People v. Henderson

• Decision Date: 16 August 1971
• Docket Number: No. 25027,25027
• Citation: 487 P.2d 1108,175 Colo. 400
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William M. HENDERSON II, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 1108

487 P.2d 1108

175 Colo. 400

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.William M. HENDERSON II, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 25027.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

Aug. 16, 1971.

Stanley F. Johnson, Dist. Atty., Robert M. Jenkins, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty., Boulder, for plaintiff-appellee.

Blewitt, Bisbee & Geil, Dennis L. Blewitt, Boulder, for defendant-appellant.

ERICKSON, Justice.

This interlocutory appeal was initiated by the defendant, William M. Henderson, after his motion to suppress evidence was denied by the District Court of Boulder County.The evidence in issue was seized as a result of a warrantless search of the defendant's car after the defendant was arrested without a warrant.

A chronological statement of the facts preceding the arrest and seizure of evidence provides us with a proper foundation for the application of well-established search and seizure law.On July 16, 1970, undercover agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs were taken to a cabin west of Boulder for the purpose of buying sixty pounds of marijuana.Soon after arriving at the cabin, the undercover agents were supplied with ten pounds of marijuana and were told that an additional fifty pounds of marijuana was then on its way by automobile and would arrive shortly.Minutes later, a Mercedes Benz automobile entered the driveway in front of the cabin.One of the suspects, while getting out of the car, recognized one of the narcotics agents and gave the alarm to the occupants of the cabin.Most of the individuals in the cabin and all of those in the Mercedes Benz fled into the woods that adjoined the cabin.Within a few minutes, all but one of the suspects were captured and returned to the cabin.The suspects were immediately arrested and advised of their rights, and arrangements were made to transport the suspects to detention facilities.Approximately thirty to forty-five minutes later, while everyone was still in the cabin, a second car arrived.Its occupants were also arrested, and both the occupants and the automobile were searched.No evidence of narcotic drugs was found.Thereafter, two more vehicles arrived at separate times, and again, both the passengers and the vehicles were searched.Search of the defendant's vehicle, which was the third automobile to arrive at the cabin, resulted in the seizure of a small quantity of marijuana that is the basis for charging the defendant, Henderson, with a narcotics violation.A later search of the Mercedes Benz, which was the first car to arrive, produced the sought-after shipment of fifty pounds of marijuana.

The defendant contends that his motion to suppress evidence should have been granted, because the police officers did not have probable cause to believe the shipment of marijuana was in his vehicle.Moreover, he argues that the search of his automobile without a warrant was in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights.Since this case contains facts establishing exigent circumstances which would require the police officers to either seize the vehicle and hold it until a search warrant could be obtained or search it without a warrant, Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419(1970), supports the conclusion that given probable cause a warrantless search was permissible.See also, Coolidge v. New Hampshire, (June 21, 1971), 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564.Consequently, the decisive question is whether the police officers had probable cause to search the defendant's vehicle.

The District Attorney contends that the order in which the vehicles were searched is crucial to this case and supports the search.He urges us to hold there was probable cause to search the defendant's vehicle, because at the time of the search, the shipment of marijuana had not yet been discovered.In view of the factual sequence of the events which preceded the search, we find this argument unpersuasive.Clearly, the police officers had probable cause to search the Mercedes Benz automobile and no other.Facts sufficient to provide the police officers with probable cause to search the Mercedes Benz automobile include the arrival of the vehicle at the time the shipment of marijuana was to be delivered, the recognition of the car's occupants as traffickers in narcotics, and the flight of the occupants upon recognition of one of the purchasers as an undercover agent.Confronted with these facts, no reasonable man could believe that the shipment of marijuana was likely to be found in the defendant's vehicle, which arrived long after the aforementioned events had occurred and...