State v. Stroud

720 P.2d 436, 106 Wash. 2d 144, 1986 Wash. LEXIS 1204

• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Decided: June 12, 1986
• Docket: 51501-8
• Status: Published

Opinions

Goodloe, J.

Early in the morning of December 3, 1982, Deputies Withrow and Mauermann of the Lewis County Sheriff's office observed a parked vehicle next to a vending machine in a closed Chevron gas station. The headlights were on and the car's engine was running. One of the defendants, Billy Steven Stroud, was standing beside the vending machine, while the other defendant, Herbert Lee Caywood, stood in the swing of the open passenger door, a couple of feet away from Stroud.

At the time the deputies arrived, the door of the vending machine appeared to be open. When Stroud saw the deputies, he shut the door and grabbed a key which was in the vending machine door lock. One of the deputies asked Stroud for the key, and Stroud complied, handing over a homemade key apparently designed to open vending machine locks. The officers decided to frisk both defendants, and found a second homemade key on Stroud and found that Caywood's coat pocket contained several dollars worth of change. The officer arrested the defendants for theft, advised them of their rights, handcuffed them, and placed them in the back of the patrol car.

After the defendants were in the patrol car, Officer Mauermann looked into the back of the car and saw a revolver on the backseat. Officer Mauermann seized the weapon and decided to search the entire passenger compartment, including the glove compartment. Mauermann found an unzipped luggage bag which contained, among other things, a sawed-off shotgun, ammunition for the gun, and a plastic container containing white powdery substance. A search of the unlocked glove compartment revealed several spoons, syringes, and a container full of a clear liquid.

Officer Mauermann returned to the patrol car and was informed by Officer Withrow that the car belonged to a friend of Caywood, and she asked that the officers leave the car at the service station so that she could pick it up later. The officers, however, decided to impound the car and transported it to the Lewis County Evidence Garage where additional items were seized in an inventory search.

The residue in the spoons was identified as heroin and methamphetamine. The defendants moved for this evidence to be suppressed, as it was seized in a warrantless search of the automobile at a time when the officers were not in danger and there was no chance that the evidence in the car would be destroyed. The trial court refused to suppress the evidence, holding that although no exigent circumstances existed, the search was lawful pursuant to the automobile exception. The two defendants were subsequently convicted in a nonjury trial of possession of heroin, possession of methamphetamine, and being felons in possession of a firearm.

The defendants appealed their convictions on the grounds that the trial court should have suppressed the evidence seized in the warrantless search of the automobile. The Court of Appeals certified this case to us. We affirm the conviction and attempt to define more precisely the scope of the automobile exception to the warrant requirement implied in article 1, section 7 of the Washington Constitution.

I

In recent cases, the United States Supreme Court has enlarged the narrow exceptions to the prohibition in the Fourth Amendment against warrantless searches. The effect has been to make lawful a warrantless search of a passenger compartment of a car, and all containers (luggage, paper bags, etc.) inside it, pursuant to a lawful custodial arrest. New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 69 L. Ed. 2d 768, 101 S. Ct. 2860 (1981). The Supreme Court has also held that, if the officers have probable cause to believe that the trunk contains contraband, they may also search any containers inside the trunk for this contraband. United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 72 L. Ed. 2d 572, 102 S. Ct. 2157 (1982).

These exceptions to the Fourth Amendment were part of narrowly and jealously drawn exemptions to the warrant requirement. The rationale for these decisions was that the exigencies of the situation surrounding a car search pursuant to a custodial arrest outweighed whatever privacy interests the driver and passengers had in the articles and containers in the car. Belton, at 461. These exigencies included the danger that the suspect could destroy the evidence in the car, the car could be driven away, or the suspect could grab a weapon secreted somewhere in the passenger compartment. Federal courts have not distinguished between situations in which the suspect was already handcuffed in the patrol car, or was not actually in police custody at the exact moment of the search, United States v. Mided, 582 F. Supp. 1182, 1185 (N.D. Ill. 1984), because such a distinction would overly complicate exactly when a warrantless search would be permissible.

