8th Cir.: Search incident 8 minutes after arrest and handcuffing was still valid

Search incident of a vehicle eight minutes after defendant was handcuffed and in custody in a police car was still valid under the bright line rule of Belton and Thornton. United States v. Grooms, 506 F.3d 1088 (8th Cir. 2007). Worth noting is this passage about defendant’s policy argument which the court found unavailing. The fact it was mentioned at all suggests that the court might have been sympathetic to it, but bound by SCOTUS precedent.

Grooms relies on this statement in Thornton and argues he is not a recent occupant because eight minutes is too long after an arrest to conduct a valid search incident to arrest. In United States v. Hrasky, however, we found an automobile search which began one hour after the defendant was arrested was a valid search incident to arrest because we found the defendant was a “recent occupant.” 453 F.3d 1099, 1102 (8th Cir. 2006). We noted “the determination of whether a search is a contemporaneous incident of arrest involves more than simply a temporal analysis” and concluded “a search need not be conducted immediately upon the heels of an arrest, but sometimes may be conducted well after the arrest, so long as it occurs during a continuous sequence of events.” Id. We reasoned the search in that case “took place at the scene of the arrest, immediately after the police determined to proceed with a full custodial arrest” and was therefore valid. Id. at 1103. In this case, we find the search of Grooms’s vehicle occurred during a continuous sequence of events after his stop. Eight minutes is not a long period of time and some of the delay can be attributed to Grooms’s attempts to offer explanations for his prior criminal conviction, for his return to the pub, and for his possession of the two cases. Under Hrasky, we find Grooms was a recent occupant of his automobile.

In addition, as a policy matter, Grooms argues the search should be found invalid because there were no safety issues and no probable cause to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest would be found in his vehicle. Grooms argues the law governing the Fourth Amendment exception for a search incident to arrest has diverged from the rationale expressed in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S. Ct. 2034, 23 L. Ed. 2d 685 (1969). He argues the dual purpose behind a contemporaneous search incident to arrest of both the person arrested and the immediate surrounding area is (1) the need to remove weapons that might be used to resist arrest or escape and (2) the need to prevent concealment or destruction of evidence. Belton, 453 U.S. at 457-58 (citing Chimel, 395 U.S. at 762-63). Once a person has been arrested, frisked and handcuffed, Grooms argues the rationale for a search for weapons used to resist arrest or escape disappears. With respect to the need to prevent concealment or destruction of evidence, Grooms argues searches should be limited to those cases in which there is probable cause to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle. He argues this case provides an excellent forum for determining whether Belton and Thornton should be modified in light of what he argues is an erosion of their underpinnings.