OR: Search of Altoids tin during search of backpack for drugs was reasonable

When searching defendant’s backpack incident to arrest for drugs, the further search of an Altoids tin wasn’t unreasonable because it was a place where drugs would be held. State v. Krause, 281 Ore. App. 143, 2016 Ore. App. LEXIS 1142 (Sept. 21, 2016):

Instead, defendant argues only that Berry could not open the Altoids tin as part of a search incident to arrest because Berry did not develop probable cause to arrest defendant until after defendant had exited the van and, therefore, no longer had control over the backpack and the Altoids tin inside it. In considering that argument, we review the trial court’s “denial of [the] motion to suppress for legal error, and we are bound by the trial court’s implicit and explicit findings of historical fact as long as the record includes constitutionally sufficient evidence to support those findings.” State v. Walker, 277 Ore. App. 397, 398, 372 P3d 540 (2016).

Defendant’s argument fails in light of settled principles that guide our analysis of warrantless searches that the state seeks to justify as searches incident to arrest. “Article I, section 9, guarantees that ‘[n]o law shall violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search[.]'” “Warrantless entries and searches of premises are per se unreasonable unless they fall within an exception to the warrant requirement.” State v. Kelly, 274 Ore. App. 363, 372, 360 P3d 691 (2015). One such exception, at issue here, is a search incident to arrest. State v. Mazzola, 356 Ore. 804, 811-12, 345 P3d 424 (2015).