Another theme running through the recent Supreme Court pronouncements is that the privacy interests of an individual in his or her luggage are reduced when these articles are placed inside a car. Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 61 L. Ed. 2d 235, 99 S. Ct. 2586 (1979). "[T]he configuration, use, and regulation of automobiles often may dilute the reasonable expectation of privacy that exists with respect to differently situated property." (Citations omitted.) Sanders, at 761. Therefore, the Supreme Court has balanced the exigencies of the situation surrounding an arrest of a suspect in a car with the diminished privacy interests which the suspect could expect with goods placed in a car, and has held that a warrantless search of the passenger compartment of a car pursuant to a custodial arrest does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

If we were to decide this case merely by following United States Supreme Court precedent, the search of the car pursuant to this lawful arrest would clearly be valid. We decline to do so, however, based on our belief that our Washington State Constitution affords individuals greater protections against warrantless searches than does the Fourth Amendment. We believe this for a variety of reasons. First, when the framers of our state constitution adopted article 1, section 7, they specifically rejected a provision identical to the Fourth Amendment. Journal of the Washington State Constitutional Convention, 1889, at 497 (B. Rosenow ed. 1962). Instead, our forefathers decided on the following: "No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law." This provision, unlike any provision in the federal constitution, explicitly protects the privacy rights of Washington citizens, State v. White, 97 Wn.2d 92, 110, 640 P.2d 1061 (1982), and these privacy rights include the freedom from warrantless searches absent special circumstances.

Secondly, both the United States and the Washington State Supreme Courts have recognized that "state constitutional provisions [may be] more protective of individual rights than the parallel provisions of the United States Constitution." State v. Simpson, 95 Wn.2d 170, 177, 622 P.2d 1199 (1980). See also Massachusetts v. Upton, 466 U.S. 727, 80 L. Ed. 2d 721, 728-31, 104 S. Ct. 2085 (1984) (Stevens, J., concurring). Recent holdings of this court have indicated that we will protect Washington citizens' right to privacy in search and seizure cases more vigorously than they would be protected under the federal constitution. State v. Simpson, supra; State v. White, supra; State v. Ringer, 100 Wn.2d 686, 674 P.2d 1240 (1983); State v. Myrick, 102 Wn.2d 506, 688 P.2d 151 (1984). During a period in which the federal interpretation more carefully limits an individual's federal privacy rights, we decline to follow the federal lead as our state constitution provides specific additional guaranties of a right to privacy.

In deciding this case, we are mindful of the recent United States Supreme Court decision in Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1201, 103 S. Ct. 3469 (1983). In Long, the United States Supreme Court held that states, in deciding the bulk of criminal cases, created a considerable amount of federal law when applying federal constitutional standards. In many cases, jurisdictional confusion has arisen because the state court had not clearly indicated whether its holdings rested on federal grounds or on adequate, separate and independent state grounds, which would preclude Supreme Court review. In order to assure the unity of federal constitutional interpretation and to clarify this jurisdictional conflict, the Supreme Court has articulated the "plain statement" rule:

[W]hen ... a state court decision fairly appears to rest primarily on federal law, or to be interwoven with the federal law, and when the adequacy and independence of any possible state law ground is not clear from the face of the opinion, we will accept as the most reasonable explanation that the state court decided the case the way it did because it believed that federal law required it to do so.

Long, at 1040-41.

We wish to make clear that our subsequent determination in this case is not based on prior federal case law, and that we decide this case solely on independent state grounds. We believe that our state's constitution, and recent case law interpreting it, mandate the decision we arrive at today. Furthermore, the role we set regarding the automobile exception to the search warrant requirement is not based on federal precedent, as we have independently weighed the privacy interests individuals have in items within their automobile and the dangers to the officers and law enforcement presented during an arrest of an individual inside an automobile. Our divergence from the decisions of federal courts is based on this heightened protection of privacy by our state constitution.

II

Although we apply the more protective standards of article 1, section 7, we nevertheless hold the search of defendants' car lawful. In doing so, we find no alternative but to overrule a part of our decision 2 years ago in State v. Ringer, supra.

In Ringer, this court held that, absent actual exigent circumstances, a warrantless search of a suspect's vehicle was impermissible. The defendant in Ringer was lawfully parked in a rest area when two officers discovered that a felony arrest warrant existed justifying the defendant's arrest. The officers ordered the defendant out of his van, arrested him, handcuffed him, and placed him in the back of the patrol car. During this arrest process, the officers noticed a strong odor of marijuana emanating from defendant's van. The officers subsequently searched the van and discovered closed, unlocked suitcases which contained marijuana, cocaine, and other controlled substances.

This court held that the search violated article 1, section 7. The basis for this holding was that

[a] warrantless search in this situation is permissible only to remove any weapons the arrestee might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect an escape and to avoid destruction of evidence by the arrestee of the crime for which he or she is arrested.

