Cook v. Commonwealth

216 S.E.2d 48, 216 Va. 71, 1975 Va. LEXIS 250

• Court: Supreme Court of Virginia
• Decided: June 13, 1975
• Docket: Record 740198
• Status: Published

Opinions

Carrico, J.,

delivered the opinion of the court.

The defendant, Alvin Johnson Cook, was convicted by the trial court, sitting without a jury, of possession of hashish, a controlled drug. Imposition of sentence was suspended for a period of ten years.

The evidence shows that on June 20, 1973, Richmond police officers Johnson and Carr, acting upon an informer’s tip, secured a warrant to search the defendant’s apartment. Finding no one at the apartment, the officers gained entry through an open window. They discovered and seized a quantity of marijuana. As the officers were concluding their search, the defendant arrived in his automobile and entered the apartment. He was placed under arrest for manufacture of the marijuana found in the apartment.

Believing that the search had not disclosed “all the narcotics that was supposed to have been there in the apartment,” Officer Johnson went to the defendant’s automobile, which was parked on the street “right outside” the apartment. Upon “looking into [the automobile] from outside,” Johnson observed a brown paper bag “in the front floorboard on the passenger’s side.” He also saw, protruding from the bag, a “plastic face-mask.”

Officer Johnson recently had seen the defendant “in the company of some people that were using” an identical face mask “to smoke marijuana.” Acting upon his “observations” of the face mask, Johnson “reached inside” the automobile and “retrieved” the brown paper bag. He observed, attached to the face mask, a hose containing a residue of marijuana. Within the bag containing the face mask and hose, Johnson found another bag containing nine foil packages of hashish. The defendant then was arrested for possession of hashish.

At the outset of our discussion, it is necessary to define what question is properly presented for decision. The defendant complains in his assignment of error that the trial court erred “in refusing to suppress the evidence of possession of Hashish ... as this evidence was seized by the police during an illegal search of the defendant’s automobile.” The defendant now argues that seizure of the hashish was illegal because the search of the automobile was without a warrant and none of the exceptions permitting a warrantless search applies to excuse the absence of a warrant. The only possible basis upon which the search might be sustained, the defendant says, is the “inadvertent plain view” theory enunciated in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443 (1971). The “inadvertent” theory is not applicable to this case, the defendant concludes, because here “the view was deliberate.”

At trial, however, when Officer Johnson attempted to testify what he saw at the time he “looked inside” the defendant’s automobile, defense counsel objected upon the ground that a police officer has no “right to go up and look in an automobile when it’s parked on the street.” If it was Officer Johnson’s purpose to “look in” the automobile, counsel stated, “he should have got a search warrant.” The trial court overruled the defendant’s objection, and Officer Johnson then proceeded to relate, without further objection, how he “reached inside” the automobile, “retrieved” the brown paper bag, and then discovered the presence of hashish within the inner bag.

It is not necessary that we examine the various exceptions permitting a warrantless search of an automobile or that we engage in the judicial debate now in progress concerning the “inadvertent plain view” theory enunciated by a plurality of the members of the Supreme Court in Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra. These matters are not relevant to disposition of the present case.

The defendant’s position throughout this case has been that the police conducted an illegal search of his automobile when Officer Johnson “looked inside” the vehicle and saw the brown paper bag containing the face mask. Inherent in the defendant’s position is the tacit concession that if the alleged search of the automobile was lawful, seizure of the brown paper bag and its contents, including the hashish, was also lawful. The narrow, and the only, question for decision, therefore, is whether a police officer, who is standing on a public street or sidewalk, conducts a search, in the constitutional sense, when he merely “looks in” an automobile parked on the street and observes therein what is openly exposed to view. Common sense and established legal precedent tell us that the answer to this question is in the negative.

It is the right of privacy which the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches is designed to protect. There can be little, if any, expectation of privacy when one parks his automobile on a public street and leaves therein, openly exposed to view, items of contraband or other evidence of crime.

What a person knowingly exposes to the public is not a subject of protection by the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable searches. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967). It is not unlawful, but entirely lawful, for a police officer who is on a public street or sidewalk to look, either deliberately or inadvertently, into an automobile parked on the street and to observe what is exposed therein to open view. See Smith v. Slayton, 484 F.2d 1188, 1190 (4th Cir. 1973).

Such police action does not constitute a search in the constitutional sense. A search “implies a prying into hidden places.” Carter v. Commonwealth, 209 Va. 317, 320, 163 S.E.2d 589, 592 (1968). To search means to conduct an “exploratory investigation;” it involves an “invasion and quest.” Merely “looking at that which is open to view is not a search.” Duffield v. Peyton, 209 Va. 178, 183, 162 S.E.2d 915, 918 (1968).

Accordingly, we hold that there was not an illegal search of the defendant’s automobile involved in the police action which led to discovery of the hashish, for the possession of which the defendant was convicted. The judgment of the trial court, therefore, will be affirmed.

Affirmed.