendant invasion of the defendant’s reasonable expectation of privacy in the vehicle, can never approach that of a full-scale car search.10Link to the text of the note Rather, the full extent of the police entry into a car in the circumstance of a plain view seizure will always be limited to items and areas already fully exposed to public view. So the potential invasion of privacy and potential intrusion by police are necessarily less substantial in the context of a plain view seizure than they are in the context of a car search. These distinctions justify distinct standards.

Indeed, the facts of this case prove the point. The intrusion by Officer Ibbotson was decidedly minimal. From outside of the car, he merely reached a few inches into the car through the open driver’s-side door directly to where the gun was located on the floor by the driver’s seat and immediately seized the weapon. This was the full extent of the intrusion. No force or damage was required to gain entry; the door was open. No more than the officer’s left hand and wrist actually entered the car. He stopped with confiscation of the gun. He did not probe anywhere else in the car, much less go into the glove box, any containers in the vehicle, or the trunk. It was all over in a matter of a few seconds. In short, the police intrusion was narrowly circumscribed to address and neutralize the unsecured gun on the floor of the open car. At most, it resulted in a de minimis intrusion on Saunders’s expectation of privacy in the vehicle.