Wilson v. Commonwealth

475 S.W.2d 895, 1971 Ky. LEXIS 76
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedDecember 3, 1971
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 475 S.W.2d 895 (Wilson v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wilson v. Commonwealth, 475 S.W.2d 895, 1971 Ky. LEXIS 76 (Ky. Ct. App. 1971).

Opinion

GARDNER, Commissioner.

James Edward Wilson and Jewell Curtis Winn were convicted of grand larceny and each' sentenced to one year in the penitentiary. They have assigned 11 errors and discussed each in detail in their 120-page brief. Some of the contentions are incon[897]*897sequential and we are not constrained to discuss them.

Fetzer Refrigerator Company of Louisville was broken into on October 28 or 29, 1967. Nine rolls of carpeting, a chain saw and a vacuum cleaner were taken. Wilson and Winn were members of the Louisville Police Department on the dates mentioned. They were assigned Beat Car 202 which patrolled Beat 202. The Fetzer Refrigerator Company’s building was located in Beat 201, patrolled by Beat Car 201. On August 13, 1967, about two months before the goods were stolen, Don Slater, an employee of Fetzer, returned to the Fetzer building to pick up additional carpeting material to finish the job on which he was working. Car 202 was parked at the Fetzer building with no policemen in view. Slater called the Louisville Police Department and reported the fact. Shortly after the call was made Winn came out of the building. He told Slater that Wilson was still inside. The officers explained that they had seen an open door leading into the Fetzer building and went in to investigate.

In February 1969 the carpeting and vacuum cleaner were found in a used-furniture store owned and operated by Thomas Hall Burgess. Burgess testified that Winn and Wilson had requested that he store the items for them. In January 1969, one month before the stolen goods were recovered, Winn was suspended from the police department. (He had been charged with murder in Boyle County.) Among the items inventoried from Winn’s locker was a key that fit the main door of the Fetzer building.

Appellants contend that the evidence (the carpeting and vacuum cleaner) should have been suppressed because it was taken into possession by the police without a search warrant. They are in error. Burgess voluntarily permitted the police officers to search his store. Appellants insist that they had a possessory right to the area where the items were stored and the officers had no authority to invade that right even though Burgess gave them permission. It is noted from the record that there was no enclosed area where the goods were placed nor were the goods set apart from other items in the store. Burgess’s store was open to the public and there was an implied invitation for customers to come in and browse around. We see here no contravention of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States which provides:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, * *

The authorities cited by appellants are concerned with facts of a different category. In Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960), for example, the accused was using an apartment belonging to a friend; the friend had let him have a key to the apartment; some of the accused’s clothes were in the apartment; he had stayed at least one night there. The court held the accused had sufficient possession to allow him to raise the question of illegal search of the apartment. In United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59 (1951), a search of a hotel room without a warrant was determined to be illegal, where the room was engaged by the accused’s aunt who had given him a key with permission to use the room at will. Other cases—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 81 S.Ct. 776, 5 L.Ed.2d 828 (1961); Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964)—relied on by appellants, are not influential because they also are factually different from the instant case. Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967), cited by appellants, is malapropos. It deals with the introduction of clothing and other items not considered as instruments in the perpetration of the crime. The court rejected the rule fostered by Gouled v. Unit[898]*898ed States, 255 U.S. 298, 41 S.Ct. 261, 65 L.Ed. 647 (1921), that items of only eviden-tiary value, as distinguished from “instru-mentalities,” “fruits,” or “contraband,” could not be seized or introduced in evidence.

Continuing further in a constitutional vein, appellants argue that the warrantless search of the locker where the key to the Fetzer building was found was in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Relied on by appellants are: Frazier v. Cupp, Warden, 394 U.S. 731, 89 S.Ct. 1420, 22 L.Ed.2d 684 (1969); Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967); See v. City of Seattle, 387 U.S. 541, 87 S.Ct. 1737, 18 L.Ed.2d 943 (1967); United States v. Elwood, U.S.Ct.Mil.App., 4/17/70, 7 Criminal Law Reporter 2094; Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 84 S.Ct. 881, 11 L.Ed.2d 777 (1964); Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969); Trupiano v. United States, 334 U.S. 699, 68 S.Ct. 1229, 92 L.Ed. 1663 (1948); Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); Ex parte Jackson, 96 U.S. 727, 24 L.Ed. 877 (1877); Nichols v. Commonwealth, Ky., 408 S.W.2d 189 (1966). Many of the cases point up the recent trend of the Supreme Court to zealously guard the rights of persons against unreasonable searches and seizures. None of them, however, presents facts with enough similarity to the instant case to be controlling.

Winn makes no complaint of his having been suspended from the police department a couple of months before he was accused of stealing the carpeting. Subsequent to his suspension Captain Maurice Raque emptied the contents of the locker, made an inventory and placed the items in the property room. Among the contents was the key, which was introduced into evidence, to the Fetzer building. Captain Raque testified that all lockers belonged to the police department and the policemen understood that the department had the right “to go into any locker at any time we want to.” He pointed out that there was a scarcity of lockers and the department would assign a locker to someone else just as soon as it became available.

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Bluebook (online)
475 S.W.2d 895, 1971 Ky. LEXIS 76, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilson-v-commonwealth-kyctapp-1971.