• Law enforcement Trespasses Within the Curtilage of a Home
• Warrantless Vehicle Seizures and Exigent Circumstances
• The Automobile Exception to the Search Warrant Requirement

In order for the so-called “automobile exception” to the search warrant requirement to apply, it must be found that there is both probable cause to seize the vehicle at issue and exigent circumstances making it impractical to obtain a search warrant.  A car sitting unattended on someone’s private property does not presumptively provide the necessary exigent circumstances allowing for its warrantless seizure despite having probable cause to believe it contains evidence of a crime.

Defendant Donald Rorabaugh spent some time during the evening of May 23, 2015, at the 108 Sports Lounge (aka, the “108 Bar”) in the town of Riverbank, San Joaquin County.  While there, an acquaintance introduced defendant to a man named Joseph Denner, who was soon to become the co-defendant in this case. Edward Magana also frequented the 108 Bar, occasionally (on prior occasions) sharing a drink with defendant.  Magana was known to all in the area, having no fixed address and crashing at night where he could.  He was known to commonly carry his meager belongings in a black backpack.  Defendant lived with his father in Riverbank. He drove a 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass which was “very loud,” due to a faulty engine and muffler.  Defendant commonly kept his car on the property of a friend (David Christensen), some three minutes from defendant’s home, where he would do mechanical work on it.  Back to the night of May 23rd/24th, defendant left the 108 Bar at about 1:45 a.m., hitching a ride home from friends.  These friends later testified that when they dropped him off at his home, he met a man carrying a black backpack.  Denner left the bar shortly after defendant.  Defendant’s father heard defendant being dropped off at around 2:30 a.m., saw him enter their garage where he normally slept, and then heard his car leaving several hour later.  At some time after 2:30 a.m., a couple who lived on a nearby rural piece of property were woken up by their dogs barking.  The wife let the dogs out when she heard a vehicle.  The dogs continued to bark despite the car’s engine stopping.  Fifteen minutes later, she heard the car start up again and “peel out.”  Later that morning, the wife found a dead body in an irrigation canal that bordered their property.  The body was soon determined to be that of Edward Magana.  An autopsy later found that Magana had suffered a number of physical injuries to his body and head, any one of which could have been the cause of death.  The Court’s written decision did not describe what additional evidence might have been found connecting defendant and Denner to Magana’s murder, simply noting that the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s officers obtained search warrants on May 28th for both of their homes.  The warrants listed among the items to be seized and searched “unknown vehicles.” Upon executing the warrant at defendant’s home (during which he was arrested), it was discovered that his Cutlass was currently at David Christensen’s ranch. The officers therefore went directly from defendant’s home to the ranch where his car was in fact found sitting in a field some 200 yards from Christensen’s house.  Seizing the car, they towed it to the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s office in Modesto where it was stored until another search warrant could be obtained.  When searched, blood was found in the trunk of the car that DNA later matched to Magana.  A DNA swab from the steering wheel matched defendant’s DNA.  Denner was also identified as a “major contributor” to DNA on a passenger door handle.  Both defendant and Denner were charged in state court with Magana’s murder.  Pretrial, defendant’s motion to suppress the DNA evidence found in his Cutlass was denied.  Both defendants testified at trial, with defendant denying any involvement in the murder.  Denner (who is not a party to this appeal) testified that defendant committed the murder and forced him to help dispose of Magana’s body.  Defendant was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison.  (Magana was also convicted, but of second degree murder.)  Defendant appealed.

