State v. Falcon

33 Neb. Ct. App. 331
CourtNebraska Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 28, 2025
DocketA-23-953
StatusPublished

This text of 33 Neb. Ct. App. 331 (State v. Falcon) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Nebraska Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Falcon, 33 Neb. Ct. App. 331 (Neb. Ct. App. 2025).

Opinion

Nebraska Supreme Court Online Library www.nebraska.gov/apps-courts-epub/ 02/04/2025 09:10 AM CST

- 331 - Nebraska Court of Appeals Advance Sheets 33 Nebraska Appellate Reports STATE V. FALCON Cite as 33 Neb. App. 331

State of Nebraska, appellee, v. Shaquille M. Falcon, appellant. ___ N.W.3d ___

Filed January 28, 2025. No. A-23-953.

1. Constitutional Law: Search and Seizure: Motions to Suppress: Appeal and Error. In reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress based on a claimed violation of the Fourth Amendment, an appellate court applies a two-part standard of review. Regarding histori- cal facts, an appellate court reviews the trial court’s findings for clear error, but whether those facts trigger or violate Fourth Amendment protections is a question of law that an appellate court reviews indepen- dently of the trial court’s determination. 2. Rules of Evidence. In proceedings where the Nebraska Evidence Rules apply, the admissibility of evidence is controlled by such rules; judicial discretion is involved only when the rules make discretion a factor in determining admissibility. 3. Rules of Evidence: Appeal and Error. Where the Nebraska Evidence Rules commit the evidentiary question at issue to the discretion of the trial court, an appellate court reviews the admissibility of evidence for an abuse of discretion. 4. Jury Instructions. Whether jury instructions given by a trial court are correct is a question of law. 5. Judgments: Appeal and Error. When reviewing questions of law, an appellate court resolves the questions independently of the lower court’s conclusions. 6. Convictions: Evidence: Appeal and Error. In reviewing a criminal conviction for a sufficiency of the evidence claim, whether the evidence is direct, circumstantial, or a combination thereof, the standard is the same: An appellate court does not resolve conflicts in the evidence, pass on the credibility of witnesses, or reweigh the evidence; such matters are for the finder of fact. The relevant question for an appellate court is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the - 332 - Nebraska Court of Appeals Advance Sheets 33 Nebraska Appellate Reports STATE V. FALCON Cite as 33 Neb. App. 331

prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential ele- ments of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. 7. Constitutional Law: Search and Seizure: Warrantless Searches. Both the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and article I, § 7, of the Nebraska Constitution guarantee against unreasonable searches and sei- zures. Searches without a valid warrant are per se unreasonable, subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions. 8. Warrantless Searches. The warrantless search exceptions Nebraska has recognized include: (1) searches undertaken with consent, (2) searches under exigent circumstances, (3) inventory searches, (4) searches of evidence in plain view, and (5) searches incident to a valid arrest. 9. Warrantless Searches: Proof. It is the State’s burden to show that a search falls within an exception to the warrant requirement. 10. Warrantless Searches: Motor Vehicles. Nebraska has recognized that among the established exceptions to the warrant requirement is the auto- mobile exception. 11. Constitutional Law: Search and Seizure: Duress. Generally, to be effective under the Fourth Amendment, consent to a search must be a free and unconstrained choice, and not the product of a will overborne. 12. Warrantless Searches: Duress. Consent must be given voluntarily and not as a result of duress or coercion, whether express, implied, physical, or psychological. 13. Constitutional Law: Search and Seizure. The determination of whether the facts and circumstances constitute a voluntary consent to a search, satisfying the Fourth Amendment, is a question of law. 14. Search and Seizure. Whether consent to a search was voluntary is to be determined from the totality of the circumstances surrounding the giving of consent. 15. Warrantless Searches: Proof. When the prosecution seeks to justify a warrantless search by proof of voluntary consent, it is not limited to proof that the consent was given by the defendant, but may show that the permission to search was obtained from a third party who possessed common authority over or other sufficient relationship to the premises or effects sought to be inspected. 16. Warrantless Searches: Police Officers and Sheriffs. A warrantless search is valid when based upon consent of a third party whom the police, at the time of the search, reasonably believed possessed author- ity to consent to a search of the property, even if it is later demonstrated that the individual did not possess such authority. 17. Search and Seizure: Police Officers and Sheriffs. The search of prop- erty based on consent by a third party must be judged against an objec- tive standard: Would the facts available to the officer at the moment - 333 - Nebraska Court of Appeals Advance Sheets 33 Nebraska Appellate Reports STATE V. FALCON Cite as 33 Neb. App. 331

warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that the consenting party had authority over the property? 18. Search and Seizure: Warrantless Searches: Probable Cause: Motor Vehicles. The automobile exception to the warrant requirement applies when a vehicle is readily mobile and there is probable cause to believe that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found in the vehicle. 19. Motor Vehicles: Words and Phrases. A vehicle is readily mobile whenever it is not located on private property and is capable or appar- ently capable of being driven on the roads or highways. 20. Search and Seizure: Probable Cause: Words and Phrases. Probable cause to search requires that the known facts and circumstances are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable prudence in the belief that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found. 21. Probable Cause: Police Officers and Sheriffs: Motor Vehicles. Probable cause may result from any of the senses, and an officer is entitled to rely on his or her sense of smell in determining whether con- traband is present in a vehicle. 22. Warrantless Searches: Probable Cause: Motor Vehicles: Controlled Substances: Police Officers and Sheriffs. Because of marijuana’s legal status as contraband, a trained officer who detects the odor of marijuana emanating from a vehicle in Nebraska has firsthand information that provides an objectively reasonable basis to suspect contraband will be found in the vehicle. Assuming the vehicle is readily mobile, the odor of marijuana alone provides probable cause to search the vehicle under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. 23. Witnesses: Evidence: Records: Telecommunications. The records cus- todian employed by a social media platform can attest to the accuracy of only certain aspects of the communications exchanged over that plat- form, that is, confirmation that the depicted communications took place between certain accounts, on particular dates, or at particular times. 24. Rules of Evidence: Records: Telecommunications. Social media com- munications are not business records that may be “self-authenticated” by way of a certificate from a records custodian under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 27-902(11) (Cum. Supp. 2024). 25. Rules of Evidence: Telecommunications. Extrinsic evidence may be used to authenticate the substantive content of social media communica- tions under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 27-901 (Reissue 2016). 26. Rules of Evidence: Telecommunications: Hearsay. Once authenti- cated, social media content authored by a defendant is admissible as an admission by a party opponent under Neb. Rev. Stat.

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Bluebook (online)
33 Neb. Ct. App. 331, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-falcon-nebctapp-2025.