298 Md. 203 (1983) 468 A.2d 333

JAMES L. STACKHOUSE, JR.
v.
STATE OF MARYLAND.

No. 4, September Term, 1983.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

December 23, 1983.

Gary W. Christopher, Asst. Public Defender, Baltimore (Alan H. Murrell, Public Defender, Baltimore, on brief), for appellant.

Jillyn K. Schulze, Asst. Atty. Gen., Baltimore (Stephen H. Sachs, Atty. Gen., Baltimore, on brief), for appellee.

Argued before MURPHY, C.J., and SMITH, ELDRIDGE, COLE, DAVIDSON, RODOWSKY and COUCH, JJ.

COUCH, Judge.

The issue in this case is whether evidence seized contemporaneously with arrest in a warrantless search of an area beyond appellant's immediate control is admissible on the ground that another person might have concealed or destroyed the evidence. In a trial before the court, the evidence was admitted and appellant was found guilty of robbery with a deadly weapon and burglary. The Court of Special Appeals found no error in admitting the evidence and affirmed in an unreported per curiam opinion. We granted certiorari to consider this important issue. We find that in introducing the evidence in question the State did not meet its burden. Accordingly, we reverse.

I

On July 14, 1981, Countryman Arthur Wong was on a business trip and was staying at the Holiday Inn, Number 2, in Glen Burnie, Maryland. At 4:30 in the morning, the crash of the motel room window breaking awakened Mr. Wong. The lamp was on, and Mr. Wong observed a man wearing a floppy hat, gloves, and sneakers, and holding what appeared to be a gun barrel, ten to twenty-four inches long, come through the window. The man demanded money, which Mr. Wong gave him, and he also took Mr. Wong's wallet before leaving.

The police arrived and showed Mr. Wong an array of ten photographs from which he selected the photograph of James Stackhouse, the appellant. The investigating officers knew that James Stackhouse's address was 3 Warfield Road. Mr. Wong's identification was corroborated by a police tracking dog who had traced the scent of the robber from the motel to appellant's address. The officers went to that address, but when appellant answered the door, he identified himself as James Lewis and told the officers that James Stackhouse had left five minutes earlier. Appellant would not show any identification, but a woman who was present, later identified as appellant's foster sister, confirmed for the police that he was James Lewis.

The officers told appellant that he matched the description of the robber, took him into custody, placed him in the police car, and drove him back to the Holiday Inn. Mr. Wong told the police that appellant looked like the robber, but Mr. Wong was reluctant to identify him definitely as the robber. The police released appellant, who told them that he was going home.

Officer Thomas then checked with the Central Records Division whose records confirmed that James Lewis and James Stackhouse were the same person. Officer Thomas called appellant's home and verified that appellant was still there. Officer Thomas then learned that two active arrest warrants, charging James Stackhouse with unrelated armed robberies at the Holiday Inn, existed. Officer Thomas requested several police cars be sent to surround the house immediately, and he arranged for two detectives to meet him and several police units at the house.

When the police arrived, appellant's foster sister came out of the house, told the police that she was alone, and then reentered the house. Officer Thomas and four other officers entered the house, armed with the arrest warrants, and found the sister on the couch with her baby. The officers directed her into the kitchen and then took her and the baby out of the house.

The officers started searching for appellant, beginning in the basement and coming lastly to the attic. Access to the attic was gained through a panel in the ceiling of the second floor hallway. Officer Thomas climbed into the hatchway of the dark attic and shined his flashlight toward the south side of the house where he saw a black male lying in the insulation between the rafters. Officer Thomas called out to appellant that he could see him, and told him to put his hands up and crawl toward the hatchway. Appellant complied and he was taken out of the attic to the second floor hallway and handcuffed. Officer Thomas then went into the attic to where appellant had been and, two feet away, recovered a shotgun barrel, approximately eighteen inches long. Appellant testified that the gun barrel had been buried in the insulation near where he had been hiding.

The admissibility of the gun barrel into evidence is the issue presented in this appeal.

II

A.

In Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), the Supreme Court established the permissible scope of a warrantless search or seizure incident to a lawful arrest. Incident to such an arrest, the arresting officer may search the person arrested for weapons, to protect the safety of the officer and others, and for evidence, to prevent its concealment or destruction. Id. at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d at 694. The officer may also search the area within the arrestee's reach from where he might grab a weapon or evidence. Id. See also Bouldin v. State, 276 Md. 511, 518, 350 A.2d 130, 134 (1976). The Court noted that a table or drawer in front of the arrestee was an example of the permissible scope of the rule because of the possibility that an arrestee could grab for a hidden gun. Id. In Foster v. State, 297 Md. 191, 464 A.2d 986 (1983), this Court approved of a search of a partially opened drawer behind the arrestee as within Chimel and noted that handcuffing the arrestee did not eliminate the possibility that she could gain access to the partially open top drawer of the nightstand. Id. at 220, 464 A.2d at 1001. The drawer was a natural place to conceal a weapon and the arrestee might be able to break free from the officer's restraint. Id.

Chimel established the rule that incident to arrest, a search may not go beyond the area of the arrestee's person and the area within his immediate control without the authority of a search warrant, except in the situation of well recognized exceptions. 395 U.S. at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d at 694. The Court, in dicta, thus approved of a second prong of justification for a warrantless search incident to arrest by giving continuing recognition to the exceptions for emergencies and exigencies that in previous cases justified an exemption from the constitutional mandate of a search warrant. Id.; see McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 69 S.Ct. 191, 93 L.Ed. 153 (1948). Before discussing this second justification, we turn briefly to New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), which the State contends expanded Chimel to include the area of a person's control just before his arrest.

In New York v. Belton, the Supreme Court upheld the warrantless search of the zippered pockets of a jacket found inside the passenger compartment of an automobile after the occupants had been ordered out of the car and placed under arrest. Id. at 456, 462, 101 S.Ct. at 2862, 2865, 69 L.Ed.2d at 772, 776. The Court decided the case based on Chimel and did not consider the so-called "automobile exception," Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970); Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925), in the disposition of the case. 453 U.S. at 462 n. 6, 101 S.Ct. at 2865 n. 6, 69 L.Ed.2d at 776 n. 6. The Court was persuaded by Professor LaFave's argument that law enforcement required workable rules and case-by-case adjudication produced highly sophisticated rules that were impossible for the officer in the field to apply. 453 U.S. at 458, 101 S.Ct. at 2863, 69 L.Ed.2d at 773-74 (quoting LaFave, "Case-By-Case Adjudication" Versus "Standardized Procedures": The Robinson Dilemma, 1974 Sup.Ct.Rev. 127, 142). To accomplish a workable rule, the Court generalized from Chimel that "articles inside the relatively narrow compass of the passenger compartment of an automobile are in fact generally, even if not inevitably, within `the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m].'" Id. at 460, 101 S.Ct. at 2864, 69 L.Ed.2d at 774-75 (quoting Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d at 694); see Gee v. State, 291 Md. 663, 666-68, 435 A.2d 1387, 1389 (1981). By establishing a hard line definition of the arrestee's reach, the Court provided the bright line test needed for effective law enforcement. See Gee v. State, 291 Md. at 668-69 n. 2, 435 A.2d at 1389 n. 2 (quoting Robbins v. California, 453 U.S. 420, 431, 101 S.Ct. 2841, 2848-49, 69 L.Ed.2d 744, 753-54 (1981) (Powell, J., concurring)).

The Court noted, however, that this hard line rule was to determine the meaning of Chimel only in the particular, and problematic context of automobile searches. 453 U.S. at 460 n. 3, 101 S.Ct. at 2864 n. 3, 69 L.Ed.2d at 775 n. 3. The rule in Belton "in no way alters the fundamental principles established in the Chimel case regarding the basic scope of searches incident to lawful custodial arrests." Id. Thus, although the Belton rule does not rely on the rationale of the automobile exception, it nevertheless is limited to the context of automobiles. The establishment of workable, bright line rules should not be distorted by blurring the lines of those rules. Stretching clear cut rules by analogizing will result in the same confusion that presented the need for such rules in the first place.

