WI: SI of car where defendant handcuffed and in police car is valid

Defendant was stopped by a game warden and got out of his truck and went back to the officer. The officer told him to get back in the truck. Instead, he locked it. He resisted the officer who was going to arrest him for driving on a revoked license. He was wrestled to the ground, handcuffed, and put into the police car. The passenger compartment of his truck was searched by the game warden, and it was valid as a search incident. State v. Dearborn, 2008 WI App 131, 313 Wis. 2d 767, 758 N.W.2d 463 (App. 2008):

P46 We conclude our decision in Littlejohn, 2008 WI App 45, 747 N.W.2d 712 [2008], is controlling and resolves this issue against Dearborn. As in this case, in Littlejohn the police searched the passenger compartment of the defendant’s vehicle after he was arrested outside the vehicle, handcuffed, and secured in a police vehicle at the scene. Id., PP2, 12. Littlejohn’s car was locked, id., P15, as was Dearborn’s. Littlejohn made the same argument that Dearborn makes–that the search-incident-to-arrest exception did not apply because he was locked in the back of a police car and his vehicle therefore was not within his “immediate control.” Id., P6. In addition, Littlejohn argued, as does Dearborn, that Soehle v. State, 60 Wis. 2d 72, 208 N.W.2d 341 (1973), holds a search of a vehicle locked at the time of arrest is an invalid search incident to an arrest. Id., P15.

P47 We rejected both arguments in Littlejohn. We stated that, under State v. Fry, 131 Wis. 2d 153, 388 N.W.2d 565 (1986), and subsequent case law interpreting Fry, “the government is not required to show in each case that the area searched was actually accessible to the arrestee at the time of the search”; Littlejohn, 2008 WI App 45, 747 N.W.2d 712, P11, rather, the inquiry, as stated in Fry was “whether a vehicle’s passenger compartment was within ‘the area into which an arrestee might reach.'” Id., P18 (citations omitted). We concluded that Fry had decided this standard was met on facts that were not meaningfully distinguishable from Littlejohn’s situation. Id., PP18, 19. We also concluded that Fry had overruled Soehle to the extent the latter case could be read to hold that a search of a vehicle locked at the time of arrest was an invalid search incident to an arrest. Id., P15.

P48 Because Littlejohn, 2008 WI App 45, 747 N.W.2d 712, is controlling, we conclude the search of the passenger compartment of Dearborn’s car did not violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches. Therefore he was not entitled to suppression of the evidence seized in that search.

Comment: I can’t buy search incident under these circumstances since the passenger compartment was clearly locked and inaccessible since he was handcuffed and locked up. However, what about the inevitable last refuge of the police: inventory?