Task: songer_abusedis

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals. You will be asked a question pertaining to issues that may appear in civil law issues involving government actors. The issue is: "Did the court conclude that it should defer to agency discretion? For example, if the action was committed to agency discretion. Answer the question based on the directionality of the appeals court decision. If the court discussed the issue in its opinion and answered the related question in the affirmative, answer "Yes". If the issue was discussed and the opinion answered the question negatively, answer "No". If the opinion considered the question but gave a mixed answer, supporting the respondent in part and supporting the appellant in part, answer "Mixed answer". If the opinion does not discuss the issue, or notes that a particular issue was raised by one of the litigants but the court dismissed the issue as frivolous or trivial or not worthy of discussion for some other reason, answer "Issue not discussed". If the opinion considered the question but gave a "mixed" answer, supporting the respondent in part and supporting the appellant in part (or if two issues treated separately by the court both fell within the area covered by one question and the court answered one question affirmatively and one negatively), answer "Mixed answer". If the opinion either did not consider or discuss the issue at all or if the opinion indicates that this issue was not worthy of consideration by the court of appeals even though it was discussed by the lower court or was raised in one of the briefs, answer "Issue not discussed".

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge:
This appeal from a jury conviction of federal narcotics offenses raises questions under the Fourth Amendment, as difficult as they are important, concerning the permissible scope of a search of the person incident to a lawful arrest for violation of a District of Columbia motor vehicle regulation. The ease was heard initially by a division of this court which reversed the conviction, one judge dissenting, on the ground that the search of appellant’s person violated the commands of the Fourth Amendment. Upon rehearing en banc, however, the court vacated the opinion and judgment of the division and held that since the taking of evidence in the District Court had not focused upon the scope issue relied upon by the division, a remand was necessary in order that “an authentic version of what actually happened” might be presented. This supplemental evidentiary hearing having now been completed, we find the search of appellant to be unconstitutional and therefore reverse the conviction.
I
On April 19, 1968, Officer Richard Jenks of the Metropolitan Police Department stopped a 1965 Cadillac at the intersection of Ninth and U Streets, N.W., for a “routine spot check.” At the time of this stop, Officer Jenks examined not only appellant’s temporary operator’s permit and automobile registration card, but also his selective service classification card. Officer Jenks permitted appellant to continue about his business, but only after making notes of the three items. His note taking alerted him to a discrepancy between the “1938” date of birth listed on the temporary operator’s permit and the “1927” date of birth listed on the selective service classification card. Officer Jenks then went to police traffic records and discovered that the operator’s permit issued to “Willie Robinson, Jr.,” born in 1927, had been revoked, and that a temporary permit had been issued to a “Willie Robinson,” born in 1938. The pictures on the revoked permit and on the application for the temporary permit were of the same person; both were likenesses of the man he had stopped for the routine check on April 19.
On April 23, 1968, while on duty, Officer Jenks observed appellant operating the same vehicle. He stopped appellant, asked him for his permit and registration card and, upon being shown the same permit appellant had exhibited four days earlier, placed'appellant under arrest for operating a motor vehicle after revocation of his operator’s permit and for obtaining a permit by misrepresentation. According to his testimony at the remand hearing, Officer Jenks then advised appellant of his rights and proceeded to search him. Since the arrest was one which involved taking appellant to the station house, under Police Department instructions Officer Jenks was required to make a full field search as an incident to the arrest. A full field search “is a thorough search of the individual.” Remand transcript at 99. “He examines the contents of all of the pockets in a field type search and in-custody arrest at all times.” Id. at 120. In conducting a full field search, “even though [the officer] may feel something that he believes is not a weapon, he is instructed to take it out.” Id. at 100. The officer is taught “to examine everything he has on him at the field search. Everything that we find in his pockets is examined to find out what exactly it is.” Id. at 104.
Officer Jenks’ search complied with Police Department instructions. He was unable to recall the precise sequence in which he searched appellant. His best recollection was that in placing his right hand on appellant’s left breast he felt an object. Although Officer Jenks could not ascertain the precise size or consistency of this object, there was no suggestion that he believed it to be a weapon or believed himself to be in danger. On the contrary, he admitted that he did not have any specific purpose in mind when he searched appellant: “I just searched him. I didn’t think about what I was looking for. I just searched him.” Remand transcript at 32. Officer Jenks proceeded to extract the object — which turned out to be a wadded up cigarette package — from appellant’s pocket. He then opened the package and found it to contain 14 gelatin capsules of heroin. Officer Jenks then placed appellant under arrest for possession of narcotics, and continued his search without finding any weapons or any additional narcotics.
