{"id":62449,"date":"2025-12-11T10:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T15:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=62449"},"modified":"2025-12-11T10:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T15:06:12","slug":"scotusblog-relist-rodeo-searches-incident-to-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=62449","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUSBlog: Relist rodeo: &#8230; searches incident to arrest &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>SCOTUSBlog: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/2025\/12\/relist-rodeo-firearm-restrictions-searches-incident-to-arrest-dna-evidence-and-clearly-established-law\/\">Relist rodeo: firearm restrictions, searches incident to arrest, DNA evidence, and \u201cclearly established\u201d law<\/a> by John Elwood:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Fourth Amendment searches<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Patrick Wayman Scullark, Jr., had more pressing problems than the fashion perils of being seen wearing a fanny pack in 2022: police followed him to a house to investigate a domestic-abuse report. When an officer told him he was under arrest, Scullark handed his fanny pack to a nearby woman, who began walking away until ordered to stop. After Scullark was handcuffed and placed in a squad car, another officer opened the pack and found methamphetamine. Scullark pleaded guilty but reserved his right to challenge denial of his motion to suppress the evidence found in his fanny pack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the suppression hearing, the officer conceded that once Scullark was cuffed, he \u201ccouldn\u2019t have gotten [the fanny pack] if he wanted to.\u201d Nonetheless, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld the search as a valid incident to arrest because the fanny pack had been \u201cattached to his person at the time of the arrest,\u201d making it an \u201cextension of his person, much like his pockets.\u201d Justice Matthew McDermott dissented, arguing that once the pack was off Scullark\u2019s body and out of reach, neither officer safety nor evidence preservation could justify the search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/cases\/case-files\/scullark-v-iowa\/\">Scullark v. Iowa<\/a>, Scullark alleges there is a \u201cdeep\u201d and \u201cintractable split\u201d split over whether officers may automatically search containers carried at the time of arrest, even after they are later secured, or whether case-specific safety or spoliation concerns are required. The state responds that even under the more defendant-favorable approach, Scullark\u2019s search would be upheld given the officers were outnumbered and the possibility that his companions could destroy evidence or threaten safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SCOTUSBlog: Relist rodeo: firearm restrictions, searches incident to arrest, DNA evidence, and \u201cclearly established\u201d law by John Elwood:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-search-incident"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62450,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62449\/revisions\/62450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}