The Third District Court of Appeal reversed.  In a very poorly written, confusing decision, it was noted that defendant’s initial argument dealt with the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s warrantless seizure of his car from what defendant alleged to be the curtilage of David Christensen’s home.  The People argued in a shotgun response that the so-called “automobile exception” excused the lack of a warrant, and that the car—physically being some 200 yards from Christensen’s house—was not within the curtilage of his home.  The People further argued that the car itself was evidence of the commission of the murder, rendering the warrantless seizure of the car lawful under the “instrumentality of the crime” exception to the warrant requirement.  It was also argued that defendant “had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the [landowner’s] home and property,” as he “did not reside” there and “was not an overnight guest.” Lastly, the People argued that “society is [un]willing to recognize as reasonable” a “subjective expectation of privacy in an open fields area.”  Not satisfied, the Court ordered the parties to supplement their briefings with a discussion of whether the warrantless seizure of defendant's car on private property was lawful under Coolidge v. New Hampshire (1971) 403 U.S. 443, and whether the automobile exception did in fact apply to the seizure.  Defendant, not surprisingly, argued that the automobile exception did not apply in the present case because the vehicle was parked on private residential property in which defendant had a legitimate expectation of privacy.  The People continued to argue that the automobile exception did apply to the warrantless seizure of defendant’s vehicle, “because the car was readily mobile and officers had probable cause to believe the vehicle contained evidence of a crime.” The Court held, however, that the automobile exception did not apply in the absence of exigent circumstance, despite the existence of probable cause to search it.  In such a situation, a warrant is required to both seize the car and then to search it.  (Citing Coolidge, at pp. 455-484.)  While a search warrant was eventually obtained to search the car in this case, it was initially seized without a warrant.  That warrantless seizure was the issue here. While an exigency justifying a warrantless seizure might be found when the vehicle is on the street in an uncontrolled setting, in this case the car was sitting by itself on Christensen’s ranch.  Coolidge rejected the argument that the vehicle’s warrantless seizure, as “an instrumentality of the crime,” could be justified merely because it was in “plain view.”  (Coolidge, supra, 403 U.S. at p. 464.)  The Supreme Court in Coolidge explained that the “plain view” exception applies only when a police officer has “a prior justification for an intrusion in the course of which he came inadvertently across a piece of evidence incriminating the accused.” That “prior justification” might be during the execution of a search warrant for another object, hot pursuit, incident to arrest, or ”some other legitimate reason for being present unconnected with a search directed against the accused.” (Id. at p. 466.)  The Court ruled here that the officers were not lawfully on Christensen’s property.  The Court then rambled on citing a bunch of random rules relevant to the “plain sight” issue, finally noting that the Supreme Court dictated in Horton v. California (1990) 496 U.S. 128, at pp. 136-137, that “in the absence of consent or a warrant permitting the seizure of the items in question, such seizures can be justified only if they meet the probable-cause standard, [citation], and if they are unaccompanied by unlawful trespass.”  (Italics in original.)  Further, the Court noted that “the automobile exception does not permit an officer without a warrant to enter a home or its curtilage in order to search a vehicle therein.”  (Quoting Collins v. Virginia (2018) 584 U.S. ___ [201 L.Ed.2nd 9, at p. 24.)  Based upon the above, the Court held that the officers illegally entered Christensen’s property (but see Note, below) and that their warrantless seizure of defendant’s car was the illegal product of that entry.   In summation, the Appellate Court here held that that if (a) police do not have an otherwise lawful right of access to an unattended car on private property, and (b) it is not impracticable to obtain a warrant, then (c) warrantless seizure of the car accomplished by trespassing on private property (and subsequently searching the car at another location) is a violation of the Fourth Amendment, and does not fall within the automobile exception even if there was probable cause to search it.  In this case, defendant’s car was found on David Christensen’s property, some 200 yards away from his home.  The Court found this not to be within the curtilage of Christensen’s home.  But no one asked Christensen for permission to come onto his property (the house being inside a gated private driveway that is ¾’s of a mile long) or to tow defendant’s car from the property.  Per the Court: “The record is devoid of any indication police had a lawful right of access to defendant’s car that was on Christensen’s private property with the latter's knowledge and consent.”  Further, the Court found “no support in the record for the notion that defendant’s car was ‘readily mobile’ when police seized it.” The record is also devoid of any suggestion that it was impracticable to secure a warrant once police located and identified defendant’s unattended vehicle on Christensen’s land at 3:00 p.m., around one hour after they obtained a warrant for ‘[u]nknown vehicles’ at defendant's home.”  Lastly, the Court also noted that there wasn’t any exigency in that defendant was in custody (having been arrested when the warrant was executed at his home) and Christensen did not have a key to the car.  The Court thus found that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment when they seized defendant’s vehicle under these circumstances and that the evidence seized from defendant’s car in the subsequent search should have been suppressed. 

As I hinted to above, this is probably the most confusing legal analysis I’ve ever read coming out of an appellate court.  And try as I might, I could find no reason why the officers weren’t entitled to approach David Christensen’s front door to make contact with him despite it being within the curtilage of his home, just like any other social visitor might. (See People v. Williams (2017) 15 Cal.App.5th 111, 121; People v. Chavez (2008) 161 Cal.App.4th 1493, 1500.), the Court simply holding instead that the officers were “trespassing.”  (I.e., at pg. 313: “Here, police had no prior justification for their trespass on Christensen’s private property.”)  Also, the Court ignores the “Open Fields Doctrine” altogether, where areas of one’s property outside the curtilage of a residence have been held not to be protected by the Fourth Amendment.  (Oliver v. United States (1984) 466 U.S. 170; United States v. Jones (2012) 565 U.S. 400, 404-413; Florida v. Jardines (2013) 569 U.S. 1.)  And I still don’t understand how defendant could be held to have had “standing” (i.e., a “reasonable expectation of privacy”) to contest whatever searches or seizures were done on Christensen’s property.  It’s long been a rule that only the person whose rights are being violated has “standing” to challenge an alleged governmental constitutional violation.  (Rakas v. Illinois (1978) 439 U.S. 128, 138-139.)  I feel like after reading (and rereading) this case multiple times, the Court was just trying to dazzle us with their footwork rather than provide a coherent, organized, legally supportable decision.  But be that as it may, the only supportable legal conclusions I can see the Court making in this case is (1) that the “seizure” of a vehicle is as much of a Fourth Amendment issue as is its subsequent “search,” and that despite what we might have all believed, (2) the so-called “Automobile Exception” to the search warrant requirement does not allow for a vehicle’s warrantless seizure (or search) absent a showing of exigent circumstances over and above its potential (but unproved) mobility. 

NOTE:  Please click here to review additional information regarding this case by Faculty member Raymond Hill.