Tennessee adopts the “second look” booking inventory search rule

Tennessee adopts the “second look” booking inventory search rule. Defendant had been arrested for DUI, but he was a suspect in a rape and robbery. Officers looked again at the contents of his pants and found jewelry from the victim, and it was validly seized. State v. Morris, 2014 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 425 (May 6, 2014):

The question of whether a warrant is needed before a police officer can take a “second look” at items previously seized during an inventory search is one of first impression in this state. However, the consensus among jurisdictions that have addressed this issue appears to be that once a person has “been lawfully arrested and his property has been lawfully seized by law enforcement personnel pursuant to that arrest, the arrestee has no reasonable expectation of privacy in that property, and later examination of the property by another law enforcement official does not violate the Fourth Amendment.” Williams v. Commonwealth, 259 Va. 377, 527 S.E.2d 131, 136 (Va. 2000) (citing cases from various jurisdictions). This is because no “situation imaginable is as alien to the notion of privacy than an arrestee sitting in a jail cell, completely separated from his effects that are lawfully controlled and inventoried by the very police that are investigating him.” Oles v. State, 993 S.W.2d 103, 109 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999). Put another way, an “arrestee has no reasonable expectation that the police will not scrutinize closely those items that are in their legitimate custody, discovering evidence, perhaps, even where none was initially suspected.” Wallace v. State, 373 Md. 69, 816 A.2d 883, 894 (Md. 2003) (quoting Holland v. State, 122 Md. App. 532, 713 A.2d 364, 368 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1998)).

The fact that the items were evidence of a separate crime from the DUI the Defendant was initially arrested for does not alter this analysis because the test to determine reasonableness examines an individual’s subjective expectation of privacy and not a police “officer’s investigatory motive.” Wallace, 816 A.2d at 898. Here, Investigator Wren received an anonymous tip that he “might want to check in the Cumberland County jail.” Investigator Wren reviewed the inventory sheet for the Defendant’s property and saw that the jewelry listed matched the description of the items taken from the victim. He then examined the jewelry and took photographs of it. After that, Investigator Wren went to look at the Defendant’s van and saw that it matched the victim’s description. He then showed the pictures of the jewelry to the victim. The victim identified the jewelry as belonging to her and picked the Defendant’s picture out of a photographic lineup, after which Investigator Wren arrested the Defendant and seized the jewelry. Based upon the foregoing, we cannot conclude that Investigator Wren’s actions violated any actual, subjective expectation of privacy held by the Defendant. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s denial of the Defendant’s suppression motion.