Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-01-03109/USCOURTS-caDC-01-03109-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Jerome Wendell Maple
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

Federal Reporter or U.S.App.D.C. Reports. Users are requested to notify

the Clerk of any formal errors in order that corrections may be made

before the bound volumes go to press.

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 7, 2003 Decided July 8, 2003

No. 01-3109

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

JEROME WENDELL MAPLE, A/K/A WILLIAM LEE JOHNSON,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(00cr00364–01)

Beverly G. Dyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued the cause for appellant. On the briefs were A. J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender, and Sandra G. Roland,

Assistant Federal Public Defender.

Matthew T. Martens, Assistant United States Attorney,

argued the cause for appellee. On the brief were Roscoe C.

 Bills of costs must be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment.

The court looks with disfavor upon motions to file bills of costs out

of time.

USCA Case #01-3109 Document #758682 Filed: 07/08/2003 Page 1 of 19
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Howard, Jr., United States Attorney, John R. Fisher, Roy W.

McLeese III, T. Anthony Quinn, and Mary B. McCord,

Assistant United States Attorneys.

Before: SENTELLE and ROGERS, Circuit Judges, and

SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

SILBERMAN.

Opinion dissenting in part filed by Circuit Judge ROGERS.

SILBERMAN, Senior Circuit Judge: Appellant Jerome Maple

contends that D.C. Metropolitan Police Department (MPD)

Officer James McCourt’s decision to open a closed compartment in Maple’s car to relocate a cellular phone while securing the vehicle was an unreasonable search under the Fourth

Amendment. He also raises a Second Amendment challenge

to his conviction under D.C. law for unlicensed gun possession, an argument he did not make below. We affirm the

conviction. Officer McCourt’s conduct was not a search and

hence did not implicate the Fourth Amendment, and Maple

has not preserved his Second Amendment claim.

I.

On September 17, 2000, at about midnight, Officer McCourt

was working patrol while parked in his marked police car

near the intersection of North Capitol and Buchanan Streets

in the northeast section of the District of Columbia. McCourt

heard screeching tires to his left and watched as a small bluegray Datsun passed him near the intersection of North

Capitol and Rock Creek Church Streets at approximately 35–

40 miles per hour, a high speed for the area. McCourt

activated his police lights and the car pulled over into the far

northbound lane of North Capitol Street. He radioed the

car’s license plate number to the police dispatcher and two

other officers soon arrived on the scene, MPD Officer Ellerbe

and a Metro Transit Police Officer.

Appellant was the driver and sole occupant of the vehicle.

He did not have a driver’s license with him. Instead, he

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provided McCourt with the name, date of birth, and social

security number for William Lee Johnson, as well as a

temporary Maryland registration card under the name Jerome Maple. The dispatcher then notified McCourt that Mr.

Johnson’s license had been suspended. McCourt arrested

Maple for driving with a suspended license and issued traffic

tickets for that violation, as well as his speeding.

Officer Ellerbe took Maple to the police station. Because

Maple’s car was in the right lane of a busy thoroughfare,

McCourt decided to relocate the vehicle to a legal parking

space on a side street, a usual practice under these circumstances. He had the option of impounding the car, but chose

not to because he wanted to spare Maple the added expense.

McCourt entered the car, drove a half block north, turned left

onto a side street and parked the car in a legal spot against

the curb. As he leaned over the passenger’s seat to lock the

passenger door, he saw a cellular phone on the floor. Concerned that someone would see it and break into the car,

McCourt tried to place the phone in the glove compartment,

but it was either inaccessible or nonexistent, he could not

remember which. Looking for an alternative, he noticed that

there was also a compartment in the console between the

bucket seats. He lifted the top to put the phone inside. As

he raised the lid, he saw a silver pistol in the compartment.

McCourt immediately called the dispatcher to request that an

evidence technician come to recover the gun. He then drove

Maple’s car back to North Capitol Street, where he had left

his own police cruiser.

When the evidence technician, Officer Lazarus, arrived,

McCourt showed him the pistol in the console. As Lazarus

focused on the compartment where McCourt was pointing,

the technician noticed a small piece of cellophane, wrapped up

and tied in a knot, sitting on the console between the compartment where the pistol was found and the gearshift lever.

