{"id":8211,"date":"2013-04-14T11:09:03","date_gmt":"2013-01-11T00:07:26","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-10T18:36:40","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=8211","title":{"rendered":"WA: Arrest for DB justified SI of backpack of handcuffed, but not otherwise restrained, defendant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police were called to a domestic disturbance and arrested the defendant in possession of a backpack. Even though he was handcuffed, he was not secured in the back seat of a police car, and a search incident of the backpack was reasonable because of the violent nature of the arrest. State v. Ellison<\/a>, 172 Wn. App. 710, 291 P.3d 921 (2013):<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00b622 Even assuming that Gant can be extended to searches outside the automobile context, Gant has not eliminated the officer safety exception to the warrant requirement or the validity of a protective search of the person, objects, and area in the \u201cimmediate control\u201d of the arrestee at the time of arrest as allowed by Chimel and Fladebo.<\/p>\n

\u00b623 Here, Ellison’s involvement with police did not begin with a traffic violation. Instead, the officers were responding to a potentially dangerous situation involving an estranged boyfriend, Ellison, refusing to leave his ex-girlfriend’s property. Moreover, when Officer Barry first made contact with Ellison, Ellison refused to comply with Barry’s commands that Ellison show his hands. Accordingly, concern for officer safety (and the safety of Ellison’s ex-girlfriend) was heightened in this situation and the search of the backpack Ellison guarded incident to arrest was justified. Moreover, although handcuffed at the scene, unlike the defendant in Gant, Ellison was not securely placed in the officer’s patrol car before the search of his backpack. It is possible that despite his restraints, Ellison could have escaped and procured a potential weapon from the backpack. See United States v. Sanders, 994 F.2d 200, 209-10 (5th Cir. 1993) (\u201cThe limitations of handcuffs’ effectiveness are widely known to law enforcement personnel. \u2026 Despite this widespread knowledge, in 1991 alone \u2026 at least four police officers were killed by persons who had already been handcuffed.\u201d) (footnotes omitted) …<\/p><\/blockquote>\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-8211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8211","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=8211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}