Throughout the proceedings in this case, the Government has consistently conceded, and indeed there can be no doubt, that in extracting the cigarette package from appellant’s pocket and opening the package so as to examine its contents, Officer Jenks exceeded the permissible scope of a limited frisk for weapons. Moreover, as Officer Jenks’ testimony at the remand makes clear, the full search of appellant’s person that actually occurred in this case cannot be justified on a theory that the narcotics were “in plain view.” Thus the question is now squarely presented whether, and under what circumstances, an arresting officer may conduct a full search of the person incident to a lawful arrest for violation of a mere motor vehicle regulation.
II
Ordinarily, a warrant must be obtained by a police officer before he may make a search. Searches of both person and place incident to lawful arrest, however, have traditionally been exceptions to this rule and have been held constitutional even though they have been made without prior approval by a neutral magistrate. Nevertheless, “the bare fact that a person is validly arrested does not mean that he is subject to any and all searches that the arresting officer may wish to conduct.” United States v. Mills, 153 U.S.App.D.C. -, -, 472 F.2d 1231, 1234 (decided May 10, 1972) (en banc). Rather, the validity of searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment turns upon their reasonableness, and since a warrant will not be available to insure that arrest based searches are reasonable both at their inception and in their execution, courts must review the constitutionality of such searches with special care. See, e. g., Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 766-772, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966); United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102, 106, 85 S.Ct. 741, 13 L.Ed.2d 684 (1965).
In exercising this power of review, courts must give particularly careful weight to the fundamental Fourth Amendment principle which has been given renewed emphasis in the housing inspection and stop-and-frisk cases: a search will comply with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment only if its scope is no broader than necessary to accomplish legitimate governmental objectives. This principle is stated most clearly in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), in which the Supreme Court upheld an on-the-street detention and search for weapons of three suspects. The Court found that the police officer in Terry had “adequate constitutional ground,” but not probable cause, to believe that the men'he detained and searched were going to commit a crime. In its opinion the Court stressed that the Fourth Amendment governs all intrusions by agents of the public upon personal security, 392 U.S. at 18 n. 15, 88 S.Ct. 1868, and that the manner in which the search and seizure are conducted is as much the test of their reasonableness as whether they were warranted at all. Id. at 28, 88 S.Ct. 1868. Citing a number of earlier cases, many of which involved searches initiated upon probable cause, the Court in Terry stated that “[t]his Court has held in the past that a search which is reasonable at its inception may violate the Fourth Amendment by virtue of its intolerable intensity and scope,” and that “[t]he scope of the search must be ‘strictly tied to and justified by’ the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible.” Id. at 17-19, 88 S.Ct. at 1878. Thus the Court made absolutely clear that the underlying rationale of Terry was a restatement of, rather than a departure from, existing case law, and that, although Terry itself involved a search upon less than probable cause, the scope limitation principle was to apply to all searches no matter what thp evidentiary basis for their initiation.
If Terry left any doubt at all that the scope limitation principle was intended by the Supreme Court to apply to arrest based searches, that doubt was expressly foreclosed by the last of the cases in the Terry-Sibron-Peters trilogy. In Peter's v. New York, which is consolidated with Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 88 S.Ct. 1889, 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968), Officer Lasky of the New York City Police Department was off duty at his apartment when he heard a noise at the door. Looking through the peephole into the hall, he saw two men he did not believe to be fellow tenants tip-toeing out of the alcove toward the stairway. Officer Lasky called police headquarters, put on civilian clothes, and armed himself with his service revolver. Believing he had happened upon the two men in the course of an attempted burglary, Officer Lasky opened his door, entered the hallway, and slammed the door loudly behind him. When the door slammed the two men fled down the stairs and Officer Lasky gave chase. When he caught up with Peters on the stairs and questioned him, Peters explained his presence in the building by saying he was visiting a girl friend whose name he chivalrously declined to reveal on the ground that she was a married woman. Officer Lasky then patted Peters down for weapons and discovered a hard object in his pocket. The object did not feel like a gun, but he thought it might be a knife. Officer Lasky removed this object from Peters’ pocket and found it was an opaque envelope containing burglar’s tools.
