{ "id": 8520627, "name": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. THOMAS TELTSER", "name_abbreviation": "State v. Teltser", "decision_date": "1983-03-15", "docket_number": "No. 8216SC897", "first_page": "290", "last_page": "294", "citations": [ { "type": "official", "cite": "61 N.C. App. 290" } ], "court": { "name_abbreviation": "N.C. Ct. App.", "id": 14983, "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals" }, "jurisdiction": { "id": 5, "name_long": "North Carolina", "name": "N.C." }, "cites_to": [ { "cite": "284 S.E. 2d 728", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "730" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "55 N.C. App. 221", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C. App.", "case_ids": [ 8527000 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1981, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "223" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc-app/55/0221-01" ] }, { "cite": "252 S.E. 2d 857", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "weight": 3, "year": 1979, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "859" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "40 N.C. App. 412", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C. App.", "case_ids": [ 8550944 ], "year": 1979, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc-app/40/0412-01" ] }, { "cite": "306 Minn. 337", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "Minn.", "case_ids": [ 892072 ], "weight": 8, "year": 1975, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "346" }, { "page": "371" }, { "page": "346" }, { "page": "370-71" }, { "page": "346" }, { "page": "370-71" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/minn/306/0337-01" ] }, { "cite": "474 F. 2d 174", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "F.2d", "case_ids": [ 1252112 ], "year": 1973, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "176" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/f2d/474/0174-01" ] }, { "cite": "392 U.S. 364", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 6171394 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1968, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "368" }, { "page": "1159" }, { "page": "2124" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/392/0364-01" ] }, { "cite": "259 S.E. 2d 242", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "year": 1979, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "246", "parenthetical": "quoting Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 368, 20 L.Ed. 2d 1154, 1159, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 2124 (1968)" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "298 N.C. 465", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8572737 ], "year": 1979, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "471", "parenthetical": "quoting Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 368, 20 L.Ed. 2d 1154, 1159, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 2124 (1968)" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/298/0465-01" ] }, { "cite": "99 S.Ct. 1035", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "S. Ct.", "year": 1979, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "59 L.Ed. 2d 83", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "L. Ed. 2d", "year": 1979, "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "439 U.S. 1122", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 11454563, 11454516, 11454607 ], "year": 1979, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/439/1122-02", "/us/439/1122-01", "/us/439/1122-03" ] }, { "cite": "439 U.S. 128", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 11329017 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1978, "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/439/0128-01" ] }, { "cite": "448 U.S. 83", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 1787633 ], "weight": 3, "year": 1980, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "93" }, { "page": "629" }, { "page": "2553" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/448/0083-01" ] }, { "cite": "448 U.S. 98", "category": "reporters:federal", "reporter": "U.S.", "case_ids": [ 1787600 ], "weight": 4, "year": 1980, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "106" }, { "page": "642" }, { "page": "2562" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/us/448/0098-01" ] }, { "cite": "291 S.E. 2d 618", "category": "reporters:state_regional", "reporter": "S.E.2d", "weight": 2, "year": 1982, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "619" }, { "page": "619-20" } ], "opinion_index": 0 }, { "cite": "306 N.C. 132", "category": "reporters:state", "reporter": "N.C.", "case_ids": [ 8567694 ], "weight": 2, "year": 1982, "pin_cites": [ { "page": "134" }, { "page": "134" } ], "opinion_index": 0, "case_paths": [ "/nc/306/0132-01" ] } ], "analysis": { "cardinality": 553, "char_count": 10351, "ocr_confidence": 0.822, "pagerank": { "raw": 1.3855893986605586e-07, "percentile": 0.6414009079293812 }, "sha256": "f334591cca8d0b8fb971c2120231eef9c4b695926104d7bca52c4ee0c431d469", "simhash": "1:09e4b0bbe296a432", "word_count": 1739 }, "last_updated": "2023-07-14T21:13:54.976609+00:00", "provenance": { "date_added": "2019-08-29", "source": "Harvard", "batch": "2018" }, "casebody": { "judges": [ "Judges Hedrick and Braswell concur." ], "parties": [ "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. THOMAS TELTSER" ], "opinions": [ { "text": "WHICHARD, Judge.\nI.