Furthermore, we will not apply the generalization concerning the arrestee's reach, that was necessary in Belton because of the recurring problem of automobile searches, to the dwelling house, which always has been accorded the highest degree of fourth amendment protection. Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970); Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585-91, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1380-82, 63 L.Ed.2d 639, 650-53 (1980); Duncan v. State, 281 Md. 247, 254, 378 A.2d 1108, 1111-12 (1977). The Supreme Court applied the Chimel rationale in Belton, and that original rationale is soundly continued in the context of the dwelling house. Moreover, we believe Chimel provides a workable rule for this situation. See New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. at 471, 101 S.Ct. at 2869, 69 L.Ed.2d at 782 (1981) (Brennan, J., dissenting). In Chimel, the Supreme Court overturned the rule "that a warrantless search `incident to a lawful arrest' may generally extend to the area that is considered to be in the `possession' or under the `control' of the person arrested." 395 U.S. at 760, 768, 89 S.Ct. at 2038, 2043, 23 L.Ed.2d at 692, 697 (overruling United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 70 S.Ct. 430, 94 L.Ed. 653 (1950)). We, therefore, reject the State's argument for an expansive reading of New York v. Belton.

B.

In holding that the police may search the area within the arrestee's reach incident to a lawful arrest, the Supreme Court in Chimel acknowledged in dicta that exigent circumstances provided a second recognized justification for a warrantless search or seizure incident to arrest. 395 U.S. at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d at 694. In fact, the rule developed in Chimel was based on an exigency rationale, that is, the safety of the officer and the preservation of evidence. Recognition that exigent circumstances might justify a warrantless search or seizure dates well back. See McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 454-456, 69 S.Ct. 191, 192-93, 93 L.Ed. 153, 158 (1948); Trupiano v. United States, 334 U.S. 699, 68 S.Ct. 1229, 92 L.Ed. 1663 (1948), overruled in part, United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 66, 70 S.Ct. 430, 435, 94 L.Ed. 653 (1950), reaff'd, Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 768, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 2043, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, 697 (1969) (overruling Rabinowitz); Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948); Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 46 S.Ct. 4, 70 L.Ed. 145 (1925). The justification, however, remains a narrow one.

The meaning of exigency implies urgency, immediacy, and compelling need. Just as the exigencies relied upon in developing the rule in Chimel were of immediate concern to the officer, the other cases upholding warrantless searches or entries based on exigent circumstances rely on conditions equally urgent. For example, in Davis v. State, 236 Md. 389, 204 A.2d 76 (1964), cert. denied, 380 U.S. 966, 85 S.Ct. 1113, 14 L.Ed.2d 156 (1965), a warrantless entry was justified by the demand to preserve human life where the police discovered carnage in the backyard and could see an apparently lifeless body through the window. Id. at 395-96, 204 A.2d at 79. The Court quoted examples of exigent circumstances such as "`smoke coming out a window or under a door, the sound of gunfire in a house, threats from the inside to shoot through the door at police, [or] reasonable grounds to believe an injured or seriously ill person is being held within.'" Id. at 396, 204 A.2d at 81 (quoting Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 860, 84 S.Ct. 125, 11 L.Ed.2d 86 (1963)). See also, e.g., Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 509, 98 S.Ct. 1942, 1949, 56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978) (warrantless entry into a burning building to put out a blaze); United States v. Miller, 589 F.2d 1117, 1126 (1st Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 958, 99 S.Ct. 1499, 59 L.Ed.2d 771 (1979) (warrantless entry and reentry of a boat where drowning suspected and tidal flow created need for swift action); Lebedun v. State, 283 Md. 257, 266-70, 390 A.2d 64, 68-69 (1978) (discussing above cases).

Upholding warrantless searches based upon exigent circumstances involves two principal categories of cases: "hot pursuit," and destruction or removal of evidence. In Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967), the Supreme Court validated the so-called "hot pursuit" exception. The police arrived at the house that the armed robber had entered only minutes after the robbery. The Court upheld the warrantless search of the house for persons and weapons, stating that "[t]he Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to delay in the course of an investigation if to do so would gravely endanger their lives or the lives of others." 387 U.S. at 298-99, 87 S.Ct. at 1645-46, 18 L.Ed.2d at 787.

