N.D.Cal.: Failure to comply with state mental health hold law voids inventory occurring with it

An inventory following a mental health hold didn’t even come close to complying with state law to justify it, so the inventory was invalid. Inevitable discovery fails for lack of proof from the government. United States v. Rapada, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124296 (N.D. Cal. July 1, 2021):

The record supplies no indication that Officer Lajoie satisfied these requirements. At no point was Rapada advised he was being placed on a § 5150 hold, or of the purpose such a hold serves; at no point was he provided with the name of the mental health facility to which he would be taken, or the fact that he was “not under criminal arrest”; and at no point did anyone seek or receive his consent for a search of the duffel bag, let alone offer to leave the bag in the custody of his nearby wife, with whom on-the-scene officers were in contemporaneous contact. This (undisputed) failure by Officer Lajoie “to conform to … standardized and established local procedure” is exacerbated by the question—relevant in the inventory search context, see Johnson, 889 F.3d at 1125—of motivation. In short, even supposing a § 5150 warrantless search theoretically can fit into the inventory search exception, the search of Rapada’s bag cannot.

C. Inevitable Discovery

The government alternatively argues that “[e]ven if … the search of the duffel bag was unlawful, the evidence obtained from the search should not be suppressed because it would have inevitably been discovered pursuant to an inventory search of the bag.” Dkt. 36 at 17. The problem with this argument is that it goes unattended by any facts—much less a preponderance thereof—that the bag invariably would have traveled with Rapada to the DCPD station.