COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA 

Present: Judges Willis, Elder and Bray 

Argued at Richmond, Virginia 

CARLOS CARRASQUILLO 

 MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY 

v. Record No. 0372-00-2 JUDGE JERE M. H. WILLIS, JR. 

 MAY 22, 2001 

COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA 

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF HOPEWELL 

James A. Luke, Judge 

 Mary Katherine Martin (Peter D. Eliades; 

Homer C. Eliades; Eliades & Eliades, P.C., on 

brief), for appellant. 

 Marla Graff Decker, Assistant Attorney 

General (Mark L. Earley, Attorney General, on 

brief), for appellee. 

 

* Pursuant to Code § 17.1-413, this opinion is not 

designated for publication.

 On appeal from his bench trial conviction of possession of 

cocaine with the intent to distribute, in violation of Code 

§ 18.2-248, Carlos Carrasquillo contends that the trial court 

erred (1) in denying his motion to suppress; and (2) in ruling 

that the officer was entitled to detain him pursuant to his 

arrest for public drunkenness. For the following reasons, we 

affirm the judgment of the trial court. 

I. BACKGROUND

 On September 13, 1998, Hopewell police received a call that 

"a subject was on a back porch" at a residence on 3502 Boston 
Street. Officer Gregory W. Peck was dispatched to the scene. 

Upon arrival, Officer Peck found Carrasquillo asleep on the 

screened-in back porch. Officer Peck awakened Carrasquillo and 

removed him from the porch. Officer Peck testified that he could 

smell the odor of alcohol "about [Carrasquillo's] person" and that 

"[Carrasquillo] was very confused about where he was or how he got 

there." 

 Officer Peck asked Carrasquillo his name and inquired as to 

where he lived. Carrasquillo gave his name and said he "lived 

with his family, but they worked nights and no one was home." 

Officer Peck "determined that [Carrasquillo] had no one to take 

care of him," so he "placed him under arrest for drunk in public." 

He conducted a "general pat-down of [Carrasquillo's] person for 

any weapon or contraband he may have [had] on him." Officer Peck 

recovered $508 in various denominations and "several sheets of 

paper showing different names and numbers next to them" from 

Carrasquillo's person. 

 Officer Peck transported Carrasquillo to Riverside Regional 

Jail. At trial, Officer Peck explained the procedure at the jail: 

Once we enter the sally port, he goes into a 

holding area where we see the Magistrate, 

have the warrants issued and served. Then 

we go to a smaller area between the holding 

area and booking area, where the Riverside 

Regional Jail officers do a more thorough 

pat down and search. 

 Carrasquillo was taken before a magistrate, who issued a 

warrant charging him with "drunk in public." The magistrate noted 

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on the warrant, "release when sober," and Officer Peck served the 

warrant on Carrasquillo. Officer Peck and Carrasquillo were then 

met at the receiving area of the jail by Sergeant David L. 

Somarivo, the on-duty booking supervisor. Consistent with jail 

procedures, Sergeant Somarivo conducted a second, more thorough 

search. Sergeant Somarivo testified: 

My job is to pat-search the arrestees down 

as they come in the jail. Search them for 

weapons or whatever else that they might 

have, that can injure staff or anybody else 

in the jail. 

[Carrasquillo] came in, he had two outer 

layers of clothing. Policy states that when 

they come in we remove a layer of clothing. 

* * * * * * * 

He had two pairs of shorts on. 

* * * * * * * 

I had him remove one of the pairs of shorts 

that he had on. As I bent down to pick up 

the shorts, I observed a bottle -- like a 

Tylenol bottle [high up] in [the left front] 

pocket [of the shorts which he had just 

removed]. 

 Sergeant Somarivo removed the bottle from the pocket. He 

opened the bottle and found five packets of cocaine inside. 

Another packet of cocaine was found in the watch pocket of the 

shorts that Carrasquillo was still wearing. Carrasquillo was 

charged with possession of cocaine with the intent to 

distribute. 

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 Carrasquillo moved to suppress the cocaine on the grounds 

that he was illegally arrested and that the subsequent search by 

arresting officers constituted an unreasonable search and 

seizure in violation of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment 

rights. The trial court overruled the motion. 

 At the conclusion of the trial, Carrasquillo moved to 

strike the Commonwealth's evidence on the grounds that the court 

lacked jurisdiction and that, because he was charged with a 

non-jailable offense, he should have been released as soon as 

the magistrate issued the warrant for being drunk in public. He 

argued that the search of his person following the issuance of 

the warrant was unlawful and a violation of his Fourth and 

Fourteenth Amendment rights. 

 The trial court found Carrasquillo guilty as charged. 

II. THE SEARCH

 Carrasquillo contends that the trial court erroneously 

denied his motion to suppress the cocaine. He argues that this 

was seized by Sergeant Somarivo pursuant to an unauthorized 

strip search in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. We 

disagree. 

 "In reviewing a trial court's denial of a motion to 

suppress, 'the burden is upon the defendant to show that the 

ruling, when the evidence is considered most favorably to the 

Commonwealth, constituted reversible error.'" McGee v. 

