Title: State v. Wruck
Citation: 1998 ND 73, 585 N.W.2d 581
Docket Number: 
State: north-dakota
Issuer: north-dakota Supreme Court
Date: April 8, 1998

State v. Wruck Annotate this Case State v. Wruck, 1998 ND 73, 585 N.W.2d 581 [Go to Documents]Filed Apr. 8, 1998[Download as WordPerfect]IN THE SUPREME COURTSTATE OF NORTH DAKOTA1998 ND 73State of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee v. Philip Wruck, Defendant and Appellant Criminal No. 970366 Appeal from the District Court for Burleigh County, South Central Judicial District, the Honorable Burt L. Riskedahl, Judge. AFFIRMED. Per Curiam. Rick L. Volk, Assistant State's Attorney, Courthouse, 514 East Thayer, Bismarck, N.D. 58501, for plaintiff and appellee. Gregory I. Runge, Suite A, 418 East Rosser Avenue, Bismarck, N.D. 58501, for defendant and appellant. State v. WruckCriminal No. 970366 Per Curiam. [¶1] Philip Wruck appeals from a criminal judgment for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver entered under N.D.R.Crim.P. 11(a)(2). "[W]hen a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile." New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 , 460 (1981) (footnotes omitted). Because "the justification for the search is not that the arrestee has no privacy interest in the container, but that the lawful custodial arrest justifies the infringement of any privacy interest the arrestee may have," Belton at 461, third-party ownership of an automobile does not change the bright-line rule established in Belton, allowing passenger compartment searches incident to arrest. See, e.g., Staten v. United States, 562 A.2d 90 (D.C. 1989). We affirm under N.D.R.App.P. 35.1(a)(4) and (7). [¶2]Gerald W. VandeWalle, C.J. Dale V. Sandstrom William A. Neumann Mary Muehlen Maring Herbert L. Meschke