# State v. Stevens

> Wisconsin Supreme Court · February 2, 1965 · 26 Wis. 2d 451

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9672267

## Case

- **Full name:** State, Respondent, v. Stevens, Appellant
- **Court:** Wisconsin Supreme Court
- **Decided:** February 2, 1965
- **Citations:** 26 Wis. 2d 451; 132 N.W.2d 502; 1965 Wisc. LEXIS 1002
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Gordon
- **Judges:** Hallows, Gordon
- **Cited by:** 83 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9672267

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- explaining that because the purse of a defendant arrested for disorderly conduct was properly in custody of the police, police were permitted to seize what was in plain sight sticking out of her purse

## Opinion text

Gordon, J.
(dissenting). In approving the use of physical evidence gleaned during a so-called “custody search,” the court has watered down the basic right against unreasonable search and seizure. Under the guise of taking an accused’s property into protective custody, the police, by this decision, are authorized to seek out evidence which would otherwise be inviolate. Cf. Barnes v. State (1964), 25 Wis. (2d) 116, 126, 130 N. W. (2d) 264 .
In the case at bar, an inventory was made of the accused’s possessions just before she was placed in a cell. There is no evidence that the material in question was inventoried or that it was even observed at the time the inventory was made. Subsequently, however, a second police officer, who had been investigating the suspected crime, scrutinized Mrs. Stevens’ property and observed the material at the bottom of her purse. The latter search had nothing to do with the efficient operation of the jail, nor was it designed to protect Mrs. Stevens’ possessions when she was placed in the cell.
In my opinion, if a custody search is to be an approved method of obtaining admissible evidence, the standards surrounding it must be far more precisely defined than has been done in the instant case.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9672267. Public record. Not legal advice.