holding that the police officer’s act of moving stereo equipment “did constitute a ‘search’ separate and apart from the search for the shooter, victims, and weapons that was the lawful objective of his entry into the apartment.... [and that] taking action, unrelated to the objectives of the authorized intrusion, which exposed to view concealed portions of the apartment or its contents, did produce a new invasion of respondent’s privacy unjustified by the exigent circumstance that validated the entry”
How later courts described this case
- holding that the police officer’s act of moving stereo equipment “did constitute a ‘search’ separate and apart from the search for the shooter, victims, and weapons that was the lawful objective of his entry into the apartment.... [and that] taking action, unrelated to the objectives of the authorized intrusion, which exposed to view concealed portions of the apartment or its contents, did produce a new invasion of respondent’s privacy unjustified by the exigent circumstance that validated the entry”
- holding that police officer’s actions in moving stereo equipment came within the purview of the Fourth Amendment as a “search” independent of the search which was justified by the exigent circumstances validating the entry of the apartment and pointing out, “A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable.”
- holding that, when warrant-less entry into apartment to search for shooter was justified based on exigent circumstances, seizure of stereo equipment in plain view in the apartment was illegal because police did not have probable cause to believe the stereo equipment was evidence of a crime
- holding an officer’s “moving of [stereo] equipment . . . constitute[d] a [search] separate and apart from the search for the shooter, victims, and weapons that was the lawful objective of [the police officer’s] entry into the STATE V. NEWBORN 2021-NCCOA-426 Opinion of the Court apartment.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Commonwealth v. Harvard, 2013 Pa. Super. 64 (2013)
Hicks is distinguishable, however, because Officer Kirby was able to observe the vehicle’s flashing lights in plain view from his lawful vantage point, whereas the police in Hicks had to move the stereo to observe concealed portions of it.
Distinguished by State v. Allen, 216 Ariz. 320 (2007)
480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987), is distinguishable.
Distinguished by United States v. Jones, 176 F. App'x 809 (2006)
Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987), is inapposite, because here the movement of the plastic vessel did not “expose[ ] to view concealed portions of the apartment or its contents” or “produce a new invasion of [the defendant’s] privacy unjustified by the exigent circumstance that validated the entry.
Distinguished by State v. Green, Unpublished Decision (12-27-2005), 2005 Ohio 6871 (2005)
o pick up the weapon and lawfully possess it, the decision that officer was entitled to examine both guns for missing serial numbers was not erroneous);State v. Wilson (1998), 93 Wash App. 1025 (there is warrantless seizure exception for officer safety, and where officer is lawfully in possession of gun, officer is lawfully in possession of serial numbers; plain view analysis of Arizona v. Hicks is inapplicable when…
The opinion
Justice O’Connor’s
dissent suggests that we uphold the action here on the ground that it was a “cursory inspection” rather than a “full-blown search,” and could therefore be justified by reasonable suspicion instead of probable cause. As already noted, a truly cursory inspection — one that involves merely looking at what is already exposed to view, without disturbing it — is not a “search” for Fourth Amendment purposes, and therefore does not even require reasonable suspicion. We are unwilling to send police and judges into a new thicket of Fourth Amendment law, to seek a creature of uncertain description that is neither a “plain view” inspection nor *329 yet a “full-blown search.” Nothing in the prior opinions of this Court supports such a distinction, not even the dictum from Justice Stewart’s concurrence in Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 571 (1969), whose reference to a “mere inspection” describes, in our view, close observation of what lies in plain sight.