(Citations omitted.) Ringer, at 699. This court then viewed the "totality of circumstances" surrounding the arrest, and decided that the burden was on the police officers to show that the exigencies of the particular situation required a warrantless search. Ringer, at 701, citing State v. Bean, 89 Wn.2d 467, 472, 572 P.2d 1102 (1978). This was clearly to be done on a case-by-case basis. Because of the availability of a telephone search warrant, because of the lack of danger posed to the officers once the suspect was in the patrol car, and because the van was lawfully parked and immobile, the warrantless search was in this case disallowed.

We cannot agree with all of the reasoning used in Ringer, and agree that this part of the opinion must be overruled. The Ringer holding makes it virtually impossible for officers to decide whether or not a warrantless search would be permissible. Weighing the "totality of circumstances" is too much of a burden to put on police officers who must make a decision to search with little more than a moment's reflection. As the United States Supreme Court stated in New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 458, 69 L. Ed. 2d 768, 101 S. Ct. 2860 (1981), quoting LaFave, "Case-by-Case Adjudication" Versus "Standardized Procedures": The Robinson Dilemma, 1974 Sup. Ct. Rev. 127, 142:

A highly sophisticated set of rules . . . requiring the drawing of subtle nuances and hairline distinctions, may be the sort of heady stuff upon which the facile minds of lawyers and judges eagerly feed, but they may be 'literally impossible of application by the officer in the field."1

We agree with the Supreme Court's decision to draw a clearer line to aid police enforcement, although because of our state's additional protection of privacy rights we must draw the line differently than did the United States Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, in Belton, held that the dangers to the officers and the possible destruction of evidence justified the search of all containers in the passenger compartment of a car pursuant to a lawful custodial arrest. Likewise, in United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 72 L. Ed. 2d 572, 102 S. Ct. 2157 (1982), if the officers have probable cause to believe the trunk has contraband, they may search it also. We agree with the Court that these exigencies exist. However, because of our heightened privacy protection, we do not believe that these exigencies always allow a search. Rather, these exigencies must be balanced against whatever privacy interests the individual has in the articles in the car.

In State v. Simpson, 95 Wn.2d 170, 622 P.2d 1199 (1980), we recognized that a person in possession of a vehicle has a legitimate expectation of privacy under article 1, section 7 in the vehicle, including the vehicle identification number, assuming this serial number was not visible from the outside. This analysis also must be true of articles within the vehicle which also are not visible because, for example, they are in a suitcase or the glove compartment. Furthermore, this court also held in Simpson that the act of locking a car "manifests a subjective expectation of privacy which is objectively justifiable". Simpson, at 187. Thus additional privacy expectations must also result from locking articles within a container.

To weigh the actual exigent circumstances against the actual privacy interests on a case-by-case basis would create too difficult a rule to allow for both effective police enforcement and also protection of individual rights. However, a reasonable balance can be struck. During the arrest process, including the time immediately subsequent to the suspect's being arrested, handcuffed, and placed in a patrol car, officers should be allowed to search the passenger compartment of a vehicle for weapons or destructible evidence. However, if the officers encounter a locked container or locked glove compartment, they may not unlock and search either container without obtaining a warrant. The rationale for this is twofold. First, by locking the container, the individual has shown that he or she reasonably expects the contents to remain private. State v. Simpson, supra. Secondly, the danger that the individual either could destroy or hide evidence located within the container or grab a weapon is minimized. The individual would have to spend time unlocking the container, during which time the officers have an opportunity to prevent the individual's access to the contents of the container. This rule will more adequately address the needs of officers and privacy interests of individuals than the rules set forth by either Belton or Ringer.

Ill

When applying this rule to the facts of this case, the result is clear. Defendants Stroud and Caywood were lawfully arrested next to their car while the door was still open. The car's engine was running and a gun was located in plain view on the backseat. The officers would be entitled to enter the car without a warrant to retrieve the gun, both under the rule described above, as well as a "plain view" exception to the warrant requirement. See State v. Myrick, 102 Wn.2d 506, 514, 688 P.2d 151 (1984). Furthermore, the luggage inside the passenger compartment and the glove compartment were not locked, so a search of these containers would not violate the defendants' constitutional rights.

Accordingly, we uphold the convictions of the defendants on the basis of the evidence gathered in these searches, which did not violate the defendants' state or federal constitutional rights.

Utter, Brachtenbach, and Pearson, JJ., concur.

Dolliver, C.J., concurs in the result.