People v. Marshall

I dissent.

This court, speaking unanimously in People v. Roberts (1956) 47 Cal.2d 374, 380 [303 P.2d 721], concluded that the “fact that abuses sometimes occur during the course of criminal investigations should not give a sinister coloration to procedures which are basically reasonable.”

The majority’s neat but indefensible segregation of the human senses—i.e., sight analysis is approved; smell and inferentially the other senses are rejected—results in holding the actions of the police here to be basically unreasonable. I would find the procedures to be entirely appropriate under the existing…