No. 81545 

F ro 

ELr 

CLE: 

t, LEP DEPUTY CLERIC 

137 Nev., Advance Opinion 57 

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEVADA 

JAY LESLIE JIM, A/K/A JAY LEE JIM, 

A/K/A LITTLE JAY, A/K/A LITTLE J., 

Appellant, 

vs. 

THE STATE OF NEVADA, 

Respondent. 

Appeal from a judgment of conviction, pursuant to a guilty plea, 

of trafficking a schedule I controlled substance under NRS 453.3385(1)(b) 

and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person under NRS 202.360(1). 

Fourth Judicial District Court, Elko County; Nancy L. Porter, Judge. 

Affirmed. 

Jeff Kump, PLLC, and Jeffrey J. Kump, Elko, 

for Appellant. 

Aaron D. Ford, Attorney General, Carson City; Tyler J. Ingram, District 

Attorney, and Jeffrey C. Slade, Deputy District Attorney, Elko County, 

for Respondent. 

BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT, CADISH, PICKERING, and 

HERNDON, JJ. 

OPINION 

By the Court, PICKERING, J.: 

Following a lawful stop and arrest, an Elko Police Department 

(EPD) officer found contraband in appellant Jay Jim's car. The officer 

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observed the contraband during a warrantless inventory search that 

produced no formal inventory. After the State brought criminal charges 

against Jim, he filed a motion to suppress the evidence recovered from the 

vehicle, alleging that the items were the products and fruits of an illegal 

search. The district court denied the motion on the ground that the officer 

validly discovered the evidence under the plain-view exception to the 

warrant requirement of the United States and Nevada Constitutions. Jim 

appeals from his subsequent judgment of conviction, arguing that the plainview exception does not apply because the officer did not complete the 

inventory. But because the officer's presence in the vehicle was legally 

justified at the time he observed the contraband, we hold that the plainview exception to the warrant requirement applies and therefore affirm. 

I. 

Officers Joshua Chandler and Jeremy Shelley of the EPD 

responded to a report of suspicious activity at the Red Lion Hotel parking 

lot in Elko. When the officers arrived, they encountered Jim attempting to 

start a silver Chevrolet Impala that he did not own. After calling the car's 

registered owners and confirming that Jim planned to purchase the Impala, 

the officers told Jirn that they would take "enforcement action" if he drove 

the car, because its registration was expired. But Jim did not heed this 

warning—one day later, Chandler saw and stopped Jim driving the same 

Impala in Elko's West Sage area, still with expired registration. Based on 

Jim's past failures to appear in court, Chandler arrested Jim for failure to 

produce valid registration, insurance, and a current driver's license, and for 

failure to wear a seatbelt. 

Shelley responded to the scene as back-up, and after Chandler 

handcuffed Jim and placed him in the back of the patrol car, Shelley began 

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an impound inventory of the Impala. Under EPD policy, if a car's driver is 

arrested and is not its registered owner, then the car will be impounded and 

"an impound inventory will be done and given to the tow truck driver." A 

different EPD policy applies if the car has "evidentiary value": "When 

impounding a vehicle of evidentiary value, the vehicle will be secured with 

evidence tape and the officer will follow the vehicle . . . to the police garage 

where it will be secured for processing." Shelley testified that he initially 

entered the Impala under the policy for impounded vehicles without 

evidentiary value, to either turn the car off or retrieve the keys, when he 

saw the butt of a Glock handgun and two small bags of a crystalline-like 

substance wedged between the driver's seat and center console. Shelley 

immediately recognized these items as contraband. Shelley and Chandler 

photographed the firearm and bags in place and on the front seat of the 

Impala before Shelley removed the items and secured them in his patrol 

car. 