McCourt, surprised that he had not noticed the package

himself, picked it up and saw that it contained what appeared

to be crack cocaine. The car was then fully searched but no

additional contraband or weapons were found.

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At the suppression hearing, Maple argued, inter alia, that

McCourt violated the Fourth Amendment by opening the

closed compartment without a warrant and in violation of the

department’s procedures. He also argued that the search

could not be justified as an exercise of the police department’s

‘‘community caretaking function,’’ since the existence of a cell

phone in plain view did not pose a serious threat to public

safety. Judge Friedman, finding McCourt a ‘‘very, very

credible witness,’’ denied the motion to suppress, holding that,

pursuant to the traffic maintenance powers of the police, the

officer had a right to move the car off of North Capitol Street

and to secure it by locking it up. He thought that McCourt’s

attempt at securing the cell phone in the compartment was a

reasonable exercise in service of the community and not a

violation of the Fourth Amendment.

At trial before Judge Johnson (Judge Friedman fell ill),

Officer Lazarus testified that he recovered from the car a .380

caliber Davis Industries semiautomatic pistol with four

rounds in the magazine, as well as a plastic bag containing 6.5

grams of cocaine base. The government also introduced

evidence that Maple had been arrested previously for crack

cocaine possession. The jury returned verdicts of not guilty

on the charges of possession with intent to distribute five

grams or more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C.

§§ 841(a)(1) and (b)(1)(B)(iii), and possession of a firearm

during a drug trafficking offense, in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 924(c)(1). Maple was found guilty, however, on the remaining charges of possession of cocaine base in excess of five

grams, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 844(a), and carrying a pistol

without a license, in violation of D.C. CODE ANN. § 22–3204(a)

(1981) (now codified at D.C. CODE ANN. § 22–4504(a) (2001)).

II.

This case has undergone something of a metamorphosis.

The district judge thought Officer McCourt’s opening of the

console in order to deposit the cell phone was justified under

what the Supreme Court has termed the ‘‘community caretakUSCA Case #01-3109 Document #758682 Filed: 07/08/2003 Page 4 of 19
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ing function’’ of the police. And the government’s brief

strongly supports that position.

It is common ground between the parties that if the police

wish to search a car without a warrant to inventory its

contents they must act in accordance with established procedures. See Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 4 (1990); Colorado v.

Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 374 n.6 (1987). But the government

contends that this situation is not governed by the requirements of an inventory search, because the officer’s objective

in moving the car and opening the console was to protect

defendant’s property. Its brief relies on Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 441 (1973), in which the Supreme Court

first used the community caretaking function rationale.

There, local Wisconsin police officers arrived at the scene of a

severe car accident involving an intoxicated Chicago police

officer, Chester J. Dombrowski. He was arrested for drunk

driving and taken to the station. Aware that all Chicago

officers were required by regulation to carry service revolvers

at all times and unable to get the location of the gun from the

incoherent driver, the Wisconsin police performed an initial

search of the front seat and glove compartment. They also

returned to search the car again later that night after it had

been towed to a local garage and left unguarded. Although

the Wisconsin officer did not find the gun, he did uncover

items soaked with blood on the floor of the car and in the

trunk. When Dombrowski was confronted with the materials

back at the station, he was prompted to confess that ‘‘there

was a body lying near the family picnic area at the north end

of his brother’s farm.’’ Cady, 413 U.S. at 437 (internal

quotations omitted). After the body of one Herbert McKinney was discovered, warrants were issued leading to the

discovery of additional evidence connecting Dombrowski to

the crime, and he was eventually convicted of first-degree

murder. The Court upheld the warrantless searches of Dombrowski’s vehicle at the scene and at the private garage, since

the officers had reacted reasonably to the accident out of

‘‘concern for the safety of the general public who might be

endangered if an intruder removed a revolver from the trunk

of the vehicle.’’ Id. at 447; see also Smith v. Thornburg, 136

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F.3d 1070, 1075 (6th Cir. 1998) (concluding that officers were

entitled to make a warrantless entry into an unoccupied

vehicle left with its motor running in an area known as a

dumping ground for stolen vehicles ‘‘in order to protect

themselves and the public from the danger created by the

manner in which plaintiff’s car was left unattended’’).

