LA4: State failed to show justification for search of bookbag not on def when he was arrested

The state failed to prove an exception to justify a search of defendant’s bookbag. It was seized, but it was wasn’t on him when he was arrested. It couldn’t be a search incident or inventory. State v. Berrigan, 2015 La. App. LEXIS 1864 (La.App. 4 Cir. June 26, 2015):

In this case, the State produced no evidence that the bookbag was on the defendant or in his immediate possession (rather than in his storage unit) at the time of his arrest. Detective Miller-White’s search of the bookbag was clearly not a search incident to his arrest as it occurred more than thirty minutes after his arrest and in the police station some distance from where he was arrested. Moreover, it seems unlikely that the bookbag was seized in the defendant’s immediate control at the time of his arrest and then, without being searched (and revealing the pocket-knife), remained in his control while he was transported to the police station and into Detective Miller-White’s office. Also, an inventory search is proper only if the property at issue was found on the defendant or in his possession. Thus, questions as to where the bookbag (in relation to the defendant and/or his storage unit) was found and who (the defendant or the arresting officers) transported it to the police station are extremely pertinent to the constitutionality of the search and seizure of the bookbag. Clearly, if the bookbag was seized from the storage unit and not in the defendant’s immediate vicinity, it was not subject to a search incident to an arrest and if the arresting officers simply picked up (without consent, search warrant, or exigent circumstances) a bookbag sitting in a storage unit and transported it to the detective’s office in the police station, such action did not cleanse the illegality of the initial search by making it part of a legal administrative search. Accordingly, the State failed to meet its burden in proving the admissibility of the contents of the bookbag and the trial court abused its discretion in denying the defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence contained in the bookbag.