Under the facts revealed in this record, law enforcement claimed to be searching for weapons, but none were found, and the search occurred after the situation was secured. The car keys are inadmissible. This Court has jurisdiction under N.D. Const. When reviewing a district court's ruling on a motion to suppress, we defer to the district court's findings of fact and resolve conflicts in testimony in favor of affirmance. We affirm the district court's decision unless, after resolving conflicting evidence in favor of affirmance, we conclude there is insufficient competent evidence to support the decision, or unless the decision goes against the manifest weight of the evidence.
Questions of law are fully reviewable.
The search of vehicles incident to arrest has been reviewed numerous times by this Court. Likewise, evidence seized subsequent to an invalid arrest is inadmissible. In Wanzek , the defendant claimed the search of her vehicle was invalid because she was not an occupant at the time of her arrest and therefore the search was not valid as a search incident to arrest. The district court appears to have applied a rationale similar to the one rejected in Wanzek . A search is not invalid under the Belton exception simply because a person is not occupying the vehicle when the search is conducted.