State v. James

SUMMERS, Justice

(dissenting).

My view is in conflict with that of the majority on the question of whether the search of the residence in this case was incident to the arrest and was reasonable.

The evidence at issue, in order to be admissible, must be the product of a search incident to a lawful arrest, since the officers had no search warrant. I agree with the majority that the arrest was lawful. I cannot agree, however, that the defendant’s constitutional protection from unreasonable searches and seizures has been violated. For the search to be reasonable it must be an incident of the arrest which we have found to be lawful. In our consideration we are warranted in examining the facts surrounding the arrest to determine whether the method of entering the house two blocks away may offend the constitutional standards of reasonableness. U.S.Const, amends. IV & V; La.Const. of 1921, art. 1, § 7; Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23 , 83 S.Ct. 1623 , 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963).

The information within the knowledge of the officers at the time they arrested James clearly furnished grounds for a reasonable belief on their part that the accused had committed and was committing the offense of illegal possession of narcotics. James was convicted of possession of narcotics in 1954. He had often been “handled” by the New Orleans Police in connection with narcotics. Just a week before, Officer Duffy had arrested James and his wife for possession of narcotics and had discovered a morphine pill in the car the couple was using. In other words, the arresting officers knew that James was a drug addict.

Furthermore, before the arrest, Officers Duffy and Warner, knowing that James used narcotics, began a surveillance of his house. They saw Tames come out of hir *1051 residence, walk a block or two and turn a corner. When they confronted him sitting in a car with a colored man, he recognized them and shoved a piece of cellophane, which appeared to contain a white tablet, into his mouth, jumped out of the car with a lot of bills clutched in his hand, and began to run. It was reasonable for the arresting officers to assume that James had been in the process of selling narcotics to the colored man in whose car he was sitting when he was interrupted by the untimely appearance of the police officers. The logical conclusion for the officers to reach, under these circumstances, was that there were narcotics in the house from which James had just emerged, two blocks away, apparently to make a sale to the colored man in the car. This — -it seems clear to me — constitutes one transaction, making the search of that same house, which ensued immediately thereafter, an incident to the arrest. State v. Green, 244 La. 80 , 150 So.2d 571 (1963) ; State v. Calascione, 243 La. 993 , 149 So.2d 417 (1963); State v. Aias, 243 La. 945, 946 , 149 So.2d 400 (1963).

One of the historical reasons for permitting a search following a legal arrest is to avoid destruction of evidence. United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56 , 70 S.Ct. 430 , 94 L.Ed. 653 (1950); Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20 , 46 S.Ct. 4 , 70 L.Ed. 145 , 51 A.L.R. 409 (1925)/

■ This authority is appropriate here. The colored man who was 'with James- in the car when the police approached managed to escape while the police officers were chasing and subduing James. James was able to consume and thus destroy whatever narcotics he had on him when the officers closed in. The reasonable place for the officers to search under these circumstances was the house from which James had just emerged, a scant two blocks away. No appreciable interval of time or space separated the arrest and search; both were intimately connected parts of a continuous transaction.

Certainly, if James had managed to outrun the police officers long enough to reach his home two blocks away, and had been caught and arrested by the pursuing officers as he entered his dwelling, there would be no question about the constitutionality of the search. It would seem an affront to common sense to say that the officers could not search James’ home from which he had emerged shortly before simply because they caught and arrested him two blocks away. Kelley v. United States, 61 F.2d 843 (8th Circ. 1932). James’ house was in such reasonably close proximity to the place of arrest, and the arrest was in such close proximity in time to his leaving the house, and the search was in such close proximity in time to the arrest, and there existed such probable cause to believe that a search of his home would reveal evidence pertinent to the arrest for possession of narcotics, that the search and seizure herein must be *1053 viewed as incident to the arrest and therefore authorized. State v. Cyr, 40 Wash.2d 840 , 246 P.2d 480 (1952). The private residence here was not “wholly unconnected to the place where the arrest is made” as the majority finds. Rather, I find a very close, a very real and a very obvious connection with the cause of the arrest.

The practical demands of effective criminal investigation and law enforcement by the states are not reprobated by the Federal and State Constitutions. The majority decision places another unwarranted legal impediment in the path of already heavily burdened law enforcement. Cf. State v. Pickens, 245 La. 680 , 160 So.2d 577 (1964); State v. Aias, 243 La. 945 , 149 So.2d 400 (1963).

I respectfully dissent.