Given this factual situation, the Supreme Court held that Officer Lasky legally arrested Peters when he collared him on the stairway and curtailed his freedom of movement. This arrest was found to be valid because made on the basis of probable cause to believe Peters was engaged in criminal activity. At this point, according to the Supreme Court,
“[Officer Lasky] had the authority to search Peters, and the incident search was obviously justified ‘by the need to seize weapons and other things which might be used to assault an officer or effect an escape, as well as by the need to prevent the destruction of evidence of the crime.’ * * * Moreover, it was reasonably limited in scope by these purposes. Officer Lasky did not engage in an unrestrained and thoroughgoing examination of Peters and his personal effects. •X* * -X- ”
392 U.S. at 67, 88 S.Ct. at 1905. (Emphasis added.) In Peters, then, the Supreme Court applied the scope limitation principle to an arrest based search and found that the search — which took the form of a frisk followed by a further intrusion into the arrestee’s pockets only after an object possibly a weapon had been felt — was “reasonably limited in scope by [its] purposes” and was not so “unrestrained and thoroughgoing” as to violate the Constitution.
Similarly, in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), the Court used its scope limitation principle to measure the constitutionality of a far-ranging search of a house incident to a lawful arrest for larceny. Terry was specifically referred to, and the Chimel search, in which police discovered coins appellant was accused of stealing, was found to be unconstitutional because it was not “ ‘strictly tied to and justified by’ the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible.” 395 U.S. at 762, 89 S.Ct. at 2039. Chimel holds that incident to a lawful arrest for a crime such as theft, which requires instrumentalities and bears fruits, there is ample justification for a warrantless search of “the arrestee’s person and the area ‘within his immediate control’ — construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” Id. at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040.
Thus although the consequences of application of the scope limitation principle may differ under varying circumstances, it is clear that all searches, whether or not based upon probable cause, are governed by the rule, and that in determining the constitutionality of any particular search “our inquiry is a dual one — whether the officer’s action was justified at its inception, and whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.” Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. at 19-20, 88 S.Ct. at 1879.
III
What then are the legitimate objectives of an arrest based search of the person? What is it that renders such searches permissible at their inception, and to which the scope of such searches must be tied, if their reasonableness is to be maintained? Though they receive slightly different formulation in various cases, the legitimate objectives of warrantless searches of the person incident to arrest seem to be (1) seizure of fruits, instrumentalities and other evidence of the crime for which the arrest is made in order to prevent its destruction or concealment; and (2) removal of any weapons that the arrestee might seek to use to resist arrest or effect his escape. The question presented, then, is whether either of these objectives justifies a full search of the person incident to a lawful arrest for violation of a mere motor vehicle regulation.
Since fruits, instrumentalities or other evidence of crime concealed on the person of the arrestee may be easily disposed of or destroyed, the arresting officer will often be justified in searching for such evidence without delay. But the scope limitation principle requires that when police search a person incident to arrest, the search must be directed toward finding evidence which the arresting officer has probable cause to believe will be found on the person, and that the search be no more intrusive than necessary to recover such evidence. For most crimes, of course, it is clearly reasonable to assume that the arrestee will be in possession of the fruits, instrumentalities or other evidence of the crime for which the person was arrested. Thus in such situations “the circumstances justifying the arrest are also those furnishing probable cause for the search.” Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 47 n. 6, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 1979 n. 6, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970). For other crimes, however, and more particularly for most traffic offenses, no search of the person for evidence may be allowed at all because no evidence exists to be found. Admittedly, appellant’s offenses in this case — driving after his operator’s permit had been revoked and obtaining a new permit by misrepresentation — are relatively serious ones on the continuum of traffic infractions. Nonetheless, upon stopping Willie Robinson for the second time and upon receiving for the second time Robinson’s fraudulently obtained temporary operator’s permit, Officer Jenks had secured the only evidence of the crime for which the arrest was made which he could possibly have had probable cause to believe was in the arrestee’s possession. No further arrest based search for evidence was therefore reasonable or constitutional.
