People v. Quackenbush

• Decision Date: 09 July 1996
• Citation: 88 N.Y.2d 534,647 N.Y.S.2d 150,670 N.E.2d 434
• Parties: , 670 N.E.2d 434 The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. James QUACKENBUSH, Appellant.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

Page 150

647 N.Y.S.2d 150

88 N.Y.2d 534, 670 N.E.2d 434

The PEOPLE of the State of New York, Respondent, v. James QUACKENBUSH, Appellant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

July 9, 1996.

John P. Courtney, Amagansett, for appellant.

James M. Catterson, Jr., District Attorney of Suffolk County, Riverhead (Mary-Ellen Harkin, of counsel), for respondent.

OPINION OF THE COURT

TITONE, Judge.

Defendant has been charged with the offense of operating a motor vehicle with inadequate brakes (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 375[1]. He seeks to suppress evidence of the defective condition of his brakes which was obtained by police when his vehicle was impounded and inspected after being involved in a fatal accident. Defendant claims that the police lacked the authority to impound his vehicle and that the warrantless inspection of his brakes that yielded evidence of their defective condition constituted an illegal search and seizure in violation of the 4th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution and article I, § 12 of the New York State Constitution. We conclude that the police possessed the authority to impound the vehicle in order to comply with the investigatory and reporting duties imposed by Vehicle and Traffic Law § 603. We also hold that the warrantless inspection, which was limited to the vehicle's safety equipment that is normally subject to extensive government regulation and which was related in scope to the duty to investigate the facts surrounding an accident involving a death, did not offend the constitutional prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

I.

Defendant's vehicle was involved in a fatal accident with a bicyclist on August 23, 1993. At the accident scene, defendant was informed that the police were impounding the vehicle for a safety inspection. A mechanic employed by the Town of East Hampton inspected the vehicle on August 25, 1995 and completed a standard form Motor Vehicle Examination Report, in which he was asked to report, in a sworn statement, the condition of the following equipment on defendant's vehicle: the horn, windshield, wipers, brake pedal, headlights, tires, brakes, and steering. Significantly, the mechanic stated that he found "metal to metal contact" on the right rear brakes. Defendant was charged with the misdemeanor of operating a motor vehicle with inadequate brakes in violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 375(1) based on the results of that safety inspection. ¹

Defendant moved to suppress the evidence on the ground that the Vehicle and Traffic Law does not explicitly authorize the police to impound a vehicle to conduct a safety inspection after an accident involving personal injury. Defendant also claimed that the inspection of the vehicle without a warrant, probable cause or exigent circumstances constituted an illegal search in violation of the 4th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution and of article I, § 12 of the New York State Constitution.

At a Mapp hearing, Detective Reich testified that the damage to the vehicle and defendant's admission that he had collided with the bicycle led him to conclude that defendant's vehicle was the instrumentality that caused the victim's death and that the car should be impounded and held for an inspection to enable the police to comply with their accident investigating duties and reporting obligations dictated by Vehicle and Traffic Law § 603. Detective Reich testified that the impoundment was also necessary to avoid the potential destruction of evidence, given that defendant was known to be a mechanic, and that police department policy required impoundment in all automobile accidents that resulted in serious physical injury or death.

Justice Court suppressed the evidence obtained as a result of the safety inspection. The court held that evidence obtained pursuant to the investigation and reporting responsibility mandated by Vehicle and Traffic Law § 603--an "administrative inspection"--could not be utilized for purposes of a criminal prosecution. The court also ruled that the police failure to fully inform the defendant of his right to withhold his consent to the inspection effectively eradicated an otherwise valid consent and that the "exigent circumstances" exception to the warrant requirement could not be asserted after the impoundment of the vehicle. Finally, the court held that the car could not be seized based on a threshold probable cause showing because the police did not have reasonable cause to believe that defendant had committed a crime at the time of the accident.

