State v. Letman

• Decision Date: 04 August 1989
• Citation: 235 N.J.Super. 337,562 A.2d 260
• Parties: STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Curtis LETMAN and Wharton Murray, Defendants-Respondents.
• Court: New Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Page 337

235 N.J.Super. 337

562 A.2d 260

STATE of New Jersey, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Curtis LETMAN and Wharton Murray, Defendants-Respondents.

Superior Court of New Jersey,

Appellate Division.

Argued June 13, 1989.

Decided Aug. 4, 1989.

Susan W. Sciacca, Sp. Deputy Atty. Gen., Acting Asst. Prosecutor, for plaintiff-appellant (John G. Hall, Asst. Atty. Gen. in Charge, Acting Bergen County Prosecutor, attorney; Susan W. Sciacca, of counsel and on the letter brief).

Ronald C. Hunt, for defendants-respondents (Ashley & Charles, attorneys for respondent Curtis Letman; Thomas R. Ashley, Newark, of counsel; Maurice Strickland, Secaucus, attorney for respondent Wharton Murray; Ronald C. Hunt, Newark, on the brief).

Before Judges O'BRIEN and SCALERA.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

O'BRIEN, J.A.D.

By leave granted, the State appeals from an order suppressing evidence seized from the trunk of a vehicle operated by defendant Wharton Murray in which defendant Curtis Letman was a passenger. We reverse.

On April 27, 1988 at approximately 9:00 p.m., Trooper Edward Romanczuk (trooper) was on routine patrol in a marked vehicle on the New Jersey Turnpike in Lyndhurst. As he drove in the right lane through a construction zone, he observed a vehicle approximately five car lengths ahead of him move to the center lane, pass a truck, return to the right lane, and accelerate. After pulling abreast of the vehicle, the trooper ascertained that it was traveling 57 miles per hour in a construction zone clearly posted with a speed limit of 45 miles per hour and stopped it.

After the vehicle was stopped, the trooper asked Murray for his credentials, which indicated the vehicle was owned by Murray's wife. Letman was seated in the front passenger seat. As the trooper scanned the interior of the vehicle with his flashlight for his personal safety, he observed a clear plastic bag protruding about one-third of the way from underneath the left portion of the floor mat on the passenger side. The plastic bag was folded in half and wrapped in the middle with a yellow paper towel or napkin. Visible inside the protruding edge of the plastic bag was a chunky white powdery substance which the trooper suspected, and it was later confirmed, to be cocaine.

Trooper Romanczuk asked Murray what was under the floor mat. Murray replied he did not know nor did he know how it came to be there. With this reply the trooper directed both men to place their hands on the dashboard. First he asked Letman to step out of the car and asked him what was under the mat. Letman said it had been there when he entered the vehicle. Trooper Romanczuk noted that Letman appeared nervous when he approached him. The trooper then asked Murray to get out of the vehicle through the passenger side door. Thereafter, a pat-down of both men outside the car produced negative results. Defendants were directed to sit on the hood of the vehicle.

After he retrieved the plastic bag, the officer placed both men under arrest, handcuffed them and put them in the rear seat of the police car after advising them of their Miranda ¹ rights. The trooper then asked Murray if there was anything else in the car. Murray replied that he had placed a bag in the trunk, but did not know its contents. At the time, Murray's lips were quivering and there was sweat on his brow. ² The trooper then returned to the vehicle, removed the keys from the ignition and opened the trunk. Inside he discovered a brown paper bag in which there were four smaller paper bags containing a total of 364 plastic vials of the type used for the distribution of cocaine. After defendants were taken to police headquarters and strip searched, additional cocaine and marijuana were found in Letman's wallet, and a small amount of cocaine was found in Murray's wallet.

Defendants were indicted for possession of cocaine in an amount between one-half ounce and five ounces, containing at least 3.5 grams of pure free base drug with intent to distribute ( N.J.S.A. 2C:35-5a(1) and 2C:35-5b(2)) and possession of the same cocaine ( N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10a(1)). Each defendant was also charged individually in separate counts with possession of cocaine (apparently referring to the cocaine found on the person of each defendant).

