it please the court i'm told fiestas the federal defenders of san diego on behalf of yet holland mr gaston the purported inventory search in this case was unlawful for two reasons first because officers violated their written inventory policy by opening a locked container and second because they were slowly investigating as shown both by the paperwork that reveals officers conducted no inventory at all and also by their own statements regarding the contents of the locked container quote we not talking about jewelry quote it sounds like something heavy like a gun for either or both of these reasons this court should remain with instructions to suppress and let the court has another preference i'll begin by addressing the policy violation and then move to the circumstances surrounding the search the entirety of the policy read together necessarily means that officers are prohibited from opening locked containers the inventory search policy provides three rules regarding areas to be and there is no dispute that subsection c specifically deals with locks containers and there is no dispute that the lock lock box in this case is a walk container within the meaning of the policy the only dispute is whether these officers routine practice of opening locked containers in any way when they have a key is permissible it is not your honor it's unreasonable based on first the reading of the policy i think policy concerns and statutory interpretation concepts both support that conclusion but we have case law saying they have to solve policy yes your honor we were not talking about their arguments they didn't contradict the policy the first supplemented if you could use that word container subsection c operates to narrow the general rule in subsection a the officers are normally to search all areas of evil or valuables are likely to be stored including any containers but the officers interpretation in the government's interpretation essentially renders subsection c meaningless so i think it's clear when those three provisions are read together we're not talking about a situation where sometimes the key can be used as with compartments we're talking about a situation where there is no them with their approximate size and weight but not to open them exactly on or even if they have a key even if they have a key and i think the reason we know that most clearly is because in subsection be there is a reference to what to do with locked compartments when drafters know exactly how to indicate when they want in certain circumstances to allow officers the authority to use a key but subsection c does not do that at all so the three sections read together together clearly indicate that there and well they may be single i'm familiar if it's supplementary to the reply that's why i'm asking you if they're if they're just to use an example if there is an interpretation that is known to everyone it's talked am gone over and this is how it's to be handled every time and it's slightly different than what's in writing it's your view that the invalid yes your honor my view is that  if it contradicts the written policy it is invalid but you're not that's not what judge peepers asking is the contradiction but what about just supplementing what a policy is a written policy it doesn't speak to something if they're if this were a case where they were just some plummeting  then i think that would that would be unlike the facts of this case because the officers in this case testified that would see i'm like you know what's the answer to that the question which is  answer d s to answer the court's question if there is a situation where policy is written and then there is a policy of the entire department which i don't think we have established here as long as it does not contradict than that would be permissible to have another question did the district court here make a finding of dual purpose or did that was just a court's finding limited to a finding that conclusion legal conclusion that this was solely and inventory search yes that that was error i'm not sure i understand the court's question if we're looking at this i'm looking at this and i'm thinking well they didn't strictly comply with the inventory search but i can see it  of searches are allowed and i can see that maybe this is a dual mode of search given the other than x such as the fact that there was plenty of other stuff in the car that was found the district court rejected the defense's position that this was soley an investigation and i agree that a dual purpose is permissible i'd like to talk about in more detail why we do not have a dual purpose here i think there's two main areas of evidence that most clearly show that first it's the paperwork that was filled out and second it's the officers comments the paperwork that was filled out in this case shows that no inventory at all this conducted the only thing that was documented in this case was the contraband but it was no him and henri there was no inventory exactly the officers have labeled this an inventory but nothing shows that an inventory was conducted when we look at the inventory form which policy instructs officers  where policy instructs officers to list the items to be inventoried we see nothing and we so so where can you give me where am i supposed to be looking at looked at a rest report and the vehicle report and can you tell me that you are site that you're calling inventory and yes you so i'm going to answer the court's question and then i would like to reserve the remainder of my time for rebuttal the inventory form was actually not included in the e r writer site but it was provided to the court leader as governments exhibit six via e mail ok i have the inventory form it's to see i did on the back on the second side in the narrative portion the officers cross reference a police report is that where the i've got that right in front of me and i know your time is ticking but where is the where you supposed to list the inventory so officers according documented the gun the ammunition and the lock box in the investigation narrative right report right thank you yes thank you your honor thank you well good morning the court nicole reflux being united states the district court held an evidentiary hearing and found based on the totality of the circumstances before her that this was an infantry search that it complied with the policy and that it was a reasonable interpretation of the policy and that the motive officers motive in searching the lockbox was an infant to create an inventory and that conclusion was was readily supported by the officers test i'm really tr by the lack of an inventory when you're allegedly supposed supposedly conducting an inventory search and there there's no identification of the inventory in combination with the fact that the search of the lock box appears and or the investigation section of the report and not under where the inventory should be inventory absolutely your honor i understand the court's concern that came up with the evidence he we play are tools really none of it's a value that's what the officers testified and the district court credited that testimony in concluding that their purpose was to create and contrast it with diamond jewelry or something like yes exactly they said that they're looking for items of value such as i think the prosecutor asked the officer what would