Search and Seizure - Inventory Searches – Impoundment

Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1 (1990)

Police officers searched a locked suitcase removed from a trunk of an impounded car and pried it open after the driver was arrested on charges of DUI. There were no policies for that jurisdiction addressing a need to inventory closed containers when a car was impounded after a DUI arrest. The Supreme Court holds that this is not a valid inventory search.

Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367 (1987)

The Supreme Court holds that law enforcement officers may conduct an inventory search of closed containers which are found in an automobile so long as the inventory is carried out pursuant to standard police procedures that require the opening of such containers and is not conducted in a bad faith effort solely at investigating criminal conduct.

United States v. Sanders, 796 F.3d 1241 (10th Cir. 2015)

If a defendant is arrested and his car is parked on private property, the car may not be impounded unless the car poses a threat to public safety, or there is a non-pretextual policy that addreses community-caretaking concerns.

United States v. Cervantes, 703 F.3d 1135 (9th Cir. 2012)

A man was seen leaving what was described by the police as a stash house with a white box. That man was later observed giving the box to the defendant. The defendant’s car was followed briefly and the police believed that he engaged in counter-surveillance maneuvers. Later the defendant, with the box was pulled over for a minor technical motor vehicle infraction and the officer could no confirm that he had a valid driver’s license. The car was searched and the box was found to contain cocaine. The government contended that there was probable cause to search the car. The Ninth Circuit disagreed: the officer’s testimony that the house was a “stash house” was worth little, because no facts were offered to support that conclusory statement. The claim that the defendant engaged in counter-surveillance was equally unhelpful. The government next argued that the car was subject to impoundment and inventory, but the Ninth Circuit rejected this theory, too, because there was insufficient information that the car was obstructing traffic, or otherwise in need of being impoundment. Moreover, the government did not show that the impoundment was appropriate under California law.

United States v. Taylor, 636 F.3d 461 (10th Cir. 2011)

After impounding the defendant’s vehicle, the police found drugs. The police relied on the inventory exception to the search warrant requirement. However, the inventory that was prepared by the police simply listed the contents of the vehicle as “miscellaneous tools” which showed that the police were not seriously inventorying the contents for a legitimate purpose. The drug evidence should have been suppressed.

United States v. Edwards, 632 F.3d 633 (10th Cir. 2001)

The defendant was arrested on the sidewalk near a parking lot. The court concluded that there was probable cause to support the arrest (a belief that the defendant had participated in a bank robbery). The police then searched a rental car, which had been rented by his girlfriend which was in the parking lot. The Tenth Circuit held that the defendant did not have standing to contest the search of the car in general, because he was not on the rental agreement, but he did have standing to challenge the search of the closed suitcases which he owned that were in the trunk of the vehicle. The court also held that the search was not a valid probable cause search of the vehicle, because there was no probable cause to believe that the car contained any evidence. The search was not a valid search incident to arrest, because the defendant was over 100 feet away from the car when he was arrested and he was handcuffed in the back of the patrol car (note, this case was decided pre-Gant). This was not an inventory search, because the police conceded that they were searching for evidence and had not decided to impound the car until the evidence was found.

United States v. Proctor, 489 F.3d 1348 (D.C. Cir. 2007)

The defendant was arrested for DUI. An officer promptly searched the car and found a gun. The defendant contended that the search did not comply with the D.C. impound and inventory procedures. Indeed, it did not. Though the officer testified that there was a new and improved procedure that authorized him to search the car immediately after the arrest (even though the written policy did not even authorize impoundment in every case), the court concluded that this was not the official policy which the police must obey in order to invoke the inventory search exception to the search warrant requirement.

United States v. Kennedy, 427 F.3d 1136 (8th Cir. 2005)

The defendant’s girlfriend said that the defendant “deals” drugs and “keeps” drugs in his car. This did not establish probable cause that the defendant then had drugs in his car. The police also searched the car pursuant to their inventory policy, but the policy only directed the police to search containers in the car. The search in this case involved searching behind a speaker in the trunk – the place where the girlfriend revealed that the defendant stored his drugs. This was not a proper inventory search.

Miranda v. City of Cornelius, 429 F.3d 858 (9th Cir. 2005)

In this § 1983 case, the plaintiffs challenged the police officer’s decision to impound a vehicle which was lawfully parked on the plaintiff’s private property when the plaintiff was arrested for a motor vehicle offense. The Ninth Circuit held that impounding the vehicle was not permissible.

United States v. Maple, 348 F.3d 260 (D. C. Cir. 2003)

The defendant was arrested in his car for speeding and driving with a suspended license. The officer decided not to impound the car and pulled it into a parking lot. He noticed a mobile phone on the floor and opened a console between the bucket seats for the purpose of hiding the phone in there. In the console, he discovered a gun. This amounted to a search and was unlawful. This was not a valid inventory search, moreover, because there was no departmental policy that authorized this type of search of unimpounded vehicles.

United States v. Best, 135 F.3d 1223 (8th Cir. 1998)

After the trooper stopped the defendant's car, she determined that the defendant was driving with a suspended license. Prior to the arrival of a tow truck, the trooper noticed that the windows would not roll down properly. She shined her flashlight into the door panel and saw a bundle of marijuana. This was not a lawful inventory search. The inventory policy of the trooper's department did not provide for searching inside door panels of cars that were to be impounded.