Both defendants moved to suppress the evidence seized. After a hearing on January 9, 1989, the motion judge denied the motion to suppress the 4.2 ounces of cocaine found in the passenger compartment. The judge also denied the motion to suppress the evidence found on the person of each defendant. However, the judge granted the motion to suppress the 364 empty vials in the brown paper bags which had been seized from the trunk of the vehicle. We granted the State's motion for leave to appeal from that determination and now reverse. ³

In his oral opinion, the motion judge concluded that defendant's vehicle was properly stopped for a motor vehicle violation, citing Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979), and that the cocaine contained in the plastic bag in the passenger compartment of the vehicle was properly seized as being in plain view. See State v. Bruzzese, 94 N.J. 210, 235-239, 463 A.2d 320 (1983). The judge then found the trooper had properly removed the occupants from the vehicle and conducted a Terry ⁴ pat-down search. The judge then stated:

[The trooper] engaged in [a] somewhat unusual, I've never heard of this before, somewhat unusual conversation with the passenger in which he asked the passenger if there was anything else in the car. And this person said there's a bag in the trunk, I put it there, but I don't know what's in it, meaning what's in the bag.

Actually, the trooper testified that after he had arrested defendants, handcuffed them, and placed them in the rear of the patrol car, he advised them of their Miranda rights before he asked Murray, the driver, if there was anything else in the vehicle. It is not clear why the motion judge found this conversation unusual but, in any event, the trooper testified that Murray told him he had placed a bag in the trunk of the vehicle but didn't know what was in the bag, and at the time he was extremely nervous.

In suppressing the 364 empty vials, the motion judge concluded:

These items for which the trooper contends he had probable cause should have been the subject of a search warrant. The trooper had no reason to believe that the items for which he was searching was in and of itself evanescent; moreover, there was no longer an exigency because at the time the trunk was open the motor vehicle was under the care, custody and control of the State Police. The defendants themselves were arrested, handcuffed and in a State Police vehicle, or in any case not in any position where they could be expected to remove the motor vehicle.

In reaching this conclusion the judge erred. He appears to have relied upon State v. Patino, 83 N.J. 1, 414 A.2d 1327 (1980). While the facts in that case are somewhat similar to this case, there are some marked differences. Initially, the State argued in Patino that the search of the trunk of the vehicle was incident to the lawful arrest of defendants for possession of less than 25 grams of marijuana. In this case, the State does not argue that the trunk was searched as an incident to the lawful arrest of Murray and Letman for possession of 4.2 ounces of cocaine. ⁵

In State v. Patino, the Court recognized that under the automobile exception to the warrant clause, the police are permitted to stop and search a moving or readily movable vehicle where there is probable cause to believe the vehicle contains criminally related objects. Id. at 9, 414 A.2d 1327. Nevertheless, the Court in Patino concluded that possession of the small amount of marijuana there involved did not alone, without other circumstances, suggest defendant's participation in drug traffic or his possession of more contraband sufficient to justify extension of the zone of exigent search further than the persons of the occupants or the interior of the car. See id. at 12-15, 414 A.2d 1327. In this case, however, defendants had been arrested for the possession of 4.2 ounces of cocaine, a fairly substantial amount. Both defendants here denied knowledge of the contents of the plastic bag in which the cocaine was found, and Murray, after being given his Miranda warnings, responded to a question from the trooper that he had placed a bag in the trunk of the vehicle but he did not know its contents. At the time he was extremely nervous. These are the very type of circumstances that the Patino Court referred to, as providing probable cause to search the entire vehicle including the trunk and the interior of the paper bags found in the trunk.

The Fourth Amendment proscribes all unreasonable searches and seizures. Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable, subject only to a few specifically established and well delineated exceptions. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576, 585 (1967). The automobile exception to the warrant requirement recognized in Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), is unquestionably one that is specifically delineated. United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 825, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 2173, 72 L.Ed. 572, 594 (1982). The Carroll Court stated the rule to be:

On reason and authority the true rule is that if the search and seizure without a warrant are made upon probable cause, that is, upon a belief, reasonably arising out of circumstances known to the seizing officer, that an automobile or other vehicle contains that which by law is subject to seizure and destruction, the search and seizure are valid. ⁶ The 4th Amendment is to be construed in the light of what was deemed an unreasonable search and seizure when it was adopted, and in a manner which will conserve public interests as well as the interests and rights of individual citizens. [Footnote...