N.D.Tex.: Partial failure to follow inventory policy doesn’t render it void

There was an inventory policy, and it was followed. The police here even offered to defendant for somebody to come to get the car, and he declined. Partial noncompliance with the inventory process does not make it void, as long as it was otherwise a true inventory. United States v. Shaw, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1754 (N.D. Tex. January 7, 2013):

In Rowland the officers failed to comply with procedures requiring a listing of all items in the vehicle. Rowland, 341 F.3d at 779-80. The court held that this noncompliance was not dispositive, and it examined whether other evidence demonstrated that the inventory search was pretextual. Id. at 780. One officer testified that he had only recorded items he considered possible evidence. The court found that this indicated that the search was pretextual because, if the search had actually been for the legitimate purpose of protecting the vehicle owner’s property, the officer should have recorded all the property. Id. at 781. An officer also testified that the search was partly conducted to investigate whether the vehicle contained drugs, and the officer called for a drug-sniffing dog to examine the vehicle. Id. at 780. The court pointed out that the officers had failed to follow the standardized procedures and that this failure was coupled with evidence indicating that the officers “sifted through the vehicle’s contents searching only for and recording only incriminating evidence; something law enforcement may not do.” Id. at 782.

So, how much is enough?