Don’t Forget the Exigent Circumstances (Your Warrantless Search Is No Good Without Them)
On August 16, 2010, the Appellate Division decided a pair of appeals, State v. Minitee and Sate v. Bland, that once again examined the question of when police are allowed to conduct a warrantless search of a vehicle. Applying the principles announced in State v. Pena-Flores, the Court held that the defendants’ robbery convictions in both cases must be reversed because police conducted a warrantless search of the defendants’ vehicles when there were no exigent circumstances.
These cases stem out of a string of armed robberies of massage parlors in 2003. While on his lunch break, a Fort Lee police officer heard a call over his radio that an armed robbery was in progress at a spa located around the block from where he was eating lunch. When he arrived at the scene, bystanders pointed out an SUV waiting at a light and told the officer that the occupants of the SUV had committed the robbery. The officer ran up to the vehicle, drew his weapon, and ordered the occupants to exit the vehicle. Defendant Bland came out the rear passenger side of the vehicle with a pistol in his hand. Bland threw down the pistol, but instead of following the officer’s commands to lie down, he took off running. As the light turned green, cars stopped in front of the SUV moved, enabling the SUV to take off as well. The officer chased the SUV on foot and radioed its location to other units.
Another officer then came upon the vehicle at a dead end street. Defendant Minitee and another individual were standing next to the vehicle and claimed that they were victims of a carjacking. Defendant Minitee was later arrested at police headquarters during questioning (Bland was arrested months later after being identified in a police lineup by one of the robbery victims). Fort Lee police took custody of the red SUV and towed it to police headquarters. At headquarters, police conducted a warrantless search of the vehicle and seized several key pieces of evidence. The trial court upheld the warrantless search by finding that the need to find a suspect who was armed and who had fled the scene was such a great risk to public safety that it provided the exigency necessary for a warrantless search.
As was discussed in State v. Pena-Flores, in order for police to conduct a warrantless search of a motor vehicle, three requirements must be met: (1) the stop of the vehicle must be unexpected; (2) the police must have probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains evidence of a crime; and (3) there must be exigent circumstances present such that it is impracticable for police to obtain a warrant.
When the officer who came upon the vehicle first looked inside of the vehicle, he noticed two rolls of duct tape in the back seat. The officer was aware that duct tape had been used to bind up the victims in previous robberies of massage parlors in the area. Therefore, the officer had probable cause to arrest the two suspects who were standing outside of the SUV, and did in fact take them into custody. At that point, the vehicle was seized and taken into police custody and was not searched until the next day.
There was no exigency that the police could point to that rendered it impracticable to obtain a warrant between the time the vehicle was seized and taken into police custody and the time the vehicle was actually searched. The Court noted that, while there were exigent circumstances existing that justified the warrantless seizure of the vehicle, once the vehicle was at Fort Lee Police Headquarters, there was no exigency that justified a further warrantless search of the vehicle.
This case is a good illustration of the fact that, in many cases, actions taken by the police in searching for evidence may violate a citizen’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures without a warrant under both the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey. It is important for anyone charged with a crime in New Jersey to contact a New Jersey criminal defense lawyer to analyze the facts of the case and determine whether evidence was seized unconstitutionally and should therefore be suppressed.