\nThe sole issue is whether the court erred in denying defendant\u2019s motion to suppress evidence obtained from a warrantless search of a suitcase. We find no error.\nII.\nEvidence at the hearing on the motion to suppress showed the following:\nDefendant and his brother, students in Florida, while travel-ling through Robeson County en route to their mother\u2019s house in New Jersey, had an automobile accident. The brother went to the hospital for treatment of injuries sustained in the accident. Defendant then took a suitcase from the trunk of the automobile, ran across the highway, jumped a fence, crossed over a service road, and ran about thirty or forty feet into an adjacent wooded area. He took no precaution to prevent anyone from seeing the suitcase.\nWithin the wooded area defendant located a \u201cblown over\u201d tree with a large hole underneath. There he buried the suitcase, covering it with dirt, rocks, leaves, and branches. He planned to regain possession of the suitcase, and did not want anyone to find it. He did not believe anyone would be able to find it.\nDefendant did not own the land on which he buried the suitcase. In fact, he owned no land in Robeson County.\nWhen defendant returned to the automobile, a man directing traffic asked what had happened to the suitcase. Defendant did not reply.\nTwo witnesses advised a highway patrolman that defendant had left the accident scene, gone into the woods with the suitcase, and returned without it. The patrolman investigated, but found nothing. A second patrolman made a subsequent investigation, but also found nothing. He returned twice and finally located a suitcase which fit the description of the one defendant reportedly had taken into the woods.\nThe suitcase, which was completely covered with leaves, dirt, and limbs, contained \u201c[s]omewhere under four pounds\u201d of marijuana. It bore a tag with an address which corresponded with that on the identification defendant displayed to one of the officers. The name on the tag, however, was not defendant\u2019s.\nIII.\nJudge Britt made findings of fact which reflect, and are fully supported by, the foregoing evidence. These findings \u201care conclusively binding on appeal.\u201d State v. Cooke, 306 N.C. 132, 134, 291 S.E. 2d 618, 619 (1982).\nHe concluded, based thereon, \u201cthat the defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy; that he was not on property owned by him; that he had, in effect, abandoned the property to the extent that he had no reasonable expectation of privacy; and that he could reasonably] expect that anyone finding it was going to open the suitcase and take charge of it.\u201d On the basis of these conclusions, he denied the motion to suppress.\nIV.\nThe determinative inquiry is \u201cwhether governmental officials violated any legitimate expectation of privacy held by [defendant].\u201d Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 106, 65 L.Ed. 2d 633, 642, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 2562 (1980). It is resolved \u201cby asking not merely whether the defendant had a possessory interest in the items seized, but whether he had an expectation of privacy in the area searched.\u201d United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S. 83, 93, 65 L.Ed. 2d 619, 629, 100 S.Ct. 2547, 2553 (1980). See also Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 58 L.Ed. 2d 387, 99 S.Ct. 421 (1978), rehearing denied, 439 U.S. 1122, 59 L.Ed. 2d 83, 99 S.Ct. 1035 (1979).\nThe result \u201cdepends upon whether the place invaded was an area in which [the defendant had1] a reasonable expectation of freedom from governmental intrusion.\u2019 \u201d State v. Alford, 298 N.C. 465, 471, 259 S.E. 2d 242, 246 (1979) (quoting Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 368, 20 L.Ed. 2d 1154, 1159, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 2124 (1968)).\nThe issue is not abandonment in the strict property-right sense, but whether the person prejudiced by the search had voluntarily discarded, left behind, or otherwise relinquished his interest in the property in question so that he could no longer retain a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to it at the time of the search.\nUnited States v. Colbert, 474 F. 2d 174, 176 (5th Cir. 1973). \u201cIn essence, what is abandoned is not necessarily the defendant\u2019s property, but his reasonable expectation of privacy therein.\u201d City of St. Paul v. Vaughn, 306 Minn. 337, 346, 237 N.W. 2d 365, 371 (1975).\nV.\nIn Rawlings, supra, the defendant had placed illegal drugs in a friend\u2019s pocketbook. A police search thereof disclosed the drugs and resulted in defendant\u2019s arrest. The United States Supreme Court upheld refusal to suppress evidence of the drugs on the ground that defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area searched. The pocketbook was subject to access by persons other than defendant, and defendant had no \u201cright to exclude other persons from [such] access.\u201d 448 U.S. at 105, 65 L.Ed. 2d at 642, 100 S.Ct. at 2561.\nIn State v. Jordan, 40 N.C. App. 412, 252 S.E. 2d 857 (1979), this Court held that the defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the pocketbook of a passenger in his car. The trial court had refused to suppress evidence of illegal drugs found in the pocketbook. This Court held that defendant had no \u201creasonable expectation that the place searched would remain private,\u201d id. at 415, 252 S.E. 2d at 859, and found no error in the ruling. \u201cWhen one voluntarily puts property under the control of another, he must be viewed as having relinquished any prior legitimate expectation of privacy with regard to that property, as it becomes subject to public exposure upon the whim of the other person.