you consider to be an item of value and he said i'm looking for jewelry diamond rings to me a fifty dollars d v d player that you could buy at wal mart is not an  value now the policy leaves it to the officers discretion to determine what is a value and these are officers who have been with the police department for it and they've been trained in their training and experience to focus on items you know i thin to jewelry and here is a defendant told the officer that the lock box contains a whole bunch of jewelry so it's specially given that fact the district court found that the officers were really focusing on documenting those items because they that practice can supplement a written policy as long as the doesn't contradict it but the but the first step is you've got to follow the policy it was very it's very troubling with the best answer to the fact that when we get to that well we don't report was to to alert the tocome pany or whoever had the inventory that the items that the that were in the custody of the police department were going to be inventoried on that form because at that point they were seized as evidence there's a very strong record  are ninety officers that i didn't list the other items because they didn't have you so the policy leaves it to the officers discretion enough permissible a policy can leave certain determinations to officer i mean in a certain sense everything has value that this court case on the supreme court's case permits and police department to leave it to the officers discretion as long as they're sort of a standard practice and they both testified that in their stand it was standard practice their understanding of the policy and their decade of the police to on the to police department those items didn't have defense counsel has a very strong argument that the search was at least partially investigatory they were there surveilling a house and followed this car because it came from the house that was i think suspected there was suspected drug activity going on and she's she's got a strong argument your response i think is that it would have to be solely investigatory in order to cross the line yes your honor because the case law recognizes that a dual motive does not invalidate on the fact that that's not a dual motive is still permissible and getting back to last question did did did the trial court in this case fine the search was solely in inventory search under the cases cited in our brief including united states versus about a dual motive does not make a search pretext of ok so that gets me the question i really want to ask please what should we do with the fact that there is no in the tory so the judge finds the court has a hearing very diligently goes through everything decides that its inventory has to be at least partially an inventory search in order for the government to prevail but there's no inventory and that really jumps off the page at us so what's your best response to responses when the officers explain why there was no inventory and that was because there was nothing of value in the car so had there been a diamond ring in the car that they didn't inventory that would be a problem but they explained the lack of inventory and also exhibit six it's not as if it's blank and i turned the court to the first half where the officer is going through each sort of item in the car that is that are delineated whether you know it has the it's in the front rather has seats in the back and he inventory and in the body camera video which i don't believe the court has but he be happy to give it a bit six was blank for us by the way it wasn't included in the record yes i apologize i didn't realize that the public had it included in the exit had not included in the excerpts of record but but the before he is going to search the car he is literally checking off each item looking at the car is that on exhibit six well yes that's why i was trying to explain the court to the first half of exhibit six here ok i'm back to the first half and it's been it shows me registration battery differentials about the car it's not the contents yes but but that's that's my point is that he's sort of going through the check boxes in the first the first thing he's required to do is to assess the status of the nothing was a value is the fact that they've also written down that he's homeless seems to me that all those things to a homeless person are a value i just i just don't understand how the police  have knowledge and recognize that the person is homeless and then say well his leather jacket and knowledge you possessions in the car are of no value i understand the court's concern because the point of the inventory search in to protect the police from claims later that stuff got stolen right and so that's to judge what last point for someone who is not a person of means it's much more likely they're going to have such a report right and i think what the officers testified is that they're thinking about their liability and that they didn't think that they were going to risk a claim of liability that a bag of clothes for example was stolen from the carcass that's unlikely to be a good one other point it's much more likely to put such a claim would be made for a high thurston who is not a person of me so i fully understand that the courts concern the district court had these all of the same facts before her and she found that it was an inventory search your honor i think what belies the officer statements that they didn't believe there was anything of value is their testimony eighty or ninety that by their very own definition something that constitutes an item of value is electronics and what we know from testimony and the body camera footage being testified about is that they did find electronics in the tree in the trunk that they did not document as well so they testified their procedure is to do this and they did not do that i think what's important to note in this case is the facts here are even more suggestive of a soul and solely in investigative purpose and in johnson which the court recently decided there the court found that that the documentation that the officers filled out showed clearly that they were treating  the purported inventory search as an investigation because they noted things like seized property is likely to have evidence shiri value here we have even if facts that even more strongly show that the purpose was solely investigation what we know is that the officers as soon as they found the box they immediately began to try to get into it and what does it what is your response to the argument that the officers were told that there was jewelry on the box that it you know your honor for two reasons first the officers that spent at least seven minutes trying to get into the container before they ever asked mr gaston what was inside and learned that he said it was jewelry so that it's expressed their desire to investigate before ever hearing the word jewelry the second reason is they themselves made clear they didn't believe jewelry was inside at your one fifty five through one fifty six they said we're not talking about jewelry it's something heavy like a gun where what is the citation where we can see if they tried for seven minutes to open the box before they ask yes your honor i have that right here for the court ok especially helpful arguments from both counsel