Still, as the government acknowledged at oral argument, in

Cady the Court noted that the state court had found as a fact

that ‘‘the search of the trunk to retrieve the revolver was

standard procedure in (that police) department, to protect the

public from the possibility that a revolver would fall into

untrained or perhaps malicious hands.’’ Cady, 413 U.S. at

443 (internal quotations omitted). And in our case it does not

appear that the Metropolitan Police Department’s regulations, which extensively deal with inventory searches and

impoundments, address this situation. See generally MPD

Gen. Order 602(I) (May 26, 1972).1

The government also suggested at oral argument, however,

that ‘‘there is a third category of cases that’s identified in

Cady by citation to [sic] United States v. Harris, which is not

1 The dissent suggests that the specific rule violated provides that

the automobile ‘‘shall not be inventoried in any way’’ unless taken to

a police facility. Id. at 602(I)(B)(3)(b). Dissent Op. at 5. But

Officer McCourt clearly was not conducting an inventory, defined

by the General Order as ‘‘an administrative process by which items

of property are listed and secured.’’ Id. at 602(I)(B). Nor in fact

did McCourt ‘‘search’’ the vehicle according to the procedures, since

the Order describes a search as ‘‘an examination of a person, place

or thing with a view toward discovery of weapons, contraband,

instrumentalities of a crime, or evidence.’’ Id. at 602(I)(A) (emphasis added). Furthermore, contrary to the dissent’s suggestion,

Dissent Op. at 6, given the detailed distinctions in the Order

between impoundment and non-impoundment contexts, see id. at

602(I)(B)(3–4), there is no reason to assume that the procedures for

handling personal property in impounded vehicles, (those ‘‘taken

into police custody and placed on police department property or TTT

near a police facility’’), id. at 602(I)(B)(4), would also apply to cars

that have not been taken to a designated police facility.

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cited in our brief, but TTT seems to be more analogous,

frankly, to this situation.’’ (Oral Argument Tr. at 18, April 7,

2003). Counsel went on to point out that in Harris, the Court

noted that although there was an intrusion, ‘‘it was not a

search in the sense of hunting for something.’’ Id.

Actually, Harris v. United States, 390 U.S. 234 (1968), a

short, per curiam opinion of the Supreme Court, held that

when an officer, after having conducted an inventory search

of an impounded vehicle (pursuant to regulations of the

MPD), opened a door in order to roll up the window for

security purposes, (the district court had determined that the

officer went to raise the window to protect the car’s interior

from rain), see Harris v. United States, 370 F.2d 477, 478–79

(D.C. Cir. 1966), and found what turned out to be a robbery

victim’s automobile registration card, he was not conducting a

search at all. ‘‘[T]he discovery of the card was not the result

of a search of the car, but of a measure taken to protect the

car while it was in police custody. Nothing in the Fourth

Amendment requires the police to obtain a warrant in these

narrow circumstances.’’ Harris, 390 U.S. at 236 (emphasis

added). In other words, Harris appears to recognize that not

every intrusion, not every opening up of a door, window, or a

console is a search even implicating the Fourth Amendment.

The government at oral argument seemed to be shifting

somewhat, without defendant’s objection, to that rationale to

affirm the district court.

A more recent Supreme Court case, Kyllo v. United States,

533 U.S. 27 (2001), supports this reading of Harris. Although the Court’s holding is not particularly relevant–that

where the government uses a thermal imaging device to

determine whether marijuana is grown in a house it is

conducting a search governed by the Fourth Amendment,

even though there is no physical intrusion–the opinion, in

passing, gives its definition of a search. The Court observes

that ‘‘[w]hen the Fourth Amendment was adopted, as now, to

‘search’ meant ‘[t]o look over or through for the purpose of

finding something; to explore; to examine by inspection; as,

to search the house for a book; to search the wood for a

thief.’ ’’ Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 33 n.1 (2001) (quoting N. Webster,

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An American Dictionary of the English Language 66 (1828)

(reprint 6th ed. 1989)) (first emphasis added).

