Vass v. Com.

• Decision Date: 22 April 1974
• Citation: 204 S.E.2d 280,214 Va. 740
• Parties: LARRY I. VASS v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Page 280

204 S.E.2d 280

214 Va. 740

LARRY I. VASS v. COMMONWEALTH of Virginia.

Supreme Court of Virginia.

April 22, 1974.

Murray J. Janus; Denis C. Englisby, Richmond (Bremner, Byrne & Baber, Richmond, on brief), for plaintiff in error.

Wilburn C. Dibling, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen. (Andrew P. Miller, Atty. Gen., on brief), for defendant in error.

Before SNEAD, C.J., and I'ANSON, CARRICO, HARRISON, COCHRAN, HARMAN and POFF, JJ.

COCHRAN, Justice.

Larry I. Vass was tried under an indictment charging him with grand larceny of historical documents belonging to the Commonwealth of Virginia. The jury found him guilty as charged and fixed his punishment at a fine of $1,000. The trial court entered judgment on the jury verdict. We granted Vass a writ of error to review the action of the trial court in overruling Vass's motion to suppress certain evidence seized without a warrant and admitted into evidence against him.

On November 12, 1971, Vass sold to William S. Trevett, Jr., a stamp dealer, 50 stamped letters for $100 and 20 stampless covers--letters mailed prior to the use of postage stamps and bearing postmasters' markings of the postal rates and places of origin--for $500. Certain of the stampless covers were 'free franked' by government officials, the most valuable cover bearing the frank of Alexander Hamilton and the address of the Governor of Virginia. Trevett sold the 20 stampless covers to Robert Mayo, a stamp collector and Director of the Valentine Museum in Richmond, he sent three of the stamped letters to New York for sale at auction and sold the rest to various purchasers.

On January 4, 1972, Vass returned to Trevett's stamp shop with 45 stampless, covers, which Trevett purchased for $1,100. Trevett delivered 43 of the covers to Mayo, who purchased 14 or 15 and took the rest on approval. Trevett sent the other two covers to New York for sale at auction.

On January 19, 1972, in response to an advertisement Vass telephoned to John Shanes, a stamp collector and part-time employee of Trevett, and discussed the sale of additional rare documents owned by Vass. In a second telephone conversation on January 22, 1972, Shanes agreed to take on consignment 46 stampless covers, including a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, another by James Madison, and a third by Benjamin Franklin. As prearranged with Vass, Shanes took delivery of the documents from Vass's wife, Patricia, at the Lee-Davis School in Hanover County, where she taught chemistry. Shanes then took the documents to Trevett for advice as to their value.

Meanwhile, Mayo became suspicious of the ownership of the documents in his possession and discussed them by telephone with Dr. Louis H. Manarin, the State Archivist, whose office was in the State Library. On January 27, 1972, a police investigation was initiated.

Detective A. T. Norton, of the Henrico County Police Department, and Investigator M. L. Winer, of the Virginia State Police, retrieved the documents consigned to Shanes and exhibited them to Randolph Church, the State Librarian and Manarin's superior, who identified them as state property. The officers then arranged for Shanes to return the documents to Mrs. Vass under police surveillance.

On January 31, 1972, Norton, Winer and Church observed Shanes enter the Lee-Davis School. After a short time Shanes left the school, and subsequently a young woman, later identified as Mrs. Vass, left the building carrying what appeared to be the same 'materials' that Shanes had taken into the school. She entered an automobile that the officers had ascertained was registered in the names of the Vasses and drove from the school parking lot.

The officers followed the Vass car and stopped it in Henrico County by turning on the siren of their unmarked vehicle. Norton and Winer identified themselves as police officers. Norton read Mrs. Vass her rights as set forth in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), and informed her that the documents lying on the seat beside her wear property stolen from the State Library. Mrs. Vass picked up a leatherette folder and handed it to Norton. It contained stampless covers. She also handed Norton, at his request, two transparent glassine folders containing documents that he had seen on the seat.

Mrs. Vass was never told that she was under arrest. When she asked the officers to explain their actions, they offered to discuss the matter with her at the Henrico County Police station, to which she agreed. She drove there in her car, accompanied by Norton and followed v. Winer and Church in the police car. Mrs. Vass testified at the suppression hearing that she told the officers at the police station that she did not want to make a statement and that she wished to talk with an attorney. She said that the officers threatened that unless she cooperated they would arrest her husband at the Medical College of Virginia, where he was attending classes in the Dental School. Mrs. Vass then signed a written waiver of her Miranda rights and gave a statement in response to questions. She later fave written consent for the officers to search the Vass home, which consent she testified was induced by the officers' threats to arrest her husband and 'to tear the house apart' after obtaining a search warrant. Winer denied that any such threats were made.

After Mrs. Vass consented to the search, she drove alone to her house, followed by the two officers and Church. Upon arrival, Mrs. Vass went to a closet in her husband's study, brought out a suitcase full of documents and gave it to the officers. The unlocked suitcase was opened in her presence, and inside were found hundreds of documents, only six of which were identified as property of the State Library. Mrs. Vass testified that she never used the study and entered the room only to clean it.

The trial court denied the motion to suppress the evidence seized from the Vass automobile and from the suitcase. The documents seized in the car were held to be admissible under the 'moving vehicle' exception to the warrant requirement. Although the trial court found that Mrs. Vass's consent to the search of the house was 'primarily motivated by a desire to prevent the arrest of her husband,' the court held that the consent was valid. The court reasoned, citing State v. Rye, 2 Wash.App. 920, 471 P.2d 96 (1970), that Mrs. Vass had bowed to events rather than succumbed to duress. The court also observed that the officers arrived at the Vass home after 5:00 p.m., at which time Mrs. Vass had no reason to fear that her husband would be arrested at school, but that she did not revoke her consent. The court found that Mrs. Vass had power to consent to the seizure of the documents in the suitcase because these documents could not be considered the 'personal effects' of her husband. In reaching the conclusion that Mrs. Vass's consent was valid, the court relied on her access to the study, her knowledge of the location and contents of the suitcase, and her failure to object to the officers that she had no authority to give them the suitcase.

The warrantless seizure of documents from Mrs. Vass's car was lawful only if it came within some exception to the warrant requirement. Under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution warrantless searches or seizures are Per se unreasonable, subject only to a few specifically established and well defined exceptions. Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 219, 93 S.Ct. 2041, 36 L.Ed.2d 854 (1973); Morris v. Commonwealth, 208 Va. 331, 334, 157 S.E.2d 191, 194 (1967); See Lugar v. Commonwealth, Va., 202 S.E.2d 894 (1974). However, one established exception is that police officers may stop and search a moving vehicle if they have probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains objects subject to seizure. Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 269--270,...