Commonwealth, 25 Va. App. 193, 197, 487 S.E.2d 259, 261 (1997) 

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(en banc) (citation omitted). "We review de novo the trial 

court's application of defined legal standards such as probable 

cause and reasonable suspicion to the particular facts of the 

case." Hayes v. Commonwealth, 29 Va. App. 647, 652, 514 S.E.2d 

357, 359 (1999) (citation omitted). "In performing such 

analysis, we are bound by the trial court's findings of 

historical fact unless 'plainly wrong' or without evidence to 

support them and we give due weight to the inferences drawn from 

those facts by resident judges and local law enforcement 

officers." McGee, 25 Va. App. at 198, 487 S.E.2d at 261 (citing 

Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699 (1996)). 

 While Carrasquillo acknowledges that a lawful custodial 

arrest authorizes a full search of the person, see United States 

v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 234-35 (1973), he argues that the 

search that resulted in the discovery of cocaine in his case was 

akin to a "strip search" that required "special justification," 

which was not present. See Taylor v. Commonwealth, 28 Va. App. 

638, 642, 507 S.E.2d 661, 663 (1998) (holding that strip 

searches require special justification since they are peculiarly 

intrusive). 

 Carrasquillo's contention that the officers needed "special 

justification" to perform a strip search is not relevant to the 

facts of this case, because no strip search occurred. "'A strip 

search generally refers to an inspection of a naked individual, 

without any scrutiny of his body cavities.'" Hughes v. 

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Commonwealth, 31 Va. App. 447, 455, 524 S.E.2d 155, 159 

(citation omitted). Here, Carrasquillo was wearing two pairs of 

shorts. He was required to remove the outer layer. The removed 

pair of shorts held the cocaine. Carrasquillo was never naked 

and, thus, was never subjected to a strip search. 

III. PUBLIC INTOXICATION

 Relying upon Code §§ 19.2-74(A)(2) and 18.2-388, 

Carrasquillo claims that he was unlawfully detained because 

"drunk in public" is a non-jailable offense for which only a 

summons or citation may be issued. He argues that Code 

§ 18.2-388 does not permit a search incident to the limited 

detention required to issue the summons. We disagree. 

 "While penal statutes must be strictly construed against 

the Commonwealth, '[t]he plain, obvious, and rational meaning of 

a statute is always preferred to any curious, narrow or strained 

construction; a statute should never be construed so that it 

leads to absurd results.'" Newton v. Commonwealth, 21 Va. App. 

86, 89, 462 S.E.2d 117, 119 (1995) (quoting Branch v. 

Commonwealth, 14 Va. App. 836, 839, 419 S.E.2d 422, 424 (1992)). 

 Examining the plain meaning of Code § 18.2-388, we hold 

that it does not exclude the custodial arrest of a public 

inebriate. Code § 18.2-388, adopted by Hopewell City Ordinance 

25-18, provides in pertinent part: 

If any person . . . is intoxicated in 

public, . . . he shall be deemed guilty of a 

Class 4 misdemeanor. In any area in which 

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there is located a court-approved 

detoxification center a law-enforcement 

officer may authorize the transportation, by 

police or otherwise, of public inebriates to 

such detoxification center in lieu of 

arrest . . . . 

Id. (emphasis added). 

 Use of the phrase "in lieu of arrest" suggests that 

custodial arrest is an option when an officer encounters a 

public inebriate. This interpretation is consistent with other 

portions of the Code. See Code § 9-173.1 (stating that the 

Department of Criminal Justice Services shall promulgate rules 

and regulations for the purpose of making funds available to 

local units of government for establishing, operating and 

maintaining or contracting for detoxification center programs to 

provide an alternative to arresting and jailing public 

inebriates). 

Carrasquillo further argues that Officer Peck should have 

issued a summons and released him pursuant to Code 

§ 19.2-74(A)(2).1 That code section, however, specifically 

 1

 Code § 19.2-74(A)(2) states: 

Whenever any person is detained by or is in 

the custody of an arresting officer for a 

violation of any county, city, or town 

ordinance or of any provision of this Code, 

punishable as a Class 3 or Class 4 

misdemeanor or any other misdemeanor for 

which he cannot receive a jail sentence, 

except as otherwise provided in Title 46.2, 

or to the offense of public drunkenness as 

defined in § 18.2-388, the arresting officer 

shall take the name and address of such 

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excludes from its coverage, inter alia, "the offense of public 

drunkenness as defined in [Code] § 18.2-388." See Code 

§ 19.2-74(A)(2). Furthermore, Code § 19.2-74(A)(1) provides 

that "[a]nything in this section to the contrary 

notwithstanding, . . . if any person is reasonably believed by 

the arresting officer to be likely to cause harm to himself or 

to any other person, a magistrate or other issuing authority 

having jurisdiction shall proceed according to provisions of 

[Code] § 19.2-82," which outlines the procedure for arrest 

without a warrant. 

 Carrasquillo was so intoxicated that he fell asleep on 

another person's porch. When awakened by Officer Peck, he did 

not know where he was or how he got there. He could provide no 

adequate information as to his place of residence or the 

identity of those with whom he lived. Given Carrasquillo's 

highly intoxicated state, Officer Peck was justified in 

transporting him to the magistrate in order to obtain a warrant. 

The magistrate was justified in concluding that Carrasquillo was 

a danger to himself or others and in ordering that he be 

detained at the jail until he became sober. 

 

person and issue a summons or otherwise 

notify him in writing to appear at a time 

and place to be specified in such summons or 

notice. . . . 

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 For these reasons, we affirm the judgment of the trial 

court. 

 Affirmed.

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