WA: SI of defendant’s purse after she was handcuffed and secured violated Chimel

Defendant was the passenger in a car stopped for having stolen license plates. When she was ordered out of the car, her purse was placed on the ground next to the car. She was handcuffed and placed in a patrol car. The search of her purse after that violated the search incident doctrine and Chimel because she was incapable of accessing the purse at the time of the search to destroy evidence or get a weapon. State v. Byrd, 162 Wn. App. 612, 258 P.3d 686 (2011) (with dissent), reversed in State v. Byrd, 2013 Wash. LEXIS 852 (October 10, 2013) (posted here):

¶9 In short, the test announced in Smith and applied in Johnson is based on a rejected interpretation of Belton; an interpretation that Gant overruled. We are bound by Gant’s interpretation of Belton. Valdez, 167 Wn.2d at 780 (Johnson, J., concurring). And, while the State argues that Gant should not apply because it involved the search of a vehicle incident to arrest, Gant and Belton simply applied the general rules of the search incident to arrest exception set out in Chimel to the automobile context. A search incident to an arrest is a search incident to an arrest whether the object searched is a car or a purse.

¶10 Chimel did not involve the search of a vehicle. And it “continues to define the boundaries of the [search incident to arrest] exception, ensures that the scope of a search incident to arrest is commensurate with its purposes of protecting arresting officers and safeguarding any evidence of the offense of arrest that an arrestee might conceal or destroy.” Gant, 129 S. Ct. at 1716.

¶11 Under Chimel, then, the search incident to arrest exception permits an officer to perform a warrantless search of an arrestee and the area within his or her immediate control when an arrest is made. Chimel, 395 U.S. at 762-63. This type of warrantless search is justified only by interests in officer safety and the preservation of evidence. Id. But such a search is unreasonable where the interests justifying it are absent. Id. at 768. That is, an officer may not, without a warrant, search an object that the arrestee cannot reach at the time of the search. Gant, 129 S. Ct. at 1719; Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763-64, 768.