This opinion will be unpublished and may not be cited except as provided by Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014). STATE OF MINNESOTA IN COURT OF APPEALS A15-0805 State of Minnesota, Respondent,

vs. Charles Micheal Serna, Appellant. Filed May 16, 2016 Affirmed Connolly, Judge Chippewa County District Court File No. 12-CR-14-304
Lori Swanson, Attorney Genera l, Michael Everson, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and David Gilbertson, Chippewa County Attorn ey, Montevideo, Minneso ta (for respondent) Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Pub lic Defender, Suzanne M. Senecal-Hill, Assistant Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)
Considered and decided by Reilly, Presiding Judge; C onnolly, Judge; and Stauber, Judge.2 U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N CONNOLLY , Judge Appellant challenges his convictions of second-degree and third-degree controlled substance crimes, arguing that the district co urt erred in denying his motion to suppress the evidence and that the ev idence was insufficient to sustain his convictions. Because we see no error in the denial of the motion to suppre ss and sufficient evidence sustains appellant’s convictions, we affirm. FACTS At about 2:00 a.m. on June 2, 2014, an officer on patrol noticed an unoccupied car in a parking lot, directly in front of the en trance to a convenience store, with the driver’s door open and the keys in th e ignition. The officer drove into the lot and saw appellant, for whom the officer knew a felony warrant ha d been issued, inside the store buying some pizza. As the officer entered, appellant took his belongings to a bathroom at the back of the store and locked himself in. The officer verified appellant’s identity by showing appellant’s photograph to a store employee and summoned another officer for assistance. The officer then walked to the bathroom, knocked, and said he was a police officer with a warrant for appellant’s arrest. Appella nt denied that he wa s the person named on the warrant. After appellant had been in the bathroom about five minutes, the other officer arrived; the two officers unlocked the door a nd found appellant, fully dressed and eating his pizza. They arrested him. When they checked the registration on the car in front of the store’s door, they found it belonged to a person wh om appellant identified as his fi ancée. Appellant denied driving3 the car to the store and said he had walked ther e. No other customers were in or near the

store. The employee asked the officers to have the ca r removed, so they called a tow truck. One officer, in accord w ith police department policy requirin g that items in a vehicle with a value of $50 or more be inve ntoried, conducted a limited inve ntory search of the car. He found: (1) keys in the ignition; (2) a book bag containing a butane torch and several unused glass pipes on the front passenger seat near th e driver; and (3) a camera case containing several baggies of what appeared to be meth amphetamine and several glass pipes with what appeared to be methamphetamine residue on the floor. Based on what had been found during the inventory search, the officer decide d to obtain a search warrant. A tow truck arrived and transported the car to a secure facility. The officers, having received a warrant, sear ched the car again; a third officer also participated in the search. In addition to document s identifying appellant , they found: (1) a small tool kit with appellant’s last name on it; (2) a digital sc ale of the type commonly used to measure drugs; (3) tweezers; (4) empty plastic baggies; (5) knives; (6) a sock containing individually wrapped pipes; (7) four baggies containing crystal methamphetamine; (8) a baggie with six Clonazepam pills; (9) seve ral syringes; and (10) an ice-cream pail containing a white, crystal-like substance th at appeared to be a cutting agent. Appellant was charged with six counts of controlled-substance crime. His motion to suppress the evidence of the drugs found in the car was de nied. Evidence presented at trial included testimony from the store employee and the thre e officers as well as a BCA lab report stating that the mixture containi ng methamphetamine found in the car weighed4 3.042 plus-or-minus .008 grams. The jury found appellant gu ilty on all six counts, and he was sentenced to the presumptiv e 78 months in prison on hi s conviction of second-degree controlled substance crime. He challenges his convictions, arguing that the district court e rred in not suppressing the evidence and that the evid ence was not sufficient to sustain his convictions. D E C I S I O N 1. Denial of Motion to Suppress Evidence “When reviewing a district court’s pretrial order on a motion to suppress evidence, we review the district court’s factual finding s under a clearly