Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02616/USCOURTS-ca10-88-02616-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Debbie S. Morehead
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

FI LED 

Uflitcd States Court of Appeals 

TP.nth Cirati t 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

JAN 311990 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

DEBBIE S. MOREHEAD, 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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No. 88-2616 

(D.C. No. 88-40012-04) 

(D. Kansas) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before HOLLOWAY, Chief Judge, SEYMOUR, and MOORE, Circuit Judges. 

Defendant Debbie s. Morehead appeals her conviction on a 

conditional guilty plea to one count of possession with intent to 

distribute cocaine. See 21 U.S.C. § 84l(a) (1) (1982). In 

entering her plea, defendant reserved her right to contest the 

legality of the warrantless search that led to the discovery of 

cocaine in her purse. After hearing evidence and argument, the 

district court denied her motion to suppress. We affirm on the 

basis that the search was incident to a valid arrest. 

*This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall not 

be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except 

for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the case, 

res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 88-2616 Document: 01019961737 Date Filed: 01/31/1990 Page: 1 
Probable cause to arrest exists when the police have 

information sufficient to "warrant a man of reasonable caution in 

the belief" that a felony has been committed. Carroll v. United 

States, 267 U.S. 132, 162 (1925). Since Illinois v. Gates, 462 

U.S. 213 (1983), the determination of whether probable cause 

exists upon information received from a confidential informant 

takes into account the "totality of the circumstances.'' Id. at 

238. 

The record reflects that a confidential informant told police 

that defendant and her husband were involved in the distribution 

of cocaine. Defendant was present at least once while her husband 

was arranging the instant transaction from the informant's home 

telephone. The final phone call was monitored by police, and 

arrangements were made by defendant's husband to pick up the 

cocaine at a specific room in a motel. Defendant drove her 

husband to the motel, accompanied him to the motel room, and left 

with him five minutes later. The informant's tip and defendant's 

actions in cooperation with her husband, as to whom overwhelming 

probable cause to arrest existed, were sufficient to create a 

reasonable belief that defendant knowingly participated in a drug 

transaction. 

Shortly after leaving the parking lot of the motel, defendant 

and her husband were taken out of the car and handcuffed. 

Immediately thereafter, the police found the cocaine in 

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Appellate Case: 88-2616 Document: 01019961737 Date Filed: 01/31/1990 Page: 2 
defendant's partially opened purse located near the front seat on 

the passenger's side. The district court did not specifically 

find that defendant was arrested before the search, but the court 

held that the search was incident to a lawful arrest. Whether the 

arrest occurred before or after the search is irrelevant to the 

validity of the search in this case. Under Rawlings v. Kentucky, 

448 U.S. 98, 111 (1980), the arrest may occur after the search if 

there is probable cause to arrest before the search and the formal 

arrest follows immediately thereafter. 

The search of defendant's purse in the automobile was 

''incident" to the arrest within the meaning of New York v. Belton, 

453 U.S. 454, 457 (1981). The Court in Belton held that when the 

occupant of an automobile is subjected to a lawful custodial 

arrest, contemporaneous searches of containers located within the 

passenger compartment are permissible. Id. at 460. We have 

applied the Belton "bright-line'' rule even where the arrestee is 

handcuffed outside the automobile before the search takes place. 

See United States v. Cotton, 751 F.2d 1146, 1148-49 (10th Cir. 

1985). The rule in Belton, as applied in Cotton, removes all 

doubt that the search of the purse here was permissible. 1 

l The Government argues that the search was valid under the 

automobile exception to the warrant requirement as applied to 

containers in United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798 (1982). Because 

we conclude that the search of the purse was properly incident to 

a valid arrest, we need not discuss the automobile exception. 

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Appellate Case: 88-2616 Document: 01019961737 Date Filed: 01/31/1990 Page: 3 
• .... 

We affirm the district court's order denying defendant's 

motion to suppress. 

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Entered for the Court 

Stephanie K. Seymour 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 88-2616 Document: 01019961737 Date Filed: 01/31/1990 Page: 4