People v. Belton

• Decision Date: 11 February 1982
• Citation: 447 N.Y.S.2d 873,432 N.E.2d 745,55 N.Y.2d 49
• Parties: , 432 N.E.2d 745 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Roger BELTON, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 873

447 N.Y.S.2d 873

55 N.Y.2d 49, 432 N.E.2d 745

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. Roger BELTON, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Feb. 11, 1982.

Paul J. Cambria, Jr., and Barbara Davies Eberl, Buffalo, for appellant.

James R. Harvey, Dist. Atty. (R. Michael Tantillo, Asst. Dist. Atty., of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

COOKE, Chief Judge.

The United States Supreme Court, --- U.S. ----, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768, having disagreed with our perception of the requirements of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and reversed our earlier decision, this case comes once again to this court. Defendant urges that, although the search in question has been held valid under the Federal Constitution, we should hold that it violated section 12 of article I of the State Constitution, a contention not confronted when the case was previously before us. The identical wording of the two provisions does not proscribe our more strictly construing the State Constitution than the Supreme Court has construed the Federal Constitution (see Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 60-61, 88 S.Ct. 1889 1901, 20 L.Ed.2d 917; Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58, 62, 87 S.Ct. 788, 791, 17 L.Ed.2d 730). We do not find it necessary to consider the Supreme Court's rationale as applied to our Constitution, however, for we now hold on a different rationale that the search and seizure were not improper under the State Constitution. The evidence sought to be suppressed was, therefore, admissible and defendant's conviction should, in consequence, be affirmed.

The facts are uncomplicated. On April 9, 1978, a State trooper stopped a car speeding along the State Thruway in Ontario County. Upon smelling marihuana and seeing on the car floor an envelope of a type frequently used in sales of that substance, he ordered defendant and the three other occupants out of the car and then patted them down. He inspected the envelope and ascertained that it did contain marihuana. The trooper placed the four persons, who were still standing outside the car, under arrest. He then entered the vehicle, searched the passenger compartment and, finding defendant's jacket lying on the back seat, opened its zippered pocket and discovered a small amount of cocaine. After defendant's motion to suppress the cocaine was denied, he pleaded guilty to sixth degree criminal possession of a controlled substance.

The Appellate Division, 68 A.D.2d 198, 416 N.Y.S.2d 922 affirmed defendant's conviction. This court, however, reversed and held that the cocaine should have been suppressed because the warrantless search of defendant's jacket violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (People v. Belton, 50 N.Y.2d 447, 427 N.Y.S.2d 574, 407 N.E.2d 420). The Supreme Court, extending the rationale of Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, has now held that the Fourth Amendment did not prohibit the warrantless seizure and search of a closed container within the passenger compartment of an automobile shortly after the arrest of the vehicle's occupants. It ruled that even though the search of the zippered jacket pocket took place after the occupants had left the vehicle and been placed under arrest, the search was permissible as incident to the arrest, and the cocaine admissible as the product of a proper search incident to lawful arrest (New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. ----, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768). It found no need, in view of that conclusion, to consider the "automobile exception" to the warrant requirement, although as it acknowledged (453 U.S. ----, ----, n. 6, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 2865, n. 6, supra ), the court had previously recognized the exception (see Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 61 L.Ed.2d 235; United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538; Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543).

A majority of this court now concludes that the search which followed defendant's lawful arrest was permissible under the State Constitution under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement.

By interposing the requirement of a warrant issued judicially, upon information attested by oath or affirmation and which establishes probable cause, the State Constitution ¹ protects the privacy interests of the people of our State, not only in their persons, but in their houses, papers and effects as well, against the unfettered discretion of government officials to search or seize. To this proscription against "unreasonable searches and seizures", certain narrow exceptions have been recognized. One such exception is the search incident to arrest, the classic statement of which is in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, supra ). It is grounded in protecting the safety of the arresting officer by permitting him to search for and seize weapons when there is reason to fear for his safety and in preventing the person arrested from destroying evidence of criminal involvement by permitting the arresting officer to search for and seize such evidence.