There is, of course, a second, very important, justification for searches incident to arrest — the interest of government in the safety of its police officers. In Terry v. Ohio, supra, the Supreme Court recognized that when a police officer stops a citizen on the street in the course of a legitimate investigation “there must be a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for the protection of the police officer * * 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. at 1883. The Court made clear, however, that the right to exercise that authority was not automatic. Rather, such intrusions are permissible only if the officer is “able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant” the officer’s belief that the person with whom he is dealing is both armed and presently dangerous. Id. at 21, 88 S.Ct. at 1880. Moreover, since the sole basis for such a search is the protection of the officer, the Court held that even when the officer reasonably believes himself to be in danger, the search actually conducted “must be limited to that which is necessary for the discovery of weapons which might be used to harm the officer * * * ” Id. at 26, 88 S.Ct. at 1882. Thus the Court in Terry approved a pat-down or “frisk” of the appellant’s outer clothing for weapons, with a further intrusion only after finding a weapon, precisely because such an intrusion was adequate to protect the officer and was confined “strictly to what was minimally necessary to learn whether the men were armed and to disarm them once he discovered the weapons.” Id. at 30, 88 S.Ct. at 1884.
Similarly, in Sibron v. New York, supra, another stop-and-frisk case, the Court held that a direct intrusion into the pockets of a narcotics suspect was unreasonable at its inception because the mere association of the suspect with other known narcotics offenders was held not to have given the officer justification for any search whatever. Before conducting a self-protective search for weapons, the Court held, the officer “must be able to point to particular facts from which he reasonably inferred that the individual was armed and dangerous.” 392 U.S. at 64, 88 S.Ct. at 1903. Moreover, the Court in Sibron went further and held that, assuming arguendo that the officer had reason to suspect Sibron was armed, the actual search — a direct intrusion into the suspect’s pockets rather than a frisk— would still have been constitutionally invalid because “not reasonably limited in scope to the accomplishment of the only goal which might conceivably have justified its inception — the protection of the officer * * * ” Id. at 65, 88 S.Ct. at 1904.
Thus Terry and Sibron, when read together, stand for the proposition that in the stop-and-frisk situation where, as in the routine traffic arrest, there can be no evidentiary basis for a search, the most intrusive search the Constitution will allow is a limited frisk for weapons, and even then only when the officer reasonably believes himself to be in danger. The Government contends, however, that the standards enunciated in Terry and Sibron are inapplicable to the instant case because the “stops” and “frisks” involved in those decisions were predicated only upon “reasonable suspicion” whereas here, since appellant was arrested on probable cause, a full search was justified. But in focusing on the different quanta of evidence required to justify different degrees of seizures or searches of the person, the Government loses sight of the even more telling distinction between the evidentiary and protective purposes of searches. It is upon this latter distinction that our case hinges.
Because the arrest based searches reviewed and validated by the courts have usually had both evidentiary and protective functions, the casual reader may be given the false impression that these cases stand for the proposition that a lawful arrest will always support a full search of the person. Obviously, when the arrest is made for a crime for which evidence exists, a warrantless intrusion into the pockets of the arrestee to discover such evidence is reasonable under the “search incident” exception. The officer may, of course, also use this reasonable intrusion to look simultaneously for weapons. But in a fact situation such as ours, where the search can have no evidentiary function, a more careful analysis of proper scope limitations is called for. When the sole legitimate goal of the search is the protection of the officer, the paramount factor in determining the reasonableness of the intrusion is the danger actually presented, and it is of no moment whether the protective search for weapons is incident to an “arrest” based on probable cause or incident to a “stop” based only upon reasonable suspicion. “In short, the physical risk to the officer is created by the circumstances of the confrontation taken as a whole, not by the technical niceties of the law of arrest.” People v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County [Simon], 7 Cal.3d 186, 101 Cal.Rptr. 837, 850, 496 P.2d 1205, 1218 (1972) (en banc).
IV
In determining the extent to which the legitimate governmental interest in insuring the safety of law enforcement officers justifies a search of the person incident to a lawful arrest, a distinction must be drawn between the “routine” traffic arrest — where the officer simply issues a notice of violation and allows the offender to proceed — and the more serious cases in which the officer effects an “in-custody” arrest in order to transport the traffic offender to the stationhouse for booking. Turning first to the “routine” traffic arrest, it seems evident that the dangers presented in that situation are to some extent similar to, and certainly no greater than, those presented in the stop-and-frisk situations involved in Terry and Sibron. Like the investigatory stop, the routine traffic arrest is merely a brief on-the-street encounter. Moreover, the vast majority of traffic violators are law-abiding citizens. Indeed, “[v]ery few drivers can traverse any appreciable distance without violating some traffic regulation.” and as Chief Judge Fuld of the New York Court of Appeals has noted, “A motorist, who exceeds the speed limit does not thereby indicate any propensity for violence or iniquity, and the officer who stops the speeder has not even the slightest cause for thinking that he is in danger of being assaulted.” People v. Marsh, 20 N.Y.2d 98, 101, 281 N.Y.S.2d 789, 792, 228 N.E.2d 783, 786 (1967).