The opinion goes on to explain that Supreme Court jurisprudence–which focuses on a person’s subjective expectation

of privacy in determining whether a search takes place–is

really asking whether a search governed by the Fourth

Amendment occurred. See id. at 32–33. In other words, the

anterior question before any court is whether a search of any

kind has occurred, and only after that question is answered in

the affirmative are we to consider the target’s expectation of

privacy.

It is undisputed in this case that when McCourt opened the

console he was not looking for ‘‘something.’’ It follows then

that he did not conduct a search and therefore the Fourth

Amendment was not implicated. His opening of the console

should be regarded no differently than his opening of the car

door in order to drive the car to a safer place. Appellant

does not even claim that the door opening was a search–nor

could he in light of Harris. The same analysis would apply,

let us say, if an officer legitimately in a house to interview a

witness attempts to leave the house and inadvertently walks

into a closet next to an exit door and sees guns and drugs.

These situations are somewhat analogous to the plain view

exceptions, see, e.g., Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 328

(1987) (‘‘a truly cursory inspection–one that involves merely

looking at what is already exposed to view, without disturbing

it–is not a ‘search’ for Fourth Amendment purposes’’), although the latter are typically extensions of a legitimate

search whereas in our case there was no search at all.

To be sure, if a search had occurred, the reasonableness of

the officer’s actions would be judged by an objective standard, not his subjective intentions. See United States v.

Magnum, 100 F. 3d 164, 170 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (citing Whren v.

United States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996)). And certainly an exploratory search, which does not focus on any particular object, is

no less a search than one which seeks a specified item. See

Bond v. United States, 529 U.S. 334 (2000). But we think our

dissenting colleague is incorrect in arguing that any police

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intrusion into a closed compartment or closed door, regardless of the circumstances, is per se a search if a defendant had

privacy expectations in the content of the compartment or

room. No case that we have found has so held.

Appellant argues that to sanction Officer McCourt’s actions–even if they were entirely innocent–is to open the door

to police misbehavior. We are warned that if an officer were

to find in a car any object of value, he would have an excuse

to open a locked glove compartment or even a trunk. But

that argument discounts the ability of district judges to detect

subterfuge. The greater the effort an officer devotes to

opening a car’s closed compartment the more likely his

purpose is, at least in part, to search. Still we agree with

appellant’s suggestion that the much better practice, (which

the police department could adopt), would be to require an

officer to take the valuable object to the station with the car

keys.

In sum, we think it is unnecessary to decide whether the

community caretaking exception extends to the facts of this

case because no search took place. Officer McCourt’s discovery of the gun was a purely inadvertent byproduct of his

opening of the console to place the cell phone inside.2

III.

Maple contends that the gun licensing statute he was

convicted under, D.C. Code § 22–4504(a), effectively operates

as a near total prohibition on possession of any type of

firearm by anyone in the District of Columbia, thereby infringing upon his right to ‘‘bear arms’’ under the Second

Amendment.

The statute reads in relevant part:

2 It is not clear to us that all warrantless searches conducted

pursuant to the community caretaking exception must be in accordance with formal procedures. See United States v. Markland, 635

F.2d 174, 176 (2nd Cir. 1980) (holding that an officer’s opening of a

‘‘surprisingly heavy’’ beverage container at the scene of an auto

accident was justified because it ‘‘could have contained anything

from beer to bullion or a bomb’’).

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No person shall carry within the District of Columbia either openly or concealed on or about their

person, a pistol, without a license issued pursuant to

District of Columbia law, or any deadly or dangerous

weapon capable of being so concealed.

D.C. CODE ANN. § 22–4504(a). And the Second Amendment

provides that:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the

security of a free State, the right of the people to

keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

U.S. CONST. amend. II. Because Maple did not raise this

contention in the district court, we cannot address the claim

unless there is an (1) ‘‘error,’’ (2) that is ‘‘plain,’’ (3) that

‘‘affects substantial rights,’’ and (4) ‘‘seriously affects the

fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.’’ Johnson v. United States, 520 U.S. 461, 467 (1997)

(internal citations omitted).

