CA8: Failure to do a complete inventory showed investigatory purpose

Officer’s utter failure to really do a complete inventory showed that the search was investigatory and not a valid inventory. The motion to suppress should have been granted. United States v. Taylor, 636 F.3d 461 (8th Cir. 2011):

Here, the police did not comply with KCPD standardized procedures. KCPD procedures not only require officers to create a detailed, itemized inventory when any vehicle is towed, they also specifically require officers to create the same inventory when a vehicle containing a large quantity of valuable items is towed. At the time of the inventory search, Taylor, a handyman, had two toolboxes that each contained over a hundred items, including pliers, wrenches, screwdrivers, and drill bits. He also had two additional toolboxes, several chains, a hydraulic jack, a crate, lug wrenches, a paint roller, a flashlight, a shingle remover, a band clamp, an electric chainsaw, and an electric circular saw, among other things. Given the hundreds of valuable tools in Taylor’s truck, Officer Gillespie’s description of “misc. tools” does not constitute a detailed, itemized inventory.

Although the Government contends that it would be “absurd” to expect Officer Gillespie to accurately identify and itemize the tools in Taylor’s truck, the constitutionality of an inventory search does not rise and fall on the abilities of a particular police officer—the inquiry is whether, under the totality of the circumstances, the inventory search was reasonable. Rowland, 341 F.3d at 779. In this case, Officer Gillespie did not write down even general descriptions of the commonplace tools and equipment in Taylor’s truck, such as toolbox, screwdriver, chainsaw, or flashlight. Nor did she take any other steps in an attempt to create a detailed inventory, such as seeking assistance in identifying the tools or photographing them in lieu of identifying them. See Garner, 181 F.3d at 991 (explaining that an officer used photographs to supplement the written list in recording the contents of the defendant’s vehicle). These circumstances, combined with the specificity of the applicable standardized procedure and the quantity of items in the vehicle, make the officer’s description of “misc. tools” insufficient to remove the inference that the search was investigatory.