The Supreme Court also has recognized that the destruction or removal of evidence is an exigency that renders a warrantless search reasonable under the fourth amendment. In Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963), the Court upheld a warrantless search incident to arrest where the police had ample evidence supporting a reasonable belief that the suspect was in possession of marijuana, which could be quickly and easily destroyed, and, further, the officers reasonably believed such destruction was imminent. 374 U.S. at 40-41, 83 S.Ct. at 1633-34, 10 L.Ed.2d at 742. Also, in Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 769-71, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1835-36, 16 L.Ed.2d 908, 918-20 (1966), the warrantless search of giving the arrestee a blood test was upheld because the diminishing of the blood's alcohol content during the time needed to obtain a warrant threatened destruction of the evidence and the officer had probable cause to believe petitioner was intoxicated.

Where a warrantless search is based upon the destruction or removal of evidence the surrounding circumstances must present a specific threat to known evidence. For example, in Thomas v. Parett, the police knew that narcotics were on the premises and that several people were present. 524 F.2d 779, 782 (8th Cir.1975). The police could not risk arresting people as they left separately. See also United States v. Rubin, 474 F.2d 262, 268 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 833, 94 S.Ct. 173, 38 L.Ed.2d 68 (1973); State v. Patterson, 192 Neb. 308, 220 N.W.2d 235 (1974) (many people and heroin easily disposable). To justify the warrantless search the officers must reasonably believe that a strong likelihood exists that the removal or destruction of the evidence is imminent. United States v. Johnson, 561 F.2d 832, 850 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 432 U.S. 907, 97 S.Ct. 2953, 53 L.Ed.2d 1080 (1977); see also Henson v. State, 236 Md. 518, 523, 204 A.2d 516, 519 (1964) (easy destruction of narcotics is exigency justifying unannounced surprise entry to execute search warrant). Several cases suggest that the requirement is that the destruction or removal be in progress. See Ludlow v. State, 262 Ind. 266, 314 N.E.2d 750 (1974) (presence of fugitives in house and sound of running steps not sufficient); Commonwealth v. Hall, 366 Mass. 790, 323 N.E.2d 319 (1975) (tighter requirement suggested by Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U.S. 30, 90 S.Ct. 1969, 26 L.Ed.2d 409 (1970)); see, e.g., United States v. Guidry, 534 F.2d 1220, 1223 (6th Cir.1976) (evidence of counterfeiting in process of destruction); contra United States v. Wilcox, 357 F. Supp. 514 (E.D.Pa. 1973) (destruction in progress is too narrow a reading of Supreme Court cases; belief of threatened destruction required; presence of other persons on premises not justify such belief); United States v. Rubin, 474 F.2d 262, 266 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 833, 94 S.Ct. 173, 38 L.Ed.2d 68 (1973); United States v. Blake, 484 F.2d 50, 55 (8th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 949, 94 S.Ct. 3076, 41 L.Ed.2d 669 (1974).

We need not resolve whether this exception requires that the destruction of the evidence be in progress, because the meaning of "exigency" will be sufficient to decide this case. In Chimel, the Supreme Court required a showing that the exigencies of the situation made the policemen's course of conduct imperative. 395 U.S. at 761, 89 S.Ct. at 2039, 23 L.Ed.2d at 693 (emphasis added) (quoting McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. at 456, 69 S.Ct. at 193, 93 L.Ed. at 158). Further, the Court noted that searching without a warrant is always considered a strictly limited right that grows only out of the inherent necessity of the situation at the time of the arrest. 395 U.S. at 759, 89 S.Ct. at 2038, 23 L.Ed.2d at 691 (quoting Trupiano v. United States, 334 U.S. at 705, 708, 68 S.Ct. at 1234, 92 L.Ed. at 1667, 1671). In Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978), the Supreme Court noted that a warrant was required to search a home unless the exigencies were compelling. 437 U.S. at 394, 98 S.Ct. at 2414, 57 L.Ed.2d at 301 (emphasis added). Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966), has been cited as finding an exigency where the destruction of evidence is imminent. Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. at 394, 98 S.Ct. at 2414, 57 L.Ed.2d at 301 (emphasis added). See also United States v. Williams, 604 F.2d 1102, 1122-23 (8th Cir.1979), citing Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 40-41, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1633-1634, 10 L.Ed.2d 726, 742 (1963); United States v. Blake,