Maple suggests that it would be ‘‘plain error’’ to refuse to

consider the constitutionality of the D.C. law after United

States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203, 260–61 (5th Cir. 2001)

(upholding the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8),

which prohibits persons who are subject to domestic restraining orders from possessing firearms, but recognizing that the

Second Amendment guarantees a personal right to possess

them), cert. denied, 536 U.S. 907 (2002),3

 and the corresponding Justice Department’s brief for the United States in

opposition to the petition for a Writ of Certiorari (as well as

3 The court stated:

Although, as we have held, the Second Amendment does

protect individual rights, that does not mean that those

rights may never be made subject to any limited, narrowly

tailored specific exceptions or restrictions for particular

cases that are reasonable and not inconsistent with the

right of Americans generally to individually keep and bear

their private arms as historically understood in this country.

Id. at 261 (emphasis in the original).

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its related internal memoranda sent to United States’ Attorneys).

Although there are cases in which it is appropriate to hear

a constitutional claim not raised at trial, see, e.g., Johnson,

520 U.S. at 467–70, clearly this is not one of them. Convictions for unlicensed gun possession have been upheld for

several years in the District of Columbia. See, e.g., United

States v. Toms, 136 F.3d 176 (D.C. Cir. 1998); Staten v.

United States, 562 A.2d 90 (D.C. 1989); see also United

States v. Drew, 200 F.3d 871, 876 (D.C. Cir. 2000) (declining

to reach appellant’s Second and Fifth Amendment challenges

to his conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(8) for the possession of a firearm while subject to a court order, because he

did not raise the issue below).

Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is

Affirmed.

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ROGERS, Circuit Judge, dissenting in part: The Fourth

Amendment protects ‘‘[t]he right of the people to be secure in

their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizuresTTTT’’ U.S. Const. amend. IV.

These protected ‘‘effects’’ include automobiles, Preston v.

United States, 376 U.S. 364, 366–67 (1964), and although a

person ‘‘has a lesser expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle

because TTT [i]t travels public thoroughfares where both its

occupants and its contents are in plain view,’’ New York v.

Class, 475 U.S. 106, 113–14 (1986) (quoting Cardwell v. Lewis,

417 U.S. 583, 590 (1974) (plurality opinion)), ‘‘a car’s interior

TTT is nonetheless subject to Fourth Amendment protection

from unreasonable intrusions by the police,’’ Class, 475 U.S.

at 114–15. The government’s ‘‘intrusion into a particular

area, whether in an automobile or elsewhere,’’ violates the

Fourth Amendment if ‘‘the area is one in which there is a

‘constitutionally protected reasonable expectation of privacy.’ ’’ Id. at 112 (citing Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347,

360 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring)). Because the government

failed to offer evidence that Maple, upon his arrest for traffic

violations, had waived a reasonable expectation of privacy in a

closed compartment of his car, which had not been impounded

by the police, the warrantless search of that compartment

was impermissible under the Fourth Amendment.

The court’s holding hinges on its misconception of what

constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. It is long

settled that ‘‘ ‘[a] search occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared to consider reasonable is infringed.’ ’’ Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U.S. 56, 63 (1992) (quoting

United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113 (1984) (internal

quotations omitted)). Or stated conversely, ‘‘a Fourth

Amendment search does not occur TTT unless ‘the individual

manifested a subjective expectation of privacy in the object of

the challenged search,’ and ‘society [is] willing to recognize

that expectation as reasonable.’ ’’ Kyllo v. United States, 533

U.S. 27, 33 (2001) (quoting California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S.

207, 211 (1986)). A closed, opaque compartment by its nature

secures its contents from public view — as the officer indicated was his intention with respect to Maple’s cell phone — and

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when Maple was arrested, the console in his car was closed.

The government, which has the burden of proving the lawfulness of the search, Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 390–91

(1978), offered no evidence that Maple did not have a privacy

interest in the contents of the console or had waived that

interest, and the district court made no finding that the

closed console was not a repository of Maple’s personal

effects or that Maple had no expectation of privacy, much less

that the officer had probable cause to open it. See Class, 475

U.S. at 118; Cardwell, 417 U.S. at 591; cf. California v.

Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 579 (1991); United States v. Ross, 456

U.S. 798, 800, 825 (1982).