Until the Supreme Court's decision in the instant case, the search has been limited both temporally and geographically, a search being upheld only when it closely follows arrest and is of the person of the individual arrested and the area within his immediate reach (the "grabbable" area). In extending Chimel to the facts of this case, in which defendant's jacket was neither on his person nor within his reach (he being outside the vehicle and the jacket being inside with its pocket zippered), the Supreme Court has departed from the rationale in Chimel. Once the exception is employed to justify a warrantless search for objects outside an arrested person's reach it no longer has any distinct spatial boundary. As Judge Wachtler, dissenting in People v. Brosnan, 32 N.Y.2d 254, 267, 344 N.Y.S.2d 900, 298 N.E.2d 78, put it, "search and seizure law (becomes) uncontrollable when the rubric (is) adopted and the rationale discarded."

A separate exception to the warrant requirement is that recognized with respect to automobiles. Its predicate is the reduced expectation of privacy associated with automobiles and the inherent mobility of such vehicles (see Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 442, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 2528, 37 L.Ed.2d 706; see, generally, 2 La Fave, Search and Seizure, pp. 508-544). As the Supreme Court has noted, "the configuration, use, and regulation of automobiles often may dilute the reasonable expectation of privacy that exists with respect to differently situated property" (Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 761, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 2591, 61 L.Ed.2d 235 supra ). Among the factors that contribute to this decreased expectation are that automobiles "operate on public streets; they are serviced in public places; * * * their interiors are highly visible; and they are subject to extensive regulation and inspection" (Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 154, 99 S.Ct. 421, 436, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (Powell, J., concurring); see South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 368, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 3096, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000; Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 590-591, 94 S.Ct. 2464, 2469-70, 41 L.Ed.2d 325 (plurality opn.) ). In addition, the mobility of automobiles often makes it impracticable to obtain a warrant (see United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 12, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 2484, 53 L.Ed.2d 538, supra ; Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 153, 45 S.Ct. 280, 285, 69 L.Ed. 543, supra ).

Logically, these considerations should apply to containers within the passenger compartment as well as to the compartment itself. Such containers, as distinct from their contents, are exposed to public view, and generally are subject to the same risk of theft or intrusion as other articles in the passenger compartment. Likewise, the special problems created by the mobility of automobiles apply equally to containers in the compartment. In both cases, the impracticability of obtaining a warrant and the danger that evidence may be lost in the interim merge as supportable bases for an exception to the warrant requirement.

The automobile exception has, however, been subject to the limitations inherent in the factors which are its predicate. Where the special mobility of automobiles is no longer a factor because the vehicle itself has been seized and impounded by the police, a warrantless search of the vehicle or of a closed container in the passenger compartment made after impoundment of the vehicle has been held justified only when the contents were by their nature sufficiently discernible to be said to be openly visible ² or some special exigency existed (Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 84 S.Ct. 881, 11 L.Ed.2d 777; see People v. Roman, 53 N.Y.2d 39, 444 N.Y.S.2d 167; cf. Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 99 S.Ct. 2586, 61 L.Ed.2d 235, supra ).

Justification for an automobile search contemporaneous with a valid arrest arises, however, not only from the mobility of an automobile, or the reduced expectation of privacy as to materials within the automobile, or both, but also from the circumstances which validate the arrest. Thus, by way of contrast, a motorist stopped for a traffic infraction may not be searched unless when the vehicle is stopped there are reasonable grounds for believing the driver guilty of a crime, as distinct from a traffic offense (People v. Marsh, 20 N.Y.2d 98, 101, 281 N.Y.S.2d 789, 228 N.E.2d 783). However, a valid arrest for a crime authorizes a warrantless search-for a reasonable time and to a reasonable extent-of a vehicle and of a closed container ³ visible in the passenger compartment of the vehicle which the arrested person is driving or in which he is a passenger when the circumstances give reason to believe that the vehicle or its visible contents may be related to the crime for which the arrest is being made (as possibly containing contraband or as having...