This is not to say, of course, that a minor traffic stop can never erupt into violence. On the contrary, whenever a police officer confronts a citizen on the street an element of danger is present. But as the stop-and-frisk cases make clear, the mere possibility of danger cannot justify any and all searches the officer may wish to conduct. The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness, and the possibility that a routine traffic stop might result in injury to the officer, although unquestionably real, is so remote that “[t]o allow the police to routinely search for weapons in all such instances would * * * constitute an ‘intolerable and unreasonable’ intrusion into the privacy of the vast majority of peaceable citizens who travel by automobile.” People v. Superior Court of Yolo County [Kiefer], 3 Cal.3d 807, 91 Cal.Rptr. 729, 744, 478 P.2d 449, 464 (1970) (en banc).
We therefore conclude that the permissible scope of searches incident to routine traffic arrests, where there is no evidentiary basis for a search and where the officer intends simply to issue a notice of violation and to allow the offender to proceed, must be governed by the teaching of the Supreme Court as set forth in Terry and Sibron. Thus the most intrusive search the Constitution will allow in such situations is a limited patdown for weapons, and then only when there exist special facts or circumstances which give the officer reasonable grounds to believe that the person with whom he is dealing is armed and presently dangerous.
As the Government points out, however, the instant case involves not a “routine” traffic arrest, but rather a situation in which the arresting officer was required to take appellant into custody. According to applicable Metropolitan Police Department regulations, “[t]he use of Traffic Violation Notices is a courtesy of long standing and shall be employed whenever possible, consistent with the overall safety of the public.” Nevertheless, for certain of the “more serious or aggravated types of traffic violations,” issuance of a notice of violation is prohibited, and the officer is required to make an in-custody arrest. Among these is the offense of “Operating After Suspension or Revocation of Operator’s Permit,” one of the two offenses for which appellant was lawfully arrested. Thus the Government asserts that, even though a police officer may not conduct a full search of the person incident to a lawful traffic arrest involving mere issuance of a notice of violation, such a search should be permitted where, as here, the officer is required to take the offender into custody.
As noted earlier in this opinion, the scope limitation principle of the Fourth Amendment is essentially “functional” in nature — that is, the consequences of its application will vary according to the particular circumstances in which it is applied. Thus in determining the permissible scope of searches incident to in-custody arrests for mere traffic violations, we cannot ignore the fact that, unlike the momentary and relatively minor dangers presented in the stop-and-frisk situation or in the routine traffic stop, the dangers to which the police are exposed in the circumstances of a custodial arrest are sharply accentuated by the prolonged proximity of the accused to police personnel following the arrest. As Chief Justice Wright of the California Supreme Court has noted, the crucial distinguishing feature of the in-custody arrest “is not the greater likelihood that a person taken into custody is armed, but rather the increased likelihood of danger to the officer if in fact the person is armed.” People v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County [Simon], supra, 101 Cal.Rptr. at 857, 496 P.2d at 1225 (concurring opinion). (Emphasis in original.) With this increased danger in mind, it would seem clearly unreasonable to expect a police officer to place a suspect in his squad car for transportation to the station-house without first taking reasonable measures to insure that the suspect is unarmed. We therefore conclude that whenever a police.officer, acting within the bounds of his authority, makes an in-custody arrest, he may also conduct a limited frisk of the suspect’s outer clothing in order to remove any weapons the suspect may have in his possession. There are circumstances in which the element of danger may require a full search even as to persons arrested for relatively minor traffic-type offenses, as where the frisk causes the officer’s suspicion to be reasonably aroused as to weapons (see note 9 supra). But no such predicate was advanced for the search at bar. The record clearly establishes Jenks searched appellant without any purpose in mind — “I just searched him”- — -because this was standard police instruction.
