According to this opinion, the case began on November 12,
2009, when
Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff Brett
Anglin saw a car exceeding the speed limit on the highway just west of the Hood
Canal Bridge. When he checked the license plate, he learned the vehicle's owner
was a woman whose driver's license was suspended. He stopped the car for
speeding and the driver, Tyler, pulled onto the paved shoulder of the highway.
Anglin . . . stopped less than a foot from the fog line.
As Anglin approached
the car, he saw that both the driver and the passenger were men. The passenger
had been making furtive movements and Anglin was concerned there might be a
weapon in the car, but then it appeared to him that the passenger was trying to
hide what seemed to be a can of beer. It turned out to be an alcoholic
caffeinated beverage.
Anglin asked Tyler for identification and Tyler
produced a Medicare card and explained he had no valid driver's license. When
he checked with dispatch, Anglin found out both men's drivers' licenses were
suspended.
The deputy arrested Tyler for driving while his license was
suspended, handcuffed him, and put him in the backseat of the patrol car.
Anglin had called for another officer to assist and this officer took the
passenger into custody based on outstanding warrants but subsequently released
him when uncertainty arose as to whether the warrants were extraditable.
Anglin asked for consent to search the
car, but both men refused. Tyler told Anglin the owner of the car was his girl
friend and she was unable to retrieve the car because she was in jail in
another county. The passenger was unable to drive since he did not have a valid
driver's license.
With Tyler's permission, the passenger used Tyler's cell
phone to try to find someone to drive the vehicle away. While he located
someone to come get him, he was not able to find a driver for the car.
. . . [T]he car was stopped about one foot inside the fog line
next to a one-lane, congested part of the highway where the speed limit was 60
miles per hour, about one quarter mile from the bridge. Traffic coming off the
bridge has two lanes and vehicles are accelerating and frequently passing each other.
Close by is an intersection where accidents frequently occur.
State v. Tyler, supra.
The opinion also explains that Anglin was concerned that the car posed a
“safety hazard” to other traffic, so, since there was no one to drive it away,
he
called a private towing company after deciding to
impound the car for roadway safety. He also [said] he impounded the car because
the driver had a suspended license. When the tow truck arrived about 30 minutes
after Tyler was stopped, Anglin turned the car and the car keys over to the tow
truck driver.
While waiting for the tow truck to
arrive, Anglin filled out a standard Washington State Patrol tow form as he and
the other officer conducted an inventory search of the car's passenger
compartment. Anglin [said the] search was conducted in accord with department
policies to secure personal property and protect the department and the towing
company.
During this search, the officers saw some stereo equipment that was
loose in the back seat, and when they looked at the equipment to record it
Anglin could see a clear plastic `baggie’ underneath the driver's seat, clearly
visible from the backseat. The contents of the baggie field-tested positive for
methamphetamine.
State v. Tyler, supra.
The discovery of the baggie, and its contents, led to
Tyler’s being charged possession of methamphetamine, which, as noted above, was
one of the crimes with which he was charged.
State v. Tyler, supra. Tyler then “moved to suppress the evidence
that was obtained during the vehicle search, arguing that the search was an
unconstitutional pretextual search.” State v. Tyler, supra.
The trial judge held a hearing on Tyler’s motion and, after
hearing testimony, found that
once the driver and passenger were
removed from the car, there was no reason for a general exploratory search.
However, `[a]ny evidence of using the impound as a pretext for a warrantless
search is rebutted by the officer's offer to let the passenger call for help.’ .
. . (Mem. Op. and Order on Mot. to Suppress Evidence, filed Jan. 21, 2010). On
January 29, 2010, Tyler moved for reconsideration [of the judge’s ruling].
