CA3: Once validly arrested, your belongings are subject to search for officer safety

Defendant stopped because he was casing a check cashing store like he was going to rob it. He was separated from his backpack. Later in the backpack police found a gun and gloves. The search of the backpack could not be sustained under search incident because he couldn’t reach it. The government’s inventory rationale fails because the policy creates a “reverse-Catch 22” that it would be searched without probable cause but couldn’t be searched with probable cause. Instead, the court relies on the fact that police could search the backpack because he was in custody and going to the police station, and that was for officer safety. “In our view, when a valid arrest has been made in a public place, which requires that the arrested person be transported from the scene, police may search any luggage that the person has in his possession at the time of the arrest, and which must accompany him to the police station, prior to transporting it.” United States v. Matthews, 532 Fed. Appx. 211 (3d Cir. 2013):

We recognize that this search does not fall neatly into any of the existing “well-delineated exceptions” to the warrant requirement. However, such exceptions “have been established where it was concluded that the public interest required some flexibility in the application of the general rule that a valid warrant is a prerequisite for a search” and “where the societal costs of obtaining a warrant, such as danger to law officers …, outweigh the reasons for prior recourse to a neutral magistrate.” Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 759 (1979) abrogated on other grounds by Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565. Moreover, “[t]he need for a warrant is perhaps least when the search involves no discretion that could properly be limited by the ‘interpo[lation of] a neutral magistrate between the citizen and the law enforcement officer.'” King, 133 S. Ct. at 1969 (quoting Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U.S. 656, 667 (1989)). We find such circumstances to be present here.

In our view, when a valid arrest has been made in a public place, which requires that the arrested person be transported from the scene, police may search any luggage that the person has in his possession at the time of the arrest, and which must accompany him to the police station, prior to transporting it. As with the inventory search exception, searches of this type are justified by concerns for officer safety and will be valid whether or not an officer has probable cause to believe the evidence contains contraband. See Lafayette, 462 U.S. at 646 (“It is immaterial whether the police actually fear any particular package or container; the need to protect against [safety] risks arises independent of a particular officer’s subjective concerns.”); Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403 (“The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency.” (internal quotation marks omitted)).

We recognize that “the reach of each exception [must be limited] to that which is necessary to accommodate the identified needs of society.” Sanders, 442 U.S. at 760. Accordingly, our holding is narrowly tailored to accommodate the eminently important goal of ensuring police officer safety; it applies only to the luggage of individuals arrested in public that must be transported along with the arrestee to a police facility. While “[a]n arrested person is not invariably taken to a police station or confined,” Lafayette, 462 U.S. at 645, “[i]t is scarcely open to doubt that the danger to an officer is far greater in the case of the extended exposure which follows the taking of a suspect into custody and transporting him to the police station,” United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 234-35 (1973). “Dangerous instrumentalities—such as razor blades, bombs, or weapons—can be concealed in innocent-looking articles taken from the arrestee’s possession. The bare recital of these mundane realities justifies reasonable measures by police to limit these risks.” Lafayette, 462 U.S. at 656. Simply put, “[l]aw enforcement officers should not be precluded from conducting a[] … search when they take a potential ‘Trojan horse’ into their [possession].” Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 21 (Blackmun, J. dissenting).

Finally, we acknowledge that “the central concern underlying the Fourth Amendment [is] the concern about giving police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among a person’s private effects.” Gant, 556 U.S. at 345. Our holding today does not open these floodgates. We sanction only those searches of personal property that occur after a suspect has been validly arrested, where the property itself must invariably be transported along with the arrestee to the police station. Because “the suspect’s expectations of privacy are properly abated by the fact of arrest itself,” Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 21 (Blackmun, J. dissenting), we find that such an approach is reasonable.