IN: Calling pharmacist to determine what pills seen during an inventory were was not a seizure

Defendant stipulated (and there was) probable cause to believe that the defendant’s car was involved in a crime and it was properly seized without a warrant. The search thereafter with a SW issued on that PC was valid. State v. Sells, 112 Conn. App. 775, 964 A.2d 97 (2009).*

The officer received a shots fired call without detail, and he responded and stopped the defendant based on the defendant’s body language. The stop was without reasonable suspicion. People v. Linley, 328 Ill. Dec. 131, 903 N.E.2d 791 (Ill. App. 2009).*

Calling a pharmacist to find out what a pill was that was observed during an inventory was not a seizure. Opening the pill bottle was reasonable under the inventory policy as well under state law and the Fourth Amendment. The further step of finding out what it was was not unreasonable. George v. State, 2009 Ind. App. LEXIS 280 (February 24, 2009):

Analytically, we disagree with the Bastin court’s description of subjecting the pill to laboratory analysis as a seizure. Within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, a “seizure” occurs when a state actor meaningfully interferes with an individual’s possessory interest in property, and a “search” occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable is infringed. United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113, 104 S. Ct. 1652, 80 L. Ed. 2d 85 (1984). Subjecting a lawfully seized item to testing is properly described, then, not by invoking the language of “seizure” (the item has already been seized, and it is therefore difficult to see how the individual’s possessory interest could be further diminished), but by analyzing whether the testing constitutes a search; that is, whether the state actor has infringed on an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy.