TX1: Cell phone was properly seized incident to arrest because def was attempting to leave the place of detention

Defendant was stopped after coming out of a bathroom when a 13 year old boy told his mother that a man in the bathroom flashed something shiny at him under the stall wall. When the officer confronted him, he was fidgety and wouldn’t keep his hands out of his pockets. The officer seized defendant’s cell phone and got consent* to look through it. Because the officer had probable cause that something was awry and he was attempting to leave, the seizure of the phone was reasonable. Child porn was found on the phone. [*Consent is admitted in the defense brief on appeal. Otherwise, the opinion looks like it was an invalid search incident. The appellate court didn’t do a good job of explaining for a published decision.] Meiburg v. State, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 9066 (Tex. App. – Houston (1st Dist.) August 27, 2015).

Defendant was a known burglar with a distinct MO, and his car was seen in town after a rash of burglaries while one officer was at the scene of one of them. His stop was with reasonable suspicion. After he got out of the car, two pieces of paper fell from his waistband, and he tried to kick them under the car. That was an act of abandonment. State v. Edwards, 2015 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 693 (August 27, 2015).

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