concluding it was “reasonable to infer that a person who has been arrested for a crime involving a gun will keep in his or her home the ‘fruits and instrumentalities’ of the crime”
How later courts described this case
- concluding it was “reasonable to infer that a person who has been arrested for a crime involving a gun will keep in his or her home the ‘fruits and instrumentalities’ of the crime”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
FINE, J.
¶ 21. (concurring). I fully join in the Majority opinion, with the exception of ¶ 16, which discusses matters that need not be analyzed in this case.
¶ 22. The key as I see it is that the gun found in Juan A. Casarez's car might have been his irrespective of what Michael Cornelius and Casarez's wife told the police. Certainly, the items for which the police sought the warrant are, as the Majority correctly observes, things that someone owning a gun would naturally have in his or her home. Thus, I disagree with the Dissent's comment that "nothing ... connects Casarez's house with the recovered gun." Dissent, ¶ 27. As the Majority recognizes, the stuff for which the police sought the warrant had the potential to nail down whether the gun was Casarez's; the police were not bound by the passengers' attempt to shift the blame from Casarez.