The Government contends still further, however, that a frisk does not provide reasonable protection to the officer in the circumstances of an in-custody arrest. We cannot agree. Under the scope limitation principle of the Fourth Amendment, “[a] search for weapons * * * must, like any other search, be strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation.” Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. at 25-26, 88 S.Ct. at 1882. And in evaluating the reasonableness of a search, it is necessary “first to focus upon the governmental interest which allegedly justifies official intrusion upon the constitutionally protected interests of the private citizen,” for there is “no ready test for determining reasonableness other than by balancing the need to search against the invasion which the search entails.” Camara v. Municipal Court of City and County of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 534-535, 536-537, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 1734, 1735, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967).
Turning first to the interests of the individual, we must recognize that the properly conducted frisk which we would permit with any in-custody arrest is far more than a “petty indignity.” On the contrary, “[e]ven a limited search of the outer clothing for weapons constitutes a severe, though brief, intrusion upon cherished personal security, and it must surely be an annoying, frightening, and perhaps humiliating experience.” Terry v. Ohio, supra, 392 U.S. at 24-25, 88 S.Ct. at 1882. Thus if we are to strike a reasonable balance under the Fourth Amendment, any further intrusion upon the individual’s privacy should be permitted only if necessary to achieve substantial governmental interests. And this is all the more true where, as here, the officer may not even have reasonable grounds to believe that the individual, who has been arrested for a mere traffic violation, is either armed or dangerous.
Moreover, when viewed from the reverse side of the equation, we are firmly convinced that a carefully conducted frisk offers substantial protection to the officer. In Terry v. Ohip, supra, the Supreme.Court adopted the following definition of a frisk:
“ ‘[T]he officer must feel with sensitive fingers every portion of the prisoner’s body. A thorough search must be made of the prisoner’s arms and armpits, waistline and back, the groin and area about the testicles, and the entire surface of the legs down to the feet.’ ”
392 U.S. at 17 n. 13, 88 S.Ct. at 1877 n. 13, quoting Priar & Martin, Searching and Disarming Criminals, 45 J.Crim.L.C. & P.S. 481 (1954). Such a frisk, the Court concluded, is “reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, clubs, or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police officer.” 392 U.S. at 29, 88 S.Ct. at 1884.
The evidence presented at the remand hearing in this case clearly supports this conclusion. Police Sergeant Dennis Donaldson, an instructor at the District of Columbia Police Training Division, testified that in order to protect the arresting officer the standard police practice in the District of Columbia is to conduct a full search of the person whenever an in-custody arrest is made. On cross-examination, however, Sergeant Donaldson admitted that, although the effectiveness of a patdown may vary according to the circumstances, a properly conducted Terry type frisk could uncover virtually every weapon he had ever encountered in the course of in-custody searches. Mr. Ronald Newhouser, a recognized expert in clandestine weaponry, also testified for the Government. During the course of his testimony Mr. Newhouser removed from his person 25 concealed weapons that could kill or incapacitate. Like Sergeant Donaldson, however, Mr. Newhouser conceded that virtually all of these weapons could be detected in the course of a properly conducted frisk.
We do not mean to suggest, of course, that a protective frisk removes all conceivable dangers to the officer. There will always be the long shot case in the which the arrestee has concealed a novel weapon — perhaps a razor blade shaped like a coin — which a frisk will fail to reveal. But the kind of thoroughgoing search which would offer total protection to the officer could only be accomplished at a complete sacrifice of the arrestee’s right to privacy. Indeed, as Mr. Newhouser admitted, the only means of eliminating all possible risk to the officer is to allow him to spread-eagle the arrestee, strip him of his clothing, and feel into his body cavities for weapons. Deciding what is a reasonable intrusion, given the legitimate objective of protecting the arresting officer, calls for a careful balancing of competing interests. Our position reflects this balancing.
V
Pressing its argument still further, however, the Government suggests an alternative theory in support of its contention that a full search of the person should be allowed whenever an in-custody arrest is made. When a suspect has been lawfully arrested and “booked” on a criminal charge and is to be placed in stationhouse detention, it is ordinarily reasonable to conduct a search of his person in order to prevent introduction of weapons or contraband into the jail facility. From this premise the Government argues that, since the suspect will eventually be searched at the stationhouse anyway, a search of this kind might “just as well” be conducted'in the field at the time of arrest. Whatever the merits of this argument generally, this court’s recent en banc decision in United States v. Mills, supra, makes clear that it is inapplicable to the ease at hand.
