CASE LAW ALERT by Ray Hill, Professor Emeritus, Santa Rosa Junior College

Ray Hill is a retired Police Lieutenant and Professor Emeritus at Santa Rosa Junior College. He has taught in the POST Basic Academy and Advanced Officer Training for 45 years.

A SEARCH WARRANT IS REQUIRED FOR SEIZURE OF A VEHICLE PARKED ON A THIRD PARTY’S PRIVATE PROPERTY (Peo. v. Rorabaugh (January 2022) 3DCA, #C090482, 2022 Cal. App. Lexis 60).

   The victim’s beaten and strangled body was found floating in an irrigation canal in San Joaquin County. A co-defendant told officers he saw the defendant (6’2” – 280 pounds) on the top of the victim repeatedly punching him in the face. They both loaded the victim into the trunk of the defendant’s 1966 Oldsmobile Cutlass and dumped the incapacitated victim, moaning and bloody, into the canal.

    Officers obtained search warrants for the defendant’s residence and vehicle. When serving the warrant at the defendant’s residence, his father told officers that the defendant’s Cutlass was parked on an adjacent ranch owned by third party. Officers went to the ranch which was accessed by a ¾ mile, private driveway. Officers entered through the open gate and observed the vehicle 200 yards from the main residence. They secured the Cutlass and towed it to headquarters. A search warrant was obtained and the vehicle was searched. Bloodstains matching the victim’s DNA profile were found in the trunk and defendant’s DNA profile was found on the steering wheel.

    Defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence in San Joaquin County Superior Court. The trial magistrate found the seizure of the vehicle was “squarely within the Auto Exception”. The case went to trial and a jury convicted the defendant of Murder 1st.

   On appeal, the 3DCA ruled a search warrant was necessary for the seizure of the vehicle for the following reasons:

1) Police did not have the lawful right to access an unattended vehicle on private property belonging to a third party; 2) It was not unreasonable to obtain a search warrant for the vehicle (Note: The issued search warrant authorized a search of the vehicle, but at the location of his father’s residence where defendant lived); and 3) “Appellant had a reasonable expectation of privacy because he parked the vehicle with the property owner’s permission”.  “The warrantless seizure of the defendant’s car was in violation of the Fourth Amendment regardless of the Auto Exception applicable in any other context”. There was no exigency justifying a warrantless seizure of the vehicle because the defendant was already in-custody, the third party property owner did not have keys to the vehicle, and “it was not impractical to secure a warrant”.

    Because the DNA evidence was presented in the prosecution’s case-in-chief and closing arguments, it’s presentation was not “harmless error”. The case was remanded back to the trial court with the order to grant the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence and review the case for further action.

Comment: No doubt officers were acting in “good faith” here. In a serious felony investigation such as occurred here, securing the vehicle at the scene and “refreshing” your search warrant to include the vehicle at another private location is the directed course of action.

   Nothing in the trial record reflected an argument for the Doctrine of Inevitable Discovery (Nix v. Williams (1984) 467 US 431). Under this case law, evidence can be rehabilitated if it would have been inevitably discovered under the issuance of a "refreshed search warrant" even without the prior police misconduct.  Possibly this is a theory upon return of the case to the trial court.

Stay Safe,

RH

Note: For those seeking additional information about this case, a full case analysis by Deputy District Attorney (Ret.) Robert Phillips can be found here:  https://legalupdates.com/cases/warrantless-seizure-automobile-anothers-private-property