Impounding car from street lawfully parked in front of defendant’s house was unjustified under community caretaking function

Defendant was stopped for not having a seatbelt on. By the time the officer made a U-turn and stopped him, he was parked in front of his house. Defendant did not have proof of insurance, and a warrants check produced a warrant. The officer impounded the car and conducted an inventory that produced a gun. The community caretaking function did not justify the search. People v. Williams, 145 Cal. App. 4th 756, 52 Cal. Rptr. 3d 162 (2d Dist. December 13, 2006):

No community caretaking function was served by impounding appellant’s car. The car was legally parked at the curb in front of appellant’s home. The possibility that the vehicle would be stolen, broken into, or vandalized was no greater than if Morton had not stopped and arrested appellant as he returned home. In this regard, it is significant that other cars were parked on the street and that it was a residential area. The prosecution made no showing that the car was blocking a driveway or crosswalk, or that it posed a hazard or impediment to other traffic. Because appellant had a valid driver’s license and the car was properly registered, it was not necessary to impound it to prevent immediate and continued unlawful operation. (Cf. People v. Benites (1992) 9 Cal.App.4th 309 [impoundment proper where neither driver nor passenger had valid driver’s license]; People v. Burch (1986) 188 Cal. App. 3d 172, 232 Cal. Rptr. 502 [impoundment proper where car’s registration tag was expired and driver’s license was suspended].) No other justification that would further a community caretaking function was offered or supported by evidence. Indeed, Morton admitted he decided to impound the car simply because he was arresting appellant and almost always impounded the cars of drivers he arrested. The prosecution simply did not establish that impounding appellant’s car served any community caretaking function. It therefore failed to establish the constitutional reasonableness of the seizure and subsequent inventory search.

Traffic stop for running a stop sign that did not exist led to officer searching a backpack on the passenger side of the car at defendant’s feet without consent. The trial court suppressed, the state court of appeals affirmed, and the state sought leave to appeal to the state supreme court which remanded for a standing inquiry. On remand, the Michican Court of Appeals said that standing was irrelevant because the search could not be justified by any rationale offered by the state. People v. Labelle, 273 Mich. App. 214, 729 N.W.2d 525 (2006):

Turning to the second argument first, we are not persuaded that the search incident to arrest doctrine is applicable to this case. Michigan courts have held that the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement “applies whenever there is probable cause to arrest, even if an arrest is not made at the time the search is actually conducted.” But none of these cases involved traffic stops and the United States Supreme Court has made it clear that the search incident to arrest doctrine does not apply to a traffic stop which does not result in arrest, even if the officer would have been justified in making an arrest.

In Knowles, the officer stopped the defendant for speeding. Although Iowa law authorized the officer to arrest the defendant, the officer issued a citation instead. The officer then conducted a full search of the vehicle, discovering a bag of marijuana and a “pot pipe” under the driver’s seat, resulting in the defendant’s arrest. The defendant challenged the search, with the prosecution relying on the search incident to arrest doctrine. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of the prosecution, concluding that a “full-blown search” is authorized where probable cause to make a custodial arrest existed, even though no such arrest was made.

In rejecting the argument that a search incident to arrest is justifiable in such circumstances, the Court noted that neither of the two rationales for such searches applies in the traffic stop scenario which does not result in a full custodial arrest. The first rationale is the need to disarm a suspect when taking him into custody. The Court noted that the concern for officer safety is significantly less in the traffic citation situation because the encounter is briefer (because the suspect is not being transported to jail) and a person receiving a citation might well be less hostile to the police than one who is formally arrested. The Court was satisfied that the actions that police may take for their safety during a traffic stop, such as ordering the occupants out of the vehicle, were adequate without the need for a full-blown search of the vehicle.

The second rationale behind the search incident to arrest doctrine is the need to preserve evidence for later use at trial. The Court found no basis under this rationale because a search of the vehicle would not yield any additional evidence of the offense for which the citation was issued, namely speeding. The Court further rejected the argument that the search could be justified because it might yield evidence of an “as yet undetected crime.”