An inventory search of defendant’s property in the book-in area of the jail was valid even though he was going to be OR’ed shortly. State v. Johnson, 2014 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 458 (May 15, 2014):
The Defendant also challenges the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress the evidence resulting from the search of the Defendant in the booking area of the Montgomery County Jail. He argues that “once a magistrate orders a person released upon their personal recognizance then that person is no longer under arrest or in custody.” Therefore, the Defendant asserts that Officer Dindar’s search was unlawful under the Fourth Amendment because the Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy and “there was no new probable cause to allow either Clarksville Police or the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department to seize the Defendant after he had been ordered released.”
An inventory search “in accordance with routine administrative procedures” involved in booking and processing an arrestee through a detention facility is a well-recognized exception to the warrant requirement. Watkins, 827 S.W.2d at 295 (citing South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 372, 96 S. Ct. 3092, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1000 (1976)). When the subject of a custodial arrest is transported to a detention facility, “[l]aw enforcement authority in such cases extends to performing a detailed ‘inventory search’ of all personal effects in the arrestee’s possession, and possibly of the vehicle in which he was riding at the time of arrest, if that vehicle is also seized.” Crutcher, 989 S.W.2d at 301 (citing Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 648, 103 S. Ct. 2605, 77 L. Ed. 2d 65 (1983)); see also Cothran, 115 S.W.3d at 526 (“When [the defendant] arrived at the police station, a deputy again searched him and found a bag of marijuana and rolling papers on his person. These items were lawfully seized pursuant to a valid inventory search at the police station.”).
The United States Supreme Court has noted that “routine administrative procedure[s] at a police station house incident to booking and jailing the suspect derive from different origins and have different constitutional justifications” than a search based on probable cause. Maryland v. King, __ U.S. __, 133 S.Ct. 1958, 1970, 186 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2013). An inventory search incident to arrest is not based on the “fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found” but rather on the administrative and security concerns inherent to formally processing an arrestee. Id. (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238, 103 S. Ct. 2317, 76 L. Ed. 2d 527 (1983). Such justifications include “(1) the protection of the owner’s property while it remains in police custody, (2) the protection of the police against claims or disputes over lost or stolen property, and (3) the protection of the police from potential danger.” State v. Glenn, 649 S.W.2d 584, 585-86 (Tenn. 1983) (citing South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 369, 96 S. Ct. 3092, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1000 (1976)). Similarly, our supreme court has recognized that “the policy of maintaining prison security is a legitimate factor that may bear upon the objective reasonableness of an expectation of privacy.” Munn, 56 S.W.3d at 496; see also State v. Putt, 955 S.W.2d 640, 644 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1997) (“[T]he fact that the defendant had entered the grounds of the prison facility diminishes her usual expectation of privacy. This intrusion on her privacy is outweighed by the State’s substantial interest in preventing the introduction of drugs into prison facilities.”).
Officer Dindar testified that the Defendant requested to use the bathroom while he was “in the booking area … [i]n the secure zone of the jail.” Officer Dindar’s testimony is clear that, although the Defendant eventually was to be released on his own recognizance, the Defendant was still in the midst of normal administrative booking procedures at the time he was searched. Officer Dindar explained that, after being taken in front of a magistrate, an arrestee still must go through the “booking process,” even in such instance that they are granted a bond to be released on their own recognizance. Officer Dindar’s testimony was that the normal booking process involves a “thorough” search of the arrestee as he enters the jail and that no arrestee is released on bond until after he completes the booking process. According to the Defendant’s own testimony, at the time he asked to use the bathroom, he was in the holding area “fixing to go into booking” but was waiting because there was a “female in there so they couldn’t search me right then.” Based on this testimony, the trial court concluded that the Defendant “would have had to have been booked, searched and then signed the bond before he would have been released” and that even if the bathroom incident had not occurred, the Defendant “would have been searched and these items would have been found, so that it would inevitably been found [sic] anyway.”
It is clear from the testimony that a search of the Defendant as a part of a normal administrative booking procedure at the jail was imminent. Even when an arrestee is to be eventually released on his own recognizance, he is still subject to the normal booking procedure following arrest, as there is still a legitimate law enforcement interest in doing such things as making a record of the arrest, obtaining basic biographical information, taking fingerprints, and photographing the arrestee. Nothing in the record suggests that the impending search of the Defendant was anything other than a routine inventory search inherent to that normal booking procedure. Under the doctrine of inevitable discovery, “illegally obtained evidence is admissible if the evidence would have otherwise been discovered by lawful means.” State v. Cothran, 115 S.W.3d 513, 525 (Tenn. Crim. App. 2003) (citing Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444, 104 S. Ct. 2501, 81 L. Ed. 2d 377 (1984); State v. Ensley, 956 S.W.2d 502, 511 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1996)).
Furthermore, we agree with the trial court that the Defendant had a diminished expectation of privacy at the time he was in the holding area of the jail waiting to be booked and that he was still in the custody of Officer Dindar. The evidence does not preponderate against the trial court’s findings. Therefore, we hold that the trial court properly denied the Defendant’s motion to suppress. The Defendant is entitled to no relief on this issue.
