E.D.Mich.: Court doesn’t believe officer on inventory as a justification, but impoundment of the vehicle would have happened anyway

“Defendant David Arnold was arrested for and charged with possession of a firearm by a felon after the Detroit police found a stolen handgun in the glovebox of the car he was driving. The police stopped the car because the temporary license tag was not legible. The government attempts to justify the warrantless search of the glovebox under the inventory search exception, but the timing of the events does not support that argument, and the police officers’ testimony on that score is not credible. Nonetheless, because the car would have been impounded and inventoried regardless of the illegal search, the inevitable discovery rule precludes application of the exclusionary rule to the fruits of the search. Therefore, the Court will deny Arnold’s motion to suppress the firearm. Also, because Arnold’s incriminating statements were obtained lawfully, the Court will deny the motion to suppress those as well.” United States v. Arnold, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177868 (E.D. Mich. Oct. 15, 2019).*

This entry was posted in Inevitable discovery, Inventory. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.