\u201d Id.\nIn State v. Cromartie, 55 N.C. App. 221, 284 S.E. 2d 728 (1981), defendant threw an aspirin box on the ground while an officer was searching him. Another officer picked up the box; and when the two officers opened it, they found that it contained heroin. This Court affirmed denial of the defendant\u2019s motion to suppress. It relied, in part, on City of St. Paul, supra, in which the defendant had, when stopped by an officer, run to a nearby business and placed an eyeglass case under a counter. The officer retrieved the case and found that it contained drug paraphernalia. The Supreme Court of Minnesota upheld the warrantless seizure, stating:\nThe defendant discarded the eyeglass case in a location to which any member of the public had equal access \u2014 underneath the counter of a drycleaning establishment. He argues, however, that his intention was merely to hide the case, not to relinquish his right of ownership. That is not the test.\n. . . [T]he question is whether the defendant has, in discarding the property, relinquished his reasonable expectation of privacy so that its seizure and search is reasonable within the limits of the Fourth Amendment.\nId. at 346, 237 N.W. 2d at 370-71.\nVI.\nApplication here of the principles set forth in the foregoing cases clearly permits the result reached by the trial court, to which our Supreme Court has said we must accord due deference. State v. Cooke, supra, 306 N.C. at 134, 291 S.E. 2d at 619-20.\nThe defendant here, in full view of witnesses, and without taking any precaution to prevent observation by them, removed the suitcase from the automobile and carried it into a wooded area. Defendant had no ownership or possessory interest in the wooded area, and thus no right to exclude others from access to it. Rawlings, 448 U.S. at 105, 65 L.Ed. 2d at 642, 100 S.Ct. at 2561. The area was as accessible to the public at large as it was to defendant. City of St. Paul, supra.\nDefendant placed the suitcase there and returned to the automobile without it, again in full view of witnesses, one of whose questions about the suitcase he did not answer. The name on the suitcase was not his, and he never made any positive assertion of ownership or possessory interest with regard to it.\nUnder these circumstances we have no basis for overruling the conclusion that defendant \u201chad no reasonable expectation of privacy\u201d in the suitcase, and \u201ccould reasonably] expect that anyone finding it was going to open . . . and take charge of it.\u201d See Cromartie, 55 N.C. App. at 223, 284 S.E. 2d at 730. Like the Court in City of St. Paul, we reject defendant\u2019s contention that a different result should obtain because he was attempting to hide the suitcase, not to relinquish any rights therein. To repeat what that Court stated: \u201cThat is not the test. . . . [T]he question is whether the defendant has, in discarding the property, relinquished his reasonable expectation of privacy so that its seizure and search is reasonable within the limits of the Fourth Amendment.\u201d 306 Minn, at 346, 237 N.W. 2d at 370-71. The court properly concluded that the requisite relinquishment had occurred here.\nNo error.\nJudges Hedrick and Braswell concur.", "type": "majority", "author": "WHICHARD, Judge." } ], "attorneys": [ "Attorney General Edmisten, by Assistant Attorney General Thomas H. Davis, Jr., for the State.", "Page & Baker, P.A., by H. Mitchell Baker, III, for defendant appellant." ], "corrections": "", "head_matter": "STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA v. THOMAS TELTSER\nNo. 8216SC897\n(Filed 15 March 1983)\nSearches and Seizures \u00a7 15\u2014 search of suitcase \u2014 relinquishment of reasonable expectation of privacy\nThe trial court properly concluded that defendant relinquished his reasonable expectation of privacy in a suitcase so that an officer\u2019s warrantless search of the suitcase and his seizure of marijuana found therein were lawful where the evidence showed that defendant and his brother were involved in an automobile accident; defendant, in full view of witnesses and without taking any precaution to prevent observation by them, removed the suitcase from the automobile and carried it into a wooded area; defendant placed the suitcase there and returned to the automobile without it, again in full view of witnesses, one of whose questions about the suitcase he did not answer; defendant had no ownership or possessory interest in the wooded area and thus no right to exclude others from access to it; the area was as accessible to the public at large as it was to defendant; and the name on the suitcase was not defendant\u2019s and he never made any positive assertion of ownership or possessory interest with regard to it.\nAppeal by defendant from Smith, Judge. Judgment entered 10 November 1981 in Superior Court, ROBESON County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 17 February 1983.\nDefendant appeals from a judgment entered upon his conviction of felonious possession of more than one ounce of marijuana.\nAttorney General Edmisten, by Assistant Attorney General Thomas H. Davis, Jr., for the State.\nPage & Baker, P.A., by H. Mitchell Baker, III, for defendant appellant." }, "file_name": "0290-01", "first_page_order": 322, "last_page_order": 326 }