erroneous standard and the district court’s legal determination de novo.” State v. Gauster , 752 N.W.2d 496, 502 (Minn. 2008) (quotation omitted). Appellant argues that there was no basis fo r the inventory search of the car, the search warrant, or the second search becaus e impounding his car violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures . Thus, the question becomes whether the impoundment of appellan t’s vehicle violated his Fourth Amendment rights. In an impoundment case, “the real ques tion . . . is whether the impoundment was reasonable under the Fourth Am endment. An impoundment is reasonable if the state’s interest in impounding outweighs the individu al’s Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.” State v. Rohde , 852 N.W.2d 260, 264 (Minn. 2014) (emphasis and quotation omitte d). “[A]n inventory search conducted pursuant to a standard police procedure prior to lawfu lly impounding an automobile [is] not5 unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.” Gauster , 752 N.W.2d at 502 (quotation omitted). The issue then becomes wh ether the impoundment of appellant’s car was lawfully impounded. “When the driver is arrested . . . the police have a reason to take responsibility for the vehicle.” Rohde , 852 N.W.2d at 266 (citing Gauster , 752 N.W.2d at 507). Moreover, “the impoundment and towing statutes . . . authorize impoundment for safekeeping when the person in control of the vehicle is taken into custody.” Gauste , 752 N.W.2d at 506 (citing Minn. Stat. § 169.041, subd. 4(12); Minn. Stat. § 168B.04, subd. 2). Appellant was taken into custody; impoundme nt of his vehicle for safekeeping was therefore authorized by statute and did no t violate his Fourth Amendment rights. Appellant argues that the police impounded his vehicle not because he was taken into custody but becau se the store employee asked them do so and maintains that the employee himself should have had the vehicle towed if he wanted it removed from the store’s parking lot. But it was the police, not the employee, who were responsible for appellant not being able to drive his vehicl e away from the lot, and the police who had access to a secure facility for the safekeeping of the car. Th ere is no mention of any sign in the parking lot telling drivers that cars left there would be towed. It was 2:45 a.m., and there was no one present to ta ke responsibility for appellant’ s vehicle. “[T]he Supreme Court [has] concluded that in such a case [whe re the driver has been arrested before the vehicle is impounded] the police should not have to take time to determine how the arrestee wants to dispose of his vehicle.” Id. at 507 (citing Colorado v. Bertine , 479 U.S. 367, 368, 107 S. Ct. 738, 739 (1987)). Appellant’s arre st put responsibility for his vehicle on the6 police; that responsibility outweighed appellant ’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. See Rohde , 852 N.W.2d at 266, Gauster , 752 N.W.2d at 507. Appellant also argues that the impoundme nt was unlawful because the vehicle was on private property, but offers no support for the view that th e police had no responsibility for his vehicle because it was in the store’s park ing lot. Moreover, the officer testified that he saw the vehicle “parked directly in front of the [store’s] main entrance doors with the driver’s side door swung wide open” and rea lized that the vehicle “was obstructing and was going to be a hindrance to individuals who were coming to [the store.]” The fact that the vehicle was in a private parking lot rather than on a public street does not affect the officers’ right to impound it af ter arresting the driver. 2. Sufficiency of the evidence “Where there is a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, our review on appeal is limited to a painstaking analysis of the re cord to determine whet her the evidence, when viewed in a light most favorab le to the conviction, was suffi cient to permit the jurors to reach the verdict wh ich they did.” State v. Webb , 440 N.W.2d 426, 430 (Minn. 1989). Appellant argues that the evidence was in sufficient because the BCA drug analyst’s report did not indicate whether the weight of the four plastic baggies in which the mixture containing methamphetamine was found was c onsidered. But the re port said that the amount of the mixture containing methampheta mine was 3.042 plus-o r-minus .008 grams, i.e. between 3.05 and 3.034 grams, and that “the uncertainty of the reported weight is expressed at the 95% confidence level.” Clea rly the jury believed th at the amount found7 was equal to or greater than the 3.000 grams needed for conviction of second-degree and third-degree controlled substance crimes. The evidence of the report, viewed in the light most favorable to the co nviction, was sufficient to allow the jurors to reach their verdict. See id. Affirmed.