On the People's appeal, a divided Appellate Term reversed the order granting the motion to suppress and denied the motion. The court ruled that the impoundment and inspection of the vehicle was properly performed pursuant to the mandates of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 603, that the examination of the brakes was not a "search" within the meaning of the 4th Amendment, and that defendant had consented to the impoundment and inspection of his vehicle. The court further concluded that defendant had not met his burden of proving that he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the vehicle, especially where a death had resulted. Under such circumstances, the majority concluded that "it could be readily understood why a 'safety inspection' looking for anything that might constitute a malfunction on any part of the pickup truck was mandatory * * * to avoid the possibility of a repetition thereof."

One Justice dissented on the ground that the safety inspection and examination of defendant's brakes was a "search" of a "hidden area" of a motor vehicle in which defendant enjoyed a reasonable expectation of privacy under the New York State Constitution. Thus, the dissent concluded that the warrantless search of the brakes was unjustified. A Judge of this Court granted defendant's application for leave to appeal, and we now affirm.

II.

The initial question for this Court is whether the police had the authority to impound defendant's vehicle for a safety inspection after it was involved in the fatal accident. We conclude that Vehicle and Traffic Law § 603 implicitly grants the police the authority to impound vehicles for a safety inspection in order to fulfill their investigatory and reporting duties under the statute.

Vehicle and Traffic Law § 603 requires that whenever an accident resulting in injury to a person has been reported to the police within five days of its occurrence, the police "shall immediately investigate the facts, or cause the same to be investigated, and report the matter to the commissioner [of Motor Vehicles] forthwith" (Vehicle and Traffic Law § 603[1] on a form prepared by the Commissioner (id., § 604). The information transmitted from the police to the Commissioner must include, among other data, a description of the accident, the damage to the vehicles and their undercarriages, and a report on whether the vehicle operators were ticketed, arrested or charged with any violations (see, Department of Motor Vehicles Form MV-104A). ² The officer's determination of whether the vehicle was suffering from a safety defect at the time of the accident has obvious relevance in preparing the accident description and in reporting whether violations were issued to drivers of vehicles involved. ³ The police reports are designed to serve several administrative functions, such as aiding the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles in promulgating regulations to enhance the safety of our roads (see, L.1973, ch. 634, Bill Jacket, Mem of Chairman of Committee on Transportation, dated May 27, 1973), and assisting in the prompt resolution of personal injury and property damage claims against automobile owners and insurers arising from automobile collisions (see, Bill Jacket, L.1969, ch. 517).

Section 603 does not expressly authorize the police to remove the vehicle from the accident scene and impound it in order to complete the requisite investigation and report. However, that legislation "impose[s] a duty of investigation" (Bill Jacket, L.1969, ch. 517, Mem of Motor Vehicle Commissioner Tofany to Governor's Counsel, dated May 5, 1969), and in turn, a proper investigation may require an inspection of the mechanical areas of the vehicle. As a practical matter, an inspection of a vehicle to determine whether any defects in its safety equipment constituted a contributing cause of the accident cannot reasonably be undertaken on the roadway where licensed mechanics and proper facilities and equipment are unavailable. Thus, we conclude that section 603 implicitly grants the police the authority to impound a vehicle in furtherance of their administrative mandate to fully investigate the cause of a fatal automobile accident, as well as to ensure the safety of those conducting the accident investigation (see, South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 368-369, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 3096-97, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000).

Having concluded that the police had implicit authority to impound the vehicle for a safety inspection, we turn our attention to a determination of whether the impoundment and inspection procedure, undertaken without the issuance of a warrant, violated the constitutional proscriptions against unreasonable searches and seizures (see, U.S. Const. 4th Amend.; N.Y. Const., art. I, § 12). We agree with defendant that any exigency normally associated with the mobility of a vehicle (see, e.g., People v. Belton, 55 N.Y.2d 49, 54, 447 N.Y.S.2d 873, 432 N.E.2d 745) was removed by its impoundment and thus could not justify the warrantless intrusion. Nonetheless, we conclude that the warrantless inspection was justified by other factors providing assurances that the initiation and scope of the search were reasonable.

The 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I, § 12 of our State Constitution protect individuals " 'from unreasonable government intrusions into their legitimate expectations of privacy' " (People v. Class, 63 N.Y.2d 491, 494...