To salvage the seizure of Maple’s property, the court

adopts the novel notion that a police officer who opens a

closed compartment in a defendant’s car is not engaged in a

search under the Fourth Amendment. Op. at 2, 8. This is

so, the court explains, because the officer’s subjective intent

was to save Maple the expense of impounding his car and to

protect his car by securing from public view a cell phone that

he had left on the floor of his car. Op. at 3, 8. ‘‘In

determining whether a TTT search is reasonable under the

Fourth Amendment,’’ however, ‘‘courts look to objective evidence, not subjective intentions.’’ United States v. Magnum,

100 F.3d 164, 170 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (citing Whren v. United

States, 517 U.S. 806 (1996)). In other words, ‘‘the issue is

not’’ the law enforcement officer’s ‘‘state of mind’’ — whether

he was intentionally rummaging about for contraband or

wished to find something in particular — ‘‘but the objective

effect of his actions’’ — whether a reasonable expectation of

privacy was infringed. Bond v. United States, 529 U.S. 334,

338 n.2 (2000). For instance, in holding that the search of the

inside of a car (to remove papers on the dashboard obscuring

the vehicle identification number that would otherwise be in

plain view) was ‘‘sufficiently unintrusive to be constitutionally

permissible,’’ the Supreme Court in Class found significant

that the officer ‘‘did not reach into any compartments or open

any containers.’’ Class, 475 U.S. 118–19. That finding contrasts sharply with the officer’s opening of the closed console

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in Maple’s car, which upset Maple’s reasonable expectation of

privacy, regardless of the officer’s purpose.

Although the court labors to support its approach by

pointing to a definition of ‘‘search’’ in Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 33

n.1, the court misreads that opinion. In the court’s view, ‘‘the

anterior question before any court is whether a search of any

kind has occurred, and only after that question is answered in

the affirmative are we to consider the target’s expectation of

privacy.’’ Op. at 8. But these two inquiries cannot be

decoupled because the target’s expectation of privacy itself

defines whether a search occurred at all. In Kyllo the

Supreme Court reaffirmed the longstanding proposition that

‘‘a Fourth Amendment search occurs when the government

violates a subjective expectation of privacy that society recognizes as reasonable.’’ 533 U.S. at 33 (citing Katz, 389 U.S. at

361 (Harlan, J., concurring)). Then, after explaining that the

scope of a search is defined by privacy expectations, the

Court held that information obtained through thermal imaging of a private home ‘‘was the product of a search,’’ rejecting

the view that information was not obtained regarding the

interior of the home. Kyllo, 553 U.S. at 35; see also id. at

n.2. The holding of Kyllo is thus more relevant than the

court suggests, Op. at 7–8, for it reenforces the importance of

privacy expectations in Fourth Amendment analysis. Moreover, Kyllo’s holding makes clear that the dictum relied on by

the court cannot be construed as exempting ‘‘inadvertent’’

discoveries in the course of caretaking, Op. at 9, from the

Fourth Amendment’s protections. Whether deliberate or

inadvertent, a governmental intrusion is a search where it

interferes with an individual’s reasonable privacy expectations. Cf. Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 141 (1990).

The court errs in following the government’s reliance on

Harris v. United States, 390 U.S. 234 (1968) (per curiam), for

the principle that police officers may seize property found in

automobiles when they are ‘‘not conducting a search at all.’’

Op. at 7. Harris cannot support the conclusion that no

search occurred of Maple’s car. In Harris, the defendant’s

car was impounded, and the officer discovered the robbery

victim’s car registration while taking measures ‘‘to protect the

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[defendant’s] car while it was in police custody,’’ as required

by a regulation of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department

(‘‘MPD’’). Upon opening the passenger door in order to close

the windows and thereby secure the car against the elements,

in compliance with the MPD regulation, the officer saw the

victim’s car registration on the metal stripping. Harris, 390

U.S. at 235–36. Maple’s car, by contrast, had not been

impounded, and the officer was not acting pursuant to standardized departmental procedures in opening the console.

