{"id":3525,"date":"2009-12-16T14:07:23","date_gmt":"2009-11-12T10:02:56","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-12T10:02:56","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=3525","title":{"rendered":"CA9: While SI was invalid, inventory was reasonable; search upheld"},"content":{"rendered":"

While the SI of defendant’s vehicle for his custodial arrest for driving on a license suspended because of a child support obligation was invalid under Gant<\/a>, it still could be conducted as an inventory because of defendant’s custodial arrest on a highway. United States v. Ruckes<\/a>, 586 F.3d 713 (9th Cir. 2009):<\/p>\n

We emphasize, however, that the inevitable discovery doctrine will not always save a search that has been invalidated under Gant. The government is still required to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that there was a lawful alternative justification for discovering the evidence. Nix<\/a>, 467 U.S. at 444. “[I]nevitable discovery involves no speculative elements but focuses on demonstrated historical facts capable of ready verification or impeachment.” Id. at 444 n.5. Therefore, while the government met its burden here, the district court must conduct a case-by-case inquiry to determine whether a lawful path to discovery–such as inevitability–exists in each case. To hold otherwise would create an impermissible loop-hole in the Court’s bright-line Gant determination.<\/p>\n

Because the Washington State Patrol is authorized to both impound and inventory a vehicle when its operator is arrested for driving on a suspended license, Ruckes’s loaded pistol and crack cocaine would have inevitably been discovered notwithstanding Trooper Wiley’s invalid search incident to arrest. Therefore, the evidence was properly admitted under the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ninth Circuit criminal blog post here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}