NY1: Search incident of a jacket on the trunk of police car when def handcuffed and inside car was unreasonable

“In this appeal, we are asked to determine whether the police lawfully searched defendant’s jacket, which was lying on the trunk of a police car, while defendant was sitting handcuffed in the vehicle and numerous police officers were present at the scene. We conclude that, at the time of the search, the jacket was not within defendant’s grabbable area, and there were no exigent circumstances justifying a warrantless search of the jacket incident to arrest. [citations omitted] The dissent’s contention that our decision will endanger the police and public is unsupported by the record, and cannot be reconciled with controlling precedent. We recognize the difficult job that police officers face when arresting suspects, but no one was in danger here once the suspect was subdued, and the officers had other legal means available to them to secure the jacket safely. Under these circumstances, the evidence recovered from the jacket should have been suppressed.” People v. Morales, 2015 NY Slip Op 01190, 2015 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1198 (February 10, 2015).