Shelley testified that upon finding the contraband items, he 

determined that the Impala may have evidentiary value. So, in accordance 

with the EPD policy for vehicles with evidentiary value, he seized the 

Impala, followed the car to the police garage, and delivered the car to Officer 

Jason Checketts, who placed evidence tape on its entry points. At the 

station, Shelley determined that the Glock handgun had been reported 

stolen, and the crystalline-like substance tested presumptively positive for 

methamphetamine. With this evidence as grounds for probable cause, 

Officer Matthew Miller applied for and received a warrant to search the 

Impala. On executing the warrant, Miller recovered a blue Superior 

Balance digital scale, a black Weighmax digital scale, and "a paper receipt 

containing methamphetamine from the Impala. Miller listed these items 

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on the warrant log, but at no point did Miller, Shelley, or any other EPD 

officer complete an inventory of personal items in the Impala. 

The State charged Jim with trafficking in a schedule I 

controlled substance and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and 

sought punishment under the habitual criminal statute. Jim moved to 

suppress all evidence recovered from the Impala, alleging that the items 

were the products and fruits of an illegal search. But the district court 

concluded that Shelley recovered the firearm and methamphetamine under 

the plain-view exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement 

and denied Jim's motion. Jim pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking a 

controlled substance under NRS 453.3385(1)(b)1 and one count of possession 

of a firearm by a prohibited person under NRS 202.360(1). As a term of his 

plea agreement, Jim reserved the right to appeal the suppression decision 

and now challenges the district court's denial of his motion to suppress and 

the resulting judgment of conviction. 

The United States and Nevada Constitutions both guarantee 

[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and 

effects against unreasonable searches and seizures." U.S. Const. amend. 

W; Nev. Const. art. 1, § 18; see also State v. Beckman, 129 Nev. 481, 486, 

305 P.3d 912, 916 (2013). A warrantless search is per se unreasonable 

unless an exception to the warrant requirement applies. State v. Lloyd, 129 

Nev. 739, 743, 312 P.3d 467, 469 (2013). This court reviews de novo whether 

'The parties stipulate to correct a clerical error in the judgment of 

conviction indicating that Jim was convicted of trafficking in a schedule I 

controlled substance under NRS 453.3385(1)(c) by conforming the judgment 

to the court's sentencing minutes, which indicate that Jim was convicted of 

trafficking in a schedule I controlled substance under NRS 453.3385(1)(b). 

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a valid exception to the warrant requirement applies. See Beckman, 129 

Nev. at 485-86, 305 P.3d at 916 (holding that this court reviews a district 

coures denial of a motion to suppress de novo as to legal conclusions and 

that the reasonableness of a search is a legal inquiry); Scott v. State, 110 

Nev. 622, 628, 877 P.2d 503, 507 (1994) (noting that a non-owner driver has 

a reasonable expectation of privacy in a vehicle that he or she lawfully 

possesses). 

The "plain-view" exception to the warrant requirement applies 

when (1) an officer is lawfully present in a place where evidence can be 

viewed, (2) the item is in plain view, and (3) the item's incriminating nature 

is immediately apparent. Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 136 (1990); 

State v. Conners, 116 Nev. 184, 187 n.3, 994 P.2d 44, 46 n.3 (2000). Jim 

does not contest that the items in question here were in plain view once 

Shelley entered the Impala, that Shelley immediately recognized the 

incriminating nature of the items, or that towing of the Impala was 

reasonable. Accordingly, the narrow issue here is whether Shelley was 

lawfully present in the Impala when he entered the car to conduct a 

standard inventory search but never completed the inventory. 

To be "lawfully presene under the plain-view exception, a 

warrant or warrant exception must justify the officer's presence in the first 

instance. See Horton, 496 U.S. at 136 (holding that the officer must not 

have "violate[d] the Fourth Amendment in arriving at the place from which 

the evidence could be plainly viewee). And an inventory search carried out 

in good-faith compliance with "standardized official department 

procedures" is a well-established exception to the Fourth Amendment's 

warrant requirement. Weintraub v. State, 110 Nev. 287, 288, 871 P.2d 339, 

340 (1994) (citing South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976)); see also 

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Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 374 (1987). An officer's compliance with 

standard procedures ensures that an inventory search is truly "designed to 

produce an inventory and is not just "a ruse for a general rummaging . . . to 

discover incriminating evidence." Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 4 (1990). 