In Mills the defendant was arrested for the petty offense of driving with a learner’s permit while unaccompanied by a licensed driver. Rather than simply issue a notice of violation, the arresting officer elected to make an in-custody arrest. The officer then frisked the defendant and, finding no weapons, called a scout car to transport the defendant to the stationhouse. After arriving at the stationhouse, the defendant was brought to the booking desk. At that point the defendant clearly had the right to post $50 collateral for his offense and, upon doing so, tó i be released immediately, without any detention or search of his person. Instead of informing him of his right, however, the officers ordered the defendant to remove everything from his pockets. Among his possessions the police discovered 22 capsules of heroin and 33 capsules of cocaine. Under these circumstances, the court held the stationhouse search unconstitutional and therefore reversed the defendant’s conviction of violations of the federal narcotics laws.
Initially the court noted that there could be no evidentiary basis for this search since the defendant’s offense was proved completely at the time of arrest. Moreover, the search could not be justified on the basis of protective considerations because the arresting officer had already frisked the defendant for weapons. Thus “[t]he validity of the search,” the court concluded, “must stand or fall on the premise that it was a predetention inventory, undertaken to hold and account for valuable or poten-, tially dangerous personal property — such as rings, belts, watches or jewelry — during the detention of the person arrested.” 153 U.S.App.D.C. at-, 472 F.2d at 1234.
Emphasizing the defendant’s right to post collateral, the court then stated that, although a search of the person incident to stationhouse detention may be reasonable, “it would be entirely unreasonable to hold that policemen have discretion to detain and therefore thoroughly search petty offenders * * * who may avoid stationhouse detention altogether by posting collateral.” 153 U.S.App.D.C. at -, 472 F.2d at 1240.
The court therefore held :
“When a person is charged with a collateral-type petty offense, under which he rightfully has the opportunity to post collateral and avoid further detention, and there is no probable cause to believe he committed a more serious crime, the police may not engage in an inventory search of the offender, or an equivalent direction that he empty his pockets, and seek to support it on the ground of holding him in further confinement, unless at a minimum he was timely notified of his opportunity to post collateral (and thus avoid further detention) and refused or was unable to do so. * * »
As in Mills, we “do not here consider the proper scope of a search that is supported by the premise of forthcoming confinement.” 153 U.S.App.D.C. at-, 472 F.2d at 1234. Although appellant Robinson had no right to post collateral for his offenses, he ‘#as clearly entitled to post either cash or bail bond and, upon doing so, to be released immediately, without any stationhouse confinement or incident search of his person. Moreover, even if appellant was unable to post, such bond, he might still have been eligible for pre-detention release under the recently enacted citation release program. Officer Jenks had no way of knowing, one way or the other, whether appellant was eventually to be incarcerated at the stationhouse. He therefore had no tenable basis for making a search on the assumption that there would be incarceration. The official who is called upon to make the determinations involved in the decision on incarceration — the arrangements for bail, the possibility of a citation issued at the stationhouse — must make that decision before it may be used to justify an intrusion on privacy as one permissible under the Fourth Amendment. The mere possibility that such a search might later be justified obviously cannot serve to eliminate appellant’s rights under.the Fourth Amendment at the time of arrest. See, e. g., United States v. Mills, supra; People v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County [Simon], supra; People v. Overlee, Colo., 483 P.2d 222 (1971) (en banc).
VI
The result we reach today, it should be noted, is by no means unique. On the contrary, the vast majority of courts — both state and federal — which have considered the problem hold specifically that, absent “special circumstances,” a police officer has no right to search either the person or the vehicle incident to a lawful arrest for violation of a mere motor vehicle regulation. In Grundstrom v. Beto, N.D.Tex., 273 F.Supp. 912, 916 (1967), for example, the court, noting that the only legitimate objective of most searches incident to arrests for traffic offenses will be protection of the arresting officer, concluded that “[t]o permit all searches incidental to an arrest to be justified on the theory that the officer is searching for weapons would be to allow wholesale fishing expeditions whenever a legal

Question: Did the court conclude that it should defer to agency discretion? For example, if the action was committed to agency discretion.
A. No
B. Yes
C. Mixed answer
D. Issue not discussed
Answer:

Answer: D