FL4: State failed to prove inventory policy; def had standing in his own suitcase, albeit not the car

Defendant was neither the owner nor driver of the car he was riding in which had his suitcase in the trunk. He didn’t have standing as to a search of the car, but he did have standing as to the search of his suitcase with his name on it. The search was invalid under inventory, which the state failed to support at the suppression hearing. Tyler v. State, 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 1811 (Fla. 4th DCA Feb. 10, 2016):

However, the state provided no evidence of the department’s inventory policy, other than the officer’s testimony that one existed and that the contents of the impounded vehicle were required to be inventoried and logged for liability purposes. This sort of testimony has been found to be insufficient. See Kilburn, 54 So. 3d at 627 (reversing denial of motion to suppress where officer testified it was department policy to conduct an inventory search whenever a vehicle was towed but he acknowledged there were no standardized criteria for performing such a search and there was no evidence that it was a standard procedure to open closed containers during the search); Leary, 880 So. 2d at 778 (finding that the record lacked sufficient evidence of any standardized procedure where the officer testified “only that the vehicle ‘was going to be towed’ from the premises and it is the sheriff’s policy to inventory vehicles before towing”); Beezley v. State, 863 So. 2d 386, 387 (Fla. 2d DCA 2003) (reversing denial of motion to suppress where officer testified that “pursuant to Department policy, the decision to impound a vehicle is within an individual officer’s discretion, but after the decision to impound is made, a complete inventory must be performed”).

The state points to the officer’s testimony that he was trained to search the entire vehicle during an inventory search, including contents of closed containers. However, because of the way the state conducted the direct examination, it appears the officer was referring to the department’s search and seizure guide rather than to an inventory policy. The officer’s testimony simply failed to make it clear that the officer’s search of the vehicle and his training regarding such searches was pursuant to a set of standardized procedures related to inventory searches. The Riviera Beach Police Department may have such standardized procedures or may not. There is a total lack of evidence in the record to suggest, however, that these standardized procedures existed at the time of the warrantless search of the appellant’s personal property.