Clayton v. State

Moylan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant, Thomas Deems Clayton, was convicted in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County by a jury, presided over by Judge Irving A. Levine, of burglary and grand larceny. On appeal, he raises two contentions: (1) That probable cause did not exist for the police to search his automobile without a warrant; and (2) That even if probable cause for the warrantless seizure of the automobile existed in the first place, it was unreasonable for the police to carry out a painstaking search of the vehicle approximately six and one-half hours later without having obtained a warrant during that interim period. On March 27, 1969, at approximately 1:30 a.m., the appellant’s 1965 white Lincoln automobile was seized by Montgomery County police from in front of the 9600 block of Cottrell Terrace in Silver Spring where it had been parked for approximately six hours and where it had been under police surveillance.

The automobile was taken to the Silver Spring Police Headquarters where it was subjected to a thorough search at approximately 8:00 a.m. on that same day. Stolen goods discovered in the appellant’s automobile led to his indictment for three separate burglaries perpetrated in the Silver Spring area of Montgomery County. The appellant here had earlier appealed from his convictions in two of those burglaries. ⁴² We affirmed those convictions in Clayton v. State, 11 Md. App. 160 . The very same question as to the existence vel non of probable cause to justify the warrantless seizure and subsequent search of the appellant’s automobile was raised on that appeal.

We there held that probable cause did exist to believe that the automobile in question did contain fruits, instrumentalities or other evidence of burglary and that the warrantless seizure and search of the vehicle was justified under the doctrine of Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 ; Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42 ; and Middleton v. State, 10 Md. App. 18 . We held specifically: “We believe that this evidence was sufficiently substantial for the police to believe that probably the Lincoln contained contraband or evidence of the housebreaking and the identity of the criminal agent. Thus the seizure of the car and its search were reasonable.” Clayton v. State, supra, at 170. That holding is dispositive of the first question raised by the appellant in the instant case.

He, secondly, contends that even if probable cause did exist to justify the warrantless seizure of the automobile in the first instance, there was full opportunity for the police to obtain a search warrant before conducting a minute and thorough-going search of the automobile, including dusting if for fingerprints, some six and one-half hours after the initial seizure. He relies heavily on Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364 , and Kleinbart v. State, 2 Md. App. 183 . His reliance on these cases is totally misplaced, since they dealt with the question of automobile searches conducted incidental to arrests. That doctrine is not involved in