Applying this standard, this court has held that without a 

sufficiently complete inventory of the subject vehicle or item searched, the 

officer failed to comply with the applicable department inventory 

procedures, rendering the inventory warrant exception inapplicable. State 

v. Greenwald, 109 Nev. 808, 810-11, 858 P.2d 36, 38 (1993) ("Without an 

inventory, we can have no inventory search."); see also State v. Nye, 136 

Nev. 421, 423-24 468 P.3d 369, 371-72 (2020); Weintraub, 110 Nev. at 289, 

871 P.2d at 340. To wit, in State v. Nye, this court held that the inventory 

search was invalid because the officer only listed "bag" on the inventory log 

instead of listing the items in the bag, as was required under the policy. Id. 

at 424, 468 P.3d at 372-73. The booking officer further failed to comply with 

department policy by not conducting the search in view of a camera, signing 

the inventory receipt, or testifying as to how the search was conducted. Id. 

at 424, 468 P.3d at 373. 

While an officer's failure to complete an inventory per 

department policy may foreclose the inventory warrant exception, such a 

failure does not per se establish that an officer's motive for beginning an 

inventory was a subterfuge. See Wells, 495 U.S. at 4 ("[A]n inventory search 

must not be a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover 

incriminating evidence?), United States v. Garay, 938 F.3d 1108, 1111-12 

(9th Cir. 2019) (noting that an inventory search is valid if the search motive 

is administrative and holding that officers failure to create an inventory 

sheet did not render the search motive as pretextual). And, unlike Nye 

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where the searching officer strayed far afield from the applicable inventory 

policy, Shelley complied with the EPD policy for impounded vehicles when 

he entered the Impala to inventory its contents, which he had a legal right 

and obligation to do. See Collins v. State, 113 Nev. 1177, 1181, 946 P.2d 

1055, 1059 (1997) (holding that an officer has a "right and obligation" to 

enter a vehicle to inventory its items for safekeeping). While lawfully 

present in the vehicle to conduct a standard inventory—to that point 

pursuant to and consistent with EPD policy—Shelley saw the firearm and 

bags of a crystalline-like substance in plain view between the driver's side 

seat and center console, and he immediately recognized those items as 

contraband based on his law-enforcement training. Shelley then changed 

course and followed the applicable EPD policy for vehicles with evidentiary 

value by halting his search, following the Impala to the police garage, 

directing Checketts to secure the vehicle with evidence tape, and seeking a 

search warrant. Shelley very well could have continued and completed the 

inventory search at that time, thus inevitably discovering all of the items 

that EPD eventually recovered under the warrant. Instead, Shelley halted 

the search and sought and obtained a search warrant, consistent with the 

Fourth Amendment. 

Jim further argues that Shelley failed to comply with EPD 

policies by not having the Impala secured with evidence tape until after the 

vehicle was towed to the police garage. But this is beside the point—

Shelley's alleged deviation from the policy was slight and does not show that 

his search motive was pretextual because Shelley did not continue his 

search at the scene. Indeed, EPD did not recover further incriminating 

evidence before Checketts secured the vehicle with evidence tape and Miller 

obtained and eventually executed a search warrant. 

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111. 

Shelley's close adherence to EPD policies, along with his 

decision to terminate a legal inventory search to secure a warrant, show 

that his motive was administrative and not an investigatory ruse. Shelley 

was lawfully present in the Impala when he saw the firearm and bags of 

methamphetamine in plain view. See Horton, 496 U.S. at 135 (holding that 

the plain-view exception applies when "a police officer is not searching for 

evidence against the accused, but nonetheless inadvertently comes across 

an incriminating object") (citing Harris u. United States, 390 U.S. 234;235-

36 (1968) (holding that an officer was lawfully present for purposes of the 

plain-view exception when he entered a Car to roll up the windows pursuant 

to a police department policy concerning impounding vehicles and found 

incriminating evidence in plain view)). And the plain-view warrant 

exception therefore applies to validate Shelley's seizure of the firearm and 

bags of methamphetamine, along with the items recovered under the 

warrant. See Collins, 113 Nev. at 1182, 946 P.2d at 1059 (holding that 

warrant was valid when premised on iterns seized under valid warrant 

exception). We accordingly affirm. 

We concur: 

J. 

Cadish 

J. 

Herndon 

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