Scales v. State

Moylan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant, Larry Allen Scales, was convicted in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County by Judge Samuel W. H. Meloy, sitting without a jury, of robbery with a deadly weapon. His sole contention, upon this appeal, is that a tire iron and a payroll slip were unconstitutionally seized from his automobile and therefore erroneously admitted into evidence against him. On April 18, 1970, at approximately 4:45 p.m., Mr. Benjamin Allen, a part owner of the PMT Trash Company in Seat Pleasant, Maryland, was standing outside of that business premises.

An individual approached him who identified himself as a Mr. Gibson. The ostensible Mr. Gibson claimed that he was an employee of Mr. Allen’s company and he requested the wages then due him. Mr. Allen agreed to reopen the building and obtain the owed wages but pointed out that he had inadvertently-locked himself out of the building. The ostensible Mr. Gibson offered to help him effect an entry, obtained a tire iron from his automobile which was parked close by, and forced the door open with the tire iron.

Mr. Allen ⁴⁷⁶ indicated that he would go upstairs to obtain the money and asked the wage earner to remain downstairs. The alleged Mr. Gibson agreed, stating that he would first take the tire iron back to his automobile and would then use the men’s room. Mr. Allen remained upstairs for between ten and fifteen minutes, computing and drawing “Mr. Gibson’s” wages. He then returned to the lower floor and turned over the monies to this “Mr. Gibson.” As the two were then walking out of the room and preparing to go outside, Mr. Allen was struck from behind and fell to the floor.

He turned and saw “Mr. Gibson” holding a tire iron over his head and ordering him to go back upstairs. He complied and was there robbed of all the money which was kept in the upstairs portion of the building, approximately $850. The assailant threatened that “he would split Allen’s head open” if more money was not turned over. All the while, he brandished the tire iron over Mr. Allen’s head.

He then placed Mr. Allen in a closet and closed the closet door. He threatened to kill him if Mr. Allen came out. He then disappeared from the premises. Within fifteen minutes of the robbery, Detective Raymond E. Daniels of the Prince George’s County Police Department had responded to the scene of the crime.

He there learned from Mr. Allen and from James Williams, Mr. Allen’s partner in the PMT Trash Company, that the robber — the ostensible Mr. Gibson — was, indeed, one Larry Scales, who had been hired by Mr. Williams and had done two days’ work at the company during the preceding week. He ascertained from a telephone number that Larry Scales lived at 5213 Newton Street in Bladensburg. He learned from Mr. Allen that the automobile driven, by Scales, and which contained the tire iron, was a late-model Pontiac, with either a gold or brown bottom and a dark-colored top, possibly vinyl. At approximately 11 p.m. that evening, Detective Daniels proceeded to 5213 Newton Street for the sole purpose of arresting the appellant.

Before going into ⁴⁷⁷ the apartment, complex there located, however, he noticed a late-model Pontiac, with a gold-colored bottom and a black vinyl top, sitting on the parking lot of the apartment project. He was attracted to it by a lighted dome light. He shined a flashlight inside the unoccupied automobile and was thereby able to observe a tire iron lying on the floor on the passenger side of the vehicle. He opened the door and removed the tire iron, part of which extended underneath the seat.

He testified that when he pulled the tire iron out, he heard a rustle of paper. He looked down and found an employment sheet and a brown pay envelope. Both the tire iron and the pay envelope were received in evidence over the appellant’s objections. It cannot be gainsaid that the search of the automobile did not begin until Detective Daniels actually opened the door of the car.

In Ferguson v. State, 236 Md. 148 , it was held that it was not a search to see evidence of crime through a car window in the daytime and that the officer, in looking through the window, was not a trespasser, the vehicle being parked on a public lot. It has similarly been held that a police officer commits no intrusion within the contemplation of the Fourth Amendment when he observes a crime being committed within a house by peeking through a side window, Griffin v. State, 200 Md. 569 ; when he observes stolen articles in a garage by looking through the open door of that garage, Minnick v. State, 4 Md. App. 81; when he observes criminal activities within a house by looking through an open window even with the aid of binoculars, Johnson v. State, 2 Md. App. 300 ; and when he observes criminal activity within a motel room by looking through an open door, Mullaney v. State, 5 Md. App. 248 . The law of Maryland is equally well established that the shining of a flashlight into a darkened vehicle does not render observations made thereby constitutionally improper, Sweeting v. State, 5 Md. App. 623, 626-628 . When Detective Daniels was standing on the parking lot next to the appellant’s vehicle, he was in a place where he and ⁴⁷⁸ every other member of the public had a right to be.

When Detective Daniels looked through the window into the interior of the car and directed his flashlight so as to facilitate that look, he was doing that which he and every member of the public had a right to do. As. a result of that look, he saw, protruding from underneath the seat, a tire iron within clear visibility. 1 At that point, there had been no intrusion, within the contemplation of the Fourth Amendment, into any constitutionally protected area. It is from that point that we measure the reasonableness of the ensuing search. We feel that the search in this case was constitutionally proper under the so-called “automobile exception” to the basic constitutional rule that “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment — subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357 .

The “automobile exception” to the search warrant requirement was first announced in Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 (1925) and ⁴⁷⁹ has been reaffirmed and interpreted by the Supreme Court in Rusty v. United States, 282 U. S. 694 (1931) ; Scher v. United States, 305 U. S. 251 (1938) ; Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160 (1949) ; Dyke v. Taylor Implement Mfg. Co., 391 U. S. 216 (1968). See also Middleton v. State, 10 Md. App. 18 , and Johnson v. State, 10 Md. App. 652 . Carroll recognized that there was a fundamental difference between a dwelling house, office, store or other structure, on the one hand, and an automobile, ship, or other readily movable vehicle, on the other hand, and that probable cause could sometimes be sufficient unto itself to justify the warrantless search of the latter whereas it could never justify the warrantless search of the former.

Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42 (1970), extended the Carroll doctrine by holding that wherever a search on the highway or street would be justified under Carroll , in the first instance, it would also be permissible to seize the automobile and search it later at a police station. The Court there said: “For constitutional purposes, we see no difference between on the one hand seizing and holding a car before presenting the probable