Defendant was arrested in his car, and the police conducted a search incident of it. A locked safe was in the car, and the police opened it without a warrant. The search of the safe was unlawful under the state constitution because it went far beyond what the search incident doctrine allows. [It’s fair to say the Fourth Amendment outcome would be the same.] State v. Gaskins, 2015 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 80 (June 30, 2015):
We approve Gant’s “reaching distance” rationale as an appropriate limitation on the scope of searches incident to arrest under article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution because that limitation is faithful to the underlying justifications for warrantless searches incident to arrest. However, we decline to adopt Gant’s alternative evidence-gathering rationale for warrantless searches incident to arrest under the Iowa Constitution because it would permit the SITA exception to swallow completely the fundamental textual rule in article I, section 8 that searches and seizures should be supported by a warrant. In other words, “use of a [SITA] rationale to sanction a warrantless search that has nothing to do with its underlying justification—preventing the arrestee from gaining access to weapons or evidence—is an anomaly.” Rowell, 188 P.3d at 100; see also State v. Snapp, 275 P.3d 289, 301 (Wash. 2012) (declining to adopt the evidence-gathering rationale under the state constitution). Although the evidence-gathering rationale announced in Gant limits the propriety of a warrantless search of an automobile and containers found within it incident to arrest to those instances when it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the crime of arrest, construing the exception this broadly “would serve no purpose except to provide a police entitlement.” Gant, 556 U.S. at 347, 129 S. Ct. at 1721, 173 L. Ed. 2d at 499. Police entitlements are incompatible with Iowans’ robust privacy rights. See, e.g., Short, 851 N.W.2d at 507 (Cady, C.J., concurring specially) (“[W]e cannot ignore that our history of robust protection of human rights owes in no small part to our authority within America’s federalist system to independently interpret our constitution.”); Baldon, 829 N.W.2d at 803 (holding a consent provision in a parole agreement does not voluntarily waive constitutional search and seizure protection under the Iowa Constitution); State v. Pals, 805 N.W.2d 767, 782-83 (Iowa 2011) (concluding consent to search obtained during a traffic stop was invalid because traffic stops are inherently coercive); State v. Ochoa, 792 N.W.2d 260, 291 (Iowa 2010) (finding invalid a search that “too closely resemble[d] authority pursuant to a general warrant”).
In declining to adopt Gant’s broad evidence-gathering purpose as a rationale for warrantless searches of automobiles and their contents incident to arrest under article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution, we note the historical precedent upon which that rationale relies was specifically rejected in Chimel. See Chimel, 395 U.S. at 768, 89 S. Ct. at 2042-43, 23 L. Ed. 2d at 696-97; see also Gant, 556 U.S. at 343-44, 129 S. Ct. at 1719, 173 L. Ed. 2d at 496 (relying on Justice Scalia’s concurrence in Thornton in formulating the evidence-gathering rationale); Thornton, 541 U.S. at 629, 124 S. Ct. at 2135-36, 158 L. Ed. 2d at 918 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) (collecting cases). We conclude the SITA exception to the warrant requirement under article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution is justified by the State’s interest in preserving evidence from destruction, not merely collecting it expediently. Cf. State v. Tibbles, 236 P.3d 885, 889 (Wash. 2010) (en banc) (“[W]hatever relative convenience to law enforcement may obtain from forgoing the burden of seeking a warrant …, we adhere to the view that ‘mere convenience is simply not enough.'” (quoting State v. Patterson, 774 P.2d 10, 12 (Wash. 1989))).
Indeed, the important distinction between the purpose of preserving evidence and the purpose of collecting evidence in SITA analysis was evident even before Chimel as the Supreme Court demonstrated a desire to constrain the scope of the SITA exception under the Fourth Amendment. Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 367-68, 84 S. Ct. 881, 883-84, 11 L. Ed. 2d 777, 780-81 (1964). While recognizing the general parameters of the SITA exception, the Court noted “these justifications are absent where a search is remote in time or place from the arrest.” Id. at 367, 84 S. Ct. at 883, 11 L. Ed. 2d at 780. When a vehicle search “was not undertaken until [defendant] … had been arrested and taken in custody,” there “was no danger that [he] could have used any weapons in the car or could have destroyed any evidence of a crime.” Id. at 368, 84 S. Ct. at 883, 11 L. Ed. 2d at 781. The search performed without a warrant was “simply not incident to the arrest.” Id. at 367, 84 S. Ct. at 883, 11 L. Ed. 2d at 780-81. We conclude the Court’s rationale in Preston further supports our determination that the Gant evidence-gathering rationale is divorced from the underlying SITA justifications and is repugnant to article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution.
Applying these principles to the facts of this case, we conclude the search of Gaskins’s locked safe was not a valid SITA under article I, section 8. …
. . .
V. Conclusion.
“The word ‘automobile’ is not a talisman in whose presence the [constitutional protection against warrantless searches and seizures] fades away and disappears.” Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 461, 91 S. Ct. 2022, 2035, 29 L. Ed. 2d 564, 580 (1971). That sentiment applies with equal force to article I, section 8 of the Iowa Constitution. Because Gaskins could not access anything inside the vehicle or the locked safe when the search occurred, the search of the safe was not a valid SITA. Accordingly, the State was required to obtain a warrant before searching the van and the safe. Because it did not do so, the district court should have granted Gaskins’s motion to suppress. We reverse Gaskins’s conviction and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
