MD: Search of locked glove compartment not valid as inventory under policy, but here was valid as a pre-Gant SI

An inventory of a locked glove compartment of a car in impound was not justified on this record. However, the court decides that a search incident of a locked glove compartment was possible under Belton in Maryland, despite the fact no case dealt with it before. Therefore, Davis made that search valid. Briscoe v. State, 422 Md. 384, 30 A.3d 870 (2011):

The problem with the State’s argument is that the record before us is devoid of evidence demonstrating that the vehicle’s locked glove compartment would have been inventoried according to departmental policy, once it was towed to the impound lot. Without such evidence in the record, we are unable to conclude that the handgun would have been discovered inevitably, in a later inventory search of the locked glove compartment. See United States v. Mendez, 315 F.3d 132, 137-38 (2d Cir. 2002) (explaining that for the inevitable discovery doctrine to apply to inventory searches, the government must prove: “(1) that the police had legitimate custody of the vehicle … so that an inventory search would have been justified; (2) that when the police in the police agency in question conducted the inventory searches, they did so pursuant to ‘established’ or ‘standardized’ procedures; and (3) that those inventory procedures would have ‘inevitably’ led to the ‘discovery’ of the challenged evidence” (citations omitted)).

In sum, the search of the locked glove compartment cannot be upheld either as a proper inventory search or as evidence that would have been “inevitably discovered” in a subsequent inventory search.

However, even though no case holds that a locked glove compartment was subject to a search incident, the court decides that the Davis good faith exception saves this search of the glove compartment:

The search of Petitioner’s vehicle was conducted on June 26, 2007. At that time, the search of the minivan incident to Petitioner’s arrest was governed by the then-prevailing Belton bright-line rule. See Gee, 291 Md. at 668, 435 A.2d at 1389-90; McCain, 194 Md. App. at 276, 4 A.3d at 66. Under Belton, a glove compartment is included in the Belton perimeter. See Belton, 453 U.S. at 461 n. 4. At the time of the search at issue, no reported decision of this Court or the Court of Special Appeals had addressed specifically whether a police officer conducting a Belton search could open a locked glove compartment.

Petitioner takes the position that, because, at the time of the search at issue, no reported decision in Maryland expressly authorized police to open a locked glove compartment as part of a Belton search, there did not exist at that time “binding appellate” Maryland authority upon which Officer Bormanshinov could have “reasonably relied” in searching the glove compartment. The State acknowledges that there was no then-existing reported Maryland decision specifically authorizing the search of a locked glove compartment. The State points out, though, that, “just prior to the suppression hearing in this case, the Court of Special Appeals [in Hamel, 179 Md. App. at 18, 943 A.2d at 696] made it clear that Belton permitted the search of a locked gloved compartment.” Petitioner replies that Hamel is of no benefit to the State, because it was filed two months after the search in question and thus could not serve as precedent upon which Officer Bormanshinov could objectively and in good faith rely. We are in general accord with the State that the Davis good-faith exception applies to the search at issue, although we take a slightly different tack in reaching that conclusion.

. . .

We therefore hold that, before Gant, binding appellate precedent in Maryland, namely Belton, dictated that searches incident to arrest of recent occupants of vehicles included searches of all containers, whether locked or unlocked, within the passenger areas of the vehicles. Officer Bormanshinov acted in objectively reasonable reliance on that authority when he searched the locked glove compartment. It follows then, that the good-faith rule of Davis applies, and the suppression court correctly denied the motion to suppress the handgun found there.