N.D.Okla.: Impoundment and inventory was non-pretextual and reasonable

The impoundment and inventory of defendant’s rented car was reasonable under all the circumstances at the time it happened, and it was factually justified and not pretextual. It would have been left in a high crime area on private property, and it was easily susceptible to theft or vandalism or being broken into before defendant could return. United States v. Woodard, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 160756 (N.D. Okla. Sept. 20, 2019):

Second, the officers had a reasonable, non-pretextual community-caretaking rationale for impounding the vehicle. The Tenth Circuit in Sanders noted that “[a]scertaining whether an impoundment is justified by a reasonable and legitimate, non-pretextual community-caretaking rationale is not an easy task.” Sanders, 796 F.3d at 1250. The Sanders court noted a non-exhaustive list of factors for courts to consider in their analysis:

(1) whether the vehicle is on public or private property; (2) if on private property, whether the property owner has been consulted; (3) whether an alternative to impoundment exists (especially another person capable of driving the vehicle); (4) whether the vehicle is implicated in a crime; and (5) whether the vehicle’s owner and/or driver have consented to the impoundment.

Id. The court considered each factor in this case. …

. . .

Even though the court “might as a matter of hindsight be able to devise equally reasonable rules requiring a different procedure,” ([Bertine] at 374), it could not conclude that it was unreasonable for the police to impound the vehicle from a private parking lot open to the public in a high crime area and thus susceptible to theft or vandalism before the defendant could return, even if a short time later. Further, even if the defendant were to return quickly, he would be unable to lawfully drive the car away for lack of compulsory car insurance. As in Bertine, the location of the car on private property “does not completely eliminate the need for inventorying; the police may still wish to protect themselves or the owners of the lot against false claims of theft or dangerous instrumentalities.” Bertine, 479 U.S. at 373. Here, the officers exercised reasonable discretion in assessing impoundment, especially given that there was no one on hand to drive the car, the defendant was under arrest, and the car was located in a high-crime area. Further, the officers correctly understood that the private owner would prefer the car to be removed rather than abandoned. Accordingly, the court was satisfied that the officers held a reasonable, non-pretextual community-caretaking rationale for impounding the vehicle, namely preventing theft and vandalism of the car.

Because the impoundment and accompanying inventory search satisfied the Fourth Amendment reasonableness requirement as articulated by the Tenth Circuit in Sanders, the court denied defendant’s motion to suppress [Doc. 13] on the record on January 7, 2019. That decision is memorialized here.