He conceded that `the impound was
reasonable,’ . . . but argued Anglin could not conduct an inventory search once
Tyler denied permission to search the car. Then on February 3, 2010, Tyler
moved to reopen the . . . hearing to permit examination of Anglin about an
e-mail Anglin had written that was produced after the . . . hearing
in response a defense public records request. Tyler maintained that this e-mail
showed that Anglin was predisposed to engage in pretextual vehicle searches.
State v. Tyler, supra.
The judge denied both of Tyler’s
motions, so he went to trial and, as noted above, was convicted. State v. Tyler, supra.
On appeal, Tyler argued that “the inventory search of the
car was unconstitutional under article I, section 7 of the Washington
State Constitution, which provides that `[n]o person shall be disturbed in his
private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law.’” State v. Tyler, supra. As I have noted in prior posts, each U.S.state has its own constitution, and some of them have provisions that provide
privacy guarantees which either duplicate the language of the 4th
Amendment and/or use different language, which may or may not provide more
protection than the 4th Amendment.
The Supreme Court noted that this provision of the state
constitution “affords protection to privacy interests in vehicles.” State
v. Tyler, supra. It also explained
that a
valid warrant constitutes `authority of
law’ under article I, section 7. State v. Valdez, 167 Wash.2d
761, 224 P.3d 751 (Washington Supreme Court 2009). Warrantless searches of
vehicles are per se unreasonable, subject to a few exceptions that are narrowly
drawn. . . . One of these exceptions is a valid inventory search, and this
is the exception the State maintains justifies the search of the car that Tyler
was driving. The burden of establishing that this exception applies is on the
State. . . .
State v. Tyler, supra.
The Court then took up Tyler’s argument that the inventory
search violated the state constitution. State v. Tyler, supra. In the proceedings before the trial court, he
conceded it was proper for Anglin to impound his car, which provided the
predicate for an inventory search. State
v. Tyler, supra. The Supreme Court,
though, found that this concession did not apply in this appeal. It explained that the
concession occurred before Tyler
received a copy of the e-mail that Anglin wrote and which formed the basis for
his motion to reopen the suppression hearing. Tyler obtained the copy through a
public records request and we accept . . . that he would not have made the
concession after receiving it. Thus, . .
. we do not proceed on the basis that Tyler concedes reasonableness.
State v. Tyler, supra.
The Supreme Court therefore analyzed whether the impound
was, in fact, lawful. It began with the
relevant law, noting that Under
Washington Revised Code § 46.55.113(1),
`summary’ impoundment is authorized when the driver of the vehicle is arrested
for driving while his license is suspended. Under Washington Revised Code
§ 46.55.113(2)(b) and (d), impoundment is authorized when an officer finds a
vehicle unattended on the highway where it jeopardizes public safety or when an
officer arrests the driver and takes him into custody.
The court then analyzed the need for
Anglin to impound the vehicle:
Anglin
explored alternatives. The vehicle owner could not drive the car because she
was incarcerated and apparently also had a suspended license. She was not
available to assist. The passenger did not have a valid license, and after
Anglin asked Tyler to loan his cell phone to the passenger to attempt to locate
a driver to retrieve the car, the effort was unsuccessful.
Anglin testified [at the hearing on the
motion to suppress] that if someone had been found who could have retrieved the
car within about 30 minutes, he would not have impounded the car. Although
Tyler says Anglin did not ask him whether there was a person who could retrieve
the car, Anglin testified that Tyler deferred the task of trying to find a
driver to his passenger.
State v. Tyler, supra.
The court therefore found the impoundment was lawful
because the “vehicle threatened public safety if left where it was” and because
“Tyler had been arrested for, among other things, driving with a suspended
license.” State v. Tyler, supra.
It then took up the legality of the inventory search,
explaining that such a search
of a vehicle may be conducted in good
faith after it is lawfully impounded. . . .The requirement that an
inventory search be conducted in good faith is a limitation that precludes an
inventory search as a pretext for an investigatory search. . . .
Warrantless inventory searches are
permissible because they (1) protect the vehicle owner's (or occupants')
property, (2) protect law enforcement agencies/officers and temporary storage
bailees from false claims of theft, and (3) protect police officers and the
public from potential danger. State v. White, 135 Wash.2d 761,
958 P.2d 982 (Supreme Court of Washington 1998). . . . An inventory search
must be restricted to the areas necessary to fulfill the purpose of the
search. . . . For example, to protect against the risk of loss or damage
to property in the vehicle, the search `should be limited to protecting against
substantial risks to property in the vehicle and not enlarged on the basis of
remote risks.’ State v. Houser, 95
Wash. 2d 170, 622 P.2d 1199 (Supreme Court of Washington 1980).
State v. Tyler, supra.
On appeal, Tyler claimed the inventory search was
pretextual, based on an email Anglin had written long before he encountered
Tyler and his passenger on the highway. State v. Tyler, supra.
The subject line of the e-mail states:
`RE: Search incident to arrest’ and Anglin sent it to other sheriff's
department personnel in an attempt to persuade them that he should be trained
as a K–9 officer. Six paragraphs of the e-mail address reasons why another K–9
unit would be useful, practicalities of costs and other burdens involved in
training for and maintaining a second unit, and ways to mitigate these
problems.
State v. Tyler, supra.
Tyler argued that the first paragraph of the email showed
that Anglin “was predisposed to conduct pretextual inventory searches in order
to circumvent the decision in Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332,(2009). State v. Tyler, supra. As Wikipedia explalns, in Gant, the Supreme Court redefined the scope of an officer’s search
incident to arrest of a vehicle whose driver had been arrested. The Court held, as Wikipedia notes, that “police
may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle, incident to a recent
occupant's arrest (and therefore without a warrant) only if it is reasonable to
believe that the arrestee might access the vehicle at the time of the search,
or that the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest.”
This is what the first paragraph of Anglin’s email said:
`This unfortunate ruling hinders our
ability to continue the efforts that have been enforce [sic] for some time. The
obvious way to circumvent this is impounding the vehicle and performing an
inventory search. The problem with this is that we must afford the person the
chance to contact someone else and determine if it is safely off of the roadway
or not. It also obviously limits what we can search as well. The other way
around this case and that is [sic] the use of a K–9.’
State v. Tyler, supra. The court noted that Tyler’s “pretext theory rests on the idea that an inventory search can be substituted for the search incident to arrest search that was allowed prior to Gant.” State v. Tyler, supra. As Wikipedia also notes, prior to Gant, the Belton rule let an officer conduct a search incident of the passenger compartment, and any containers in the passenger compartment, as a matter of routine, i.e., the officer did not have to show there was reason for such a search based on the facts in that case.
The Supreme Court did not buy Tyler’s argument. It noted, first, that since Anglin properly
impounded the vehicle, he “had not alternative but to conduct an inventory
search to protect himself, his department, and the tow company from possible
future claims.” State v. Tyler, supra. It
also noted that the
point of the e-mail was not to try to
circumvent Gant or encourage the department to disobey the law
(or express his own intentions to do so), but to try to convince the sheriff's
department to send Anglin for K–9 training.
The first paragraph of the e-mail does
not say what Tyler urges in any event. The paragraph actually explains that
inventory searches . . . are more restrictive than the searches possible under
the search incident to arrest searches that were permissible prior to Gant.
Anglin says in the first paragraph that an inventory search will require the
officer to explore whether someone other than the driver can move the vehicle
and that the scope of the search is more restrictive (closed containers and
trunks cannot be searched), Thus, contrary to Tyler's apparent claim, Anglin
recognized that a vehicle search cannot simply be substituted for a search
incident to arrest as it existed prior to Gant.
State v. Tyler, supra.
The Supreme Court therefore held that the trial court did
not err in denying the motion to suppress, and so upheld Tyler’s conviction. State
v. Tyler, supra.
No comments:
Post a Comment