State v. Westside Fish Co.

The state appeals from an order suppressing evidence obtained in three warrantless searches of defendant’s business premises. Defendant is a licensed food fish canner and licensed wholesale fish dealer. On three occasions state police officers, acting in their capacities as fish and game officers, entered defendant’s cannery without a warrant and without probable cause. Defendant neither resisted nor consented. The officers discovered unlawfully possessed fish on defendant’s premises and issued citations to him for three separate violations of commercial fishing laws in May 1976. The cases…