United States v. Gorski, 852 F.2d 692 (2d Cir. 1988)

The defendant was arrested and after he was handcuffed his suitcase was searched. There were no exigent circumstances justifying a search incident to arrest. The government claimed that the search could be justified as an inventory search or under the inevitable discovery doctrine. However, the government failed to introduce evidence that all suitcases were in fact inventoried at the FBI agent’s office where the defendants were ultimately taken. In the absence of such evidence that the bag would have been opened at that location, the cocaine found in the suitcase would not have been inevitably discovered and the search could not be justified under either an inventory or inevitable discovery theory.

United States v. Salmon, 944 F.2d 1106 (3rd Cir. 1991)

Following the defendant’s arrest, his car was seized for forfeiture under state law. The car was then inventoried. The state agency that seized the car, however, had no policy on the method of conducting inventories of seized-for-forfeiture cars. The case might be different if federal agents had seized the car, because under the federal forfeiture laws, title to the car passes to the government when the car is used in an unlawful manner, whereas under the state’s law, title does not pass to the state until after a hearing.

United States v. Showalter, 858 F.2d 149 (3rd Cir. 1988)

A drug agent accompanied United States Marshals during the civil forfeiture inventory of residential premises. This was improper. The marshals were entitled to conduct an inventory of the property which they had seized but there was nothing in the seizure warrant permitting agents access to the house to see what was in plain view. Nor does this satisfy the requirements of an inventory search since privacy rights at home are far greater than those in a car, and there was no evidence that it was uniform or standard procedure for DEA agents to accompany marshals to inventory the goods in a house which had been seized.

United States v. Hahn, 922 F.2d 243 (5th Cir. 1991)

After seizing the defendant’s car, IRS agents searched its contents under an inventory rationale. However, the IRS had no standards or procedures regarding the inventorying of cars, thus this search was illegal. The fact that the IRS agents complied with local police guidelines was irrelevant, because the agents, at the time, were not aware of those procedures.

United States v. Duguay, 93 F.3d 346 (7th Cir. 1996)

The court recognized that the police must have a legitimate basis not only for inventorying a vehicle, but also for impounding the vehicle. Here, the police failed to show an established departmental policy for the impoundment of the vehicle. Moreover, there were other people around who were available to drive the car, including the defendant’s girlfriend and brother.

United States v. Marshall, 986 F.2d 1171 (8th Cir. 1993)

Though defendant’s vehicle was properly impounded, the government failed to prove that the law enforcement agency had standardized procedures for inventorying the contents of seized cars. Also, it was evident that the police were motivated by their investigation of the defendant for drug and gun-related crimes.

United States v. Ramos-Oseguera, 120 F.3d 1028 (9th Cir. 1997)

San Francisco’s inventory policy required officers to identify all visible property in an impounded vehicle. The policy did not authorize the opening of closed containers to inventory the contents of containers. Here, the police searched the pants pockets of a pair of jeans found in the back seat and found heroin. This was not a lawful inventory search because there was no authorization in the city policy to search the pockets of clothes found in an impounded vehicle.

United States v. Johnson, 936 F.2d 1082 (9th Cir. 1991)

The police violated the state inventory policy in searching the locked trunk of a seized automobile. The federal agents could not rely, therefore, on that established policy to justify the inventory search of the car.

United States v. Wanless, 882 F.2d 1459 (9th Cir. 1989)

The Washington State courts have imposed certain requirements on officers making inventory searches. These requirements must be complied with before the fruits of such a search may be introduced in federal court. This is because an inventory search must comply with the local standards and practices or it cannot, by definition, be a valid inventory search.

United States v. Haro-Salcedo, 107 F.3d 769 (10th Cir. 1997)

Though the defendant’s car was properly impounded, the inventory search was not proper. The agent who conducted the search conceded that he searched the vehicle for investigative purposes. He also acknowledged that he was unfamiliar with the procedures and policy of the local law enforcement agency which had impounded the vehicle. Finally, the office never completed an inventory form listing the contents of the car. The court concluded, however, that the evidence would inevitably be discovered when the impounding agency performed a proper inventory search.

United States v. Lugo, 978 F.2d 631 (10th Cir. 1992)

Defendant was arrested for driving with a suspended license. The car was parked in a gas station and the defendant was taken away. The police then inventoried the contents; the officer removed the cover of a speaker in the door panel and located cocaine. This was not a proper search incident to arrest, nor a proper inventory search. It could not be a search incident to arrest, because the defendant had already been taken away in a patrol car. United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1 (1977). This was not a valid inventory search, because searching inside speakers in door panels is not standard police procedure.

Sammons v. Taylor, 967 F.2d 1533 (11th Cir. 1992)

In this civil rights action, the Eleventh Circuit sets forth the standard for an inventory search. The plaintiff, complaining about an “unnecessary” inventory search, argued that impoundment, followed by an inventory search, is only appropriate when there is no alternative means of disposing of the car. The court rejected this argument: Even if an arrestee’s car is not impeding traffic or otherwise presenting a hazard, a law enforcement officer may impound the vehicle, so long as the decision to impound is made on the basis of standard criteria and on the basis of “something other than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity.”

United States v. Khoury, 901 F.2d 948 (11th Cir. 1990)

Following the defendant’s arrest, the police leafed through a spiral notebook found in the trunk of the car. Later, the agent came back to the notebook and more thoroughly examined it. This was not a proper inventory search. A search warrant should have been obtained before the officer went back to the notebook to study it in depth. An inventory search is not a surrogate for investigation and the scope of the inventory search may not exceed that necessary to accomplish the ends of the inventory. It is clear that the second examination of the notebook was conducted for investigatory purposes, not merely to inventory items found in the car.