Moreover, the registration card in Harris ‘‘was plainly visible,’’ and ‘‘[i]t has long been settled that objects falling in the

plain view of an officer who has a right to be in the position to

have that view are subject to seizure and may be introduced

in evidence.’’ Id. at 236 (citations omitted). But Maple’s

gun, unlike his cell phone, was not in plain view; it was

located in a closed compartment and was discovered only

after the officer opened the compartment without Maple’s

authorization. Thus, the ‘‘narrow circumstances’’ of Harris,

id., where there may not be a search because the officer is

acting pursuant to police procedures for securing impounded

cars and inadvertently discovers an object in plain view, do

not cover the opening of the console in Maple’s car.

Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, then, the officer’s

opening of the closed compartment in Maple’s car constituted

a search, and a warrantless search of private property is per

se unreasonable unless it falls within one of the ‘‘ ‘few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions’ ’’ to the warrant requirement. Mincey, 437 U.S. at 390 (quoting Katz,

389 U.S. at 357). In determining whether the officer’s search

of the closed console was lawful under the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court’s decision in Cady v. Dombrowski,

413 U.S. 433 (1973), is instructive. In Cady, the Supreme

Court held that a warrantless search of the trunk of a car was

not unreasonable under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments because the police had reason to believe that the trunk

contained a gun, the car was vulnerable to intrusion by

vandals, and public safety could have been endangered had an

intruder removed a gun from the trunk of the vehicle. Id. at

447–48. The court observed that ‘‘local police officers TTT

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frequently investigate vehicle accidents in which there is no

claim of criminal liability and engage in what TTT may be

described as community caretaking functions, totally divorced

from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence

relating to the violation of a criminal statute.’’ Id. at 441.

The Supreme Court in Cady emphasized, however, that the

police had (1) exercised a form of control over the car, and (2)

acted under ‘‘standard procedure in (that police) department.’’

Id. at 442–43. In other words, because the police had taken

temporary custody of the car, the search was not merely the

subjective choice of the officer conducting the search. See

also Harris, 390 U.S. at 235.

Here, the police officer exercised a form of control over

Maple’s car, but the district court made no finding that the

officer acted pursuant to established procedures of the MPD

when he opened the console to secure the cell phone and,

thereby, the car. The officer testified that he routinely

relocates cars to legal parking spaces following traffic arrests,

but he did not claim that MPD officers routinely open closed

compartments in private automobiles to secure a defendant’s

personal property. Nor did the government, which has the

burden, Mincey, 437 U.S. at 390–91, introduce any such

evidence.

Under the MPD’s policy and procedures governing Automobile Searches and Inventories, the officer was not authorized to open the console in order to secure the cell phone.

See generally MPD Gen. Order 602(I) (May 26, 1972), reprinted in Joint Appendix at 37–52. The applicable procedures provide that if a prisoner’s car is not taken to a location

at or near a police facility, ‘‘it shall not be inventoried in any

way,’’ id. at 602(I)(B)(3)(b), an ‘‘inventory’’ being defined as

‘‘an administrative process by which items of property are

listed and secured,’’ id. at 602(I)(B) (emphasis added). Further, such car shall not be searched unless: (1) the arresting

officer does so in the presence of the defendant at the time of

his arrest, in which case the officer may search ‘‘only those

areas within the immediate control of the defendant (the area

from which the arrested person might gain possession of

weapons or destructible evidence),’’ id. at 602(I)(A)(1)(a)(1);

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or (2) a police officer has probable cause to believe that the

car contains the fruits, instrumentalities, contraband, or evidence of the crime for which the defendant was arrested–

exceptions not relevant in this case. Id. at 602(I)(A)(1)(a)(1)

& (b)(1). Even if Maple’s car had been taken to a location at

or near a police facility, MPD policy only authorizes the

officer to remove ‘‘personal property which can easily be seen

from outside the vehicle and which reasonably has a value in

excess of $25,’’ to take the property to the police facility, and

to enter it on a property log for later return to the defendant.

Id. at 602(I)(B)(3)(b). Instead, in searching for a place to

secure Maple’s cell phone, the officer decided to open a closed

compartment in Maple’s car.

Absent personal property found inside a car that might

pose a danger to the police officer or to the public, thus

affording probable cause for the officer to secure the weapon

and prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, see Cady,

413 U.S. at 442, Cady required the officer to act in accordance

with the MPD’s established procedures for protecting personal property in a car that is in temporary police custody.

