State v. Hicks
| Decision Date | 20 June 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,CA-CR,1 |
| Parties | The STATE of Arizona, Appellant, v. James Thomas HICKS, Appellee. 8573. |
| Court | Arizona Court of Appeals |
On April 18, 1984, police officers responded to a shooting at an apartment in North Phoenix. The victim had been shot through the floor from the apartment above. The officers were admitted to that apartment by the manager of the complex. In a quick search, they determined that no people were in the apartment. They did, however, seize several weapons. One of the officers, on seeing expensive stereo components which he believed to be out of keeping with the otherwise mean nature of the furnishings, became suspicious that those components were stolen. He moved the components so that he could locate and record the serial numbers. On checking by computer and department reports, he learned that these components had been taken in an armed robbery. These facts were presented in an affidavit, a search warrant issued, and the components were subsequently seized. The state appeals from the suppression of that evidence.
The parties are agreed that the initial entry into defendant's apartment, although warrantless, was legal. The exigencies of the situation demanded it. When a random shooting of this nature, immediately after its occurrence, can be traced to a particular location, police need not delay to obtain a warrant. They can reasonably believe that others may have been shot or may be in peril and that weapons that could be used against them may be found. This justified the entry and the search for the shooter, weapons, and other possible victims. Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978).
Mincey also teaches, however, that a "warrantless search must be 'strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation,' Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 25-26, 88 S.Ct. [1868] at 1882 [20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) ]." Id. at 393, 98 S.Ct. at 2413, 57 L.Ed.2d at 300. The right to enter for one purpose is not enlarged to allow a general rummaging through a person's effects however suspicious they may appear to the entering officer. The recording of the serial numbers was unrelated to the exigency justifying...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
People v. Machupa
...officers cannot launder their prior unconstitutional behavior by presenting the fruits of it to a magistrate." (State v. Hicks (1986) 146 Ariz. 533, 707 P.2d 331, 333, affd. on other grounds sub nom. Arizona v. Hicks (1987) 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347. In a series of cases,......
-
U.S. v. McClain
...they relied in good faith was obtained as a direct result of their own unjustified warrantless entry. See also State v. Hicks, 146 Ariz. 533, 707 P.2d 331 (Ct.App.1985), aff'd on other grounds sub nom. Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987). There, the Arizona......
-
State v. Halczyszak
...suspected as stolen, for the purpose of locating, recording, and subsequently tracing the serial numbers. See State v. Hicks (1985), 146 Ariz. 533, 707 P.2d 331 (App.), certiorari granted (1986), 475 U.S. 1107, 106 S.Ct. 1512, 89 L.Ed.2d 912.6 Under the federal Constitution's Supremacy Clau......
-
United States v. Ganias
...their prior unconstitutional behavior by presenting the fruits of it to a magistrate,’ ” id. at 56 (quoting State v. Hicks , 146 Ariz. 533, 707 P.2d 331, 333 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1985) ). Second, Ganias argues that, even if “a subsequent warrant can ever appropriately purge the taint of an earli......
-
Swinging for the fences: how Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc. missed the ball on digital searches.
...(69) Id. at 325-26. The ruling also corrected an interpretation of Coolidge put forward by the Arizona Court of Appeals. State v. Hicks, 707 P.2d 331 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1985). The Arizona court had held in Hicks that the search was unreasonable because the turntable was unrelated to the shooti......