Doing so ensures that any police intrusion into private property is limited in scope to the extent necessary to carry out

the caretaking function, South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S.

364, 375 (1976), thereby preventing warrantless searches,

such as inventories, id. at 367–76, from becoming ‘‘a ruse for

general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence.’’ Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 4 (1990). To the extent

that MPD procedures did not authorize the officer to open

closed compartments inside an unimpounded car in order to

secure the defendant’s personal property, the officer had no

other authorized reason to open the console. Neither of the

exceptions under MPD’s established procedures apply: the

search did not occur in Maple’s presence at the time of his

arrest, MPD Gen. Order 602(I)(A)(1)(a)(1), and the officer did

not testify, nor did the district court find, that the search was

conducted with probable cause associated with the crime for

which Maple was arrested, id. at 602(I)(A)(1)(b)(1). Although

the court resists applying MPD General Order 602 according

to its plain terms, see, e.g., Op. at 6 & n.1, the established

MPD procedures provide for securing personal property in

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plain view: the officer should take the car to a location at or

near a police facility if the car is not impounded. Nothing

since Cady suggests that the Supreme Court has abandoned

its emphasis on the need for the police to act pursuant to

‘‘standardized criteria’’ or ‘‘established routine’’ when opening

containers. See Wells, 495 U.S. at 4–5; cf. Colorado v.

Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 375–76 (1987); Illinois v. Lafayette,

462 U.S. 640, 648 (1983); Opperman, 428 U.S. at 375–76.

Because the officer’s opening of the console does not fall

within one of the ‘‘few specifically established and welldelineated exceptions’’ to the warrant requirement, Mincey,

437 U.S. at 390, the reasonableness of the officer’s conduct is

to be determined by reference to whether he followed the

MPD’s procedures. See Wells, 495 U.S. at 3–4; Opperman,

428 U.S. at 376; United States v. Duguay, 93 F.3d 346, 351–

52 (7th Cir. 1996); United States v. Marshall, 986 F.2d 1171,

1174–76 (8th Cir. 1993); United States v. Johnson, 936 F.2d

1082, 1084 (9th Cir. 1991). MPD General Order 602 established, and thus restricted, the manner in which a police

officer can protect a defendant’s property, and nothing in

Harris, on which the court relies, Op. at 7, is to the contrary,

for there the officer was acting pursuant to established police

department procedures. Harris, 390 U.S. at 235. Nor does

the record here show inadvertent conduct under the plain

view doctrine, Op. at 8; the officer spotted the gun only after

he opened the closed console.

Rather than recognize the limited exceptions to the per se

rule for warrantless searches, see Mincey, 437 U.S. at 390;

Cady, 413 U.S. at 439, the court acknowledges the Supreme

Court’s jurisprudence, Op. at 5, and proceeds to ignore Maple’s privacy interest in his car console. See Kyllo, 533 U.S.

at 33; cf. Class, 475 U.S. at 118. Even assuming the privacy

interest in an unlocked, closed compartment is of a lesser

order than the privacy interest in a locked glove compartment

or, as in Wells, 495 U.S. at 2, in a locked trunk, the salient

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point is that whatever his good intentions, the officer failed to

follow established police policy and procedures for securing a

defendant’s property. With the court’s new exception to the

per se rule, accomplished by redefining when a search occurs

under the Fourth Amendment, police officers who profess not

to be engaged in criminal investigation are free to devise

their own procedures for protecting personal property inside

a defendant’s car — free even to open closed compartments — notwithstanding the MPD’s established policy limiting warrantless searches to particular circumstances.

Accordingly, because the police officer conducted a warrantless search of Maple’s car console without Maple’s consent or probable cause, and in opening the console was not

following established police procedures for securing a defendant’s property, the district court erred in denying the motion

to suppress the evidence seized by the police from the console

as a violation of Maple’s Fourth Amendment rights. Because

I concur in the holding that Maple did not preserve his

Second Amendment claim, and because the drugs were in

plain view on top of the console, Harris, 390 U.S. at 236, I

would reverse the judgment and remand the case for the

retrial that Maple seeks, Appellant’s Br. at 22, on the drug

charge.

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