Opinion ID: 417957
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Inapplicability of the Search Incident to Arrest Exception

Text: 26 The Government first seeks to characterize the exploration of Lyons' closet as a search incident to a lawful arrest. Modern doctrine governing this well-recognized exception to the warrant requirement stems from Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969). The Supreme Court there held that, subsequent to a valid arrest, the police may legitimately search the suspect's person and his immediate environs. Id. at 762-63, 89 S.Ct. at 2039-2040. The scope of the search permitted under this rule is defined by reference to its rationale: 27 When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer's safety might well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee's person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. And the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like rule. A gun on a table or in a drawer in front of one who is arrested can be as dangerous to the arresting officer as one concealed in the clothing of the person arrested. There is ample justification, therefore, for a 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. 28 There is no comparable justification, however, for routinely searching any room other than that in which an arrest occurs--or, for that matter, for searching through all the desk drawers or other closed or concealed areas in that room itself. Such searches, in the absence of well-recognized exceptions, may be made only under the authority of a search warrant. The adherence to judicial processes mandated by the Fourth Amendment requires no less. 29 Id. (footnote omitted). 30 The guidelines set forth in the foregoing passages have not been interpreted rigidly. Custodial arrests are often dangerous; the police must act decisively and cannot be expected to make punctilious judgments regarding what is within and what is just beyond the arrestee's grasp. Thus, searches have sometimes been upheld even when hindsight might suggest that the likelihood of the defendant reaching the area in question was slight. See, e.g., United States v. Mason, 523 F.2d 1122, 1125-26 (D.C.Cir.1975) (sustaining search of a closet three or four feet away from a standing, handcuffed defendant who had attempted to obtain a jacket hanging therein). And it has been held that an arresting officer is not obliged, before searching an arrestee's immediate vicinity, to calculate the probability that weapons or destructible evidence may be involved. United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 15, 97 S.Ct. at 2485 (dicta). But the touchstone remains the justification articulated in Chimel. To determine whether a warrantless search incident to an arrest exceeded constitutional bounds, a court must ask: was the area in question, at the time it was searched, 12 conceivably accessible to the arrestee--assuming that he was neither an acrobat [nor] a Houdini? United States v. Mapp, 476 F.2d 67, 80 (2d Cir.1973); accord United States v. Scios, 590 F.2d 956, 964 n. 15 (D.C.Cir.1978) (en banc); United States v. Griffith, 537 F.2d 900, 904 (7th Cir.1976). 31 The search of the closet in the instant case clearly was beyond the pale demarcated by Chimel and its progeny. At the time of the search, Lyons was sitting, handcuffed, on a chair near the doorway. Inside the room were six police officers, at least four of whom presumably were armed. The closet was located at the far end of the wall adjacent to that in which the doorway was located--several yards away from Lyons. Under these circumstances, it is inconceivable that Lyons could have gained access to the area. It is also clear that Lyons never made any attempt to reach the closet, nor did he even request access to it. 32 The Government might appeal to one of two subsidiary doctrines in an effort to avoid the force of the foregoing reasoning. First, it might argue that Lyons needed the coat to wear on the way to the station house; surely it was reasonable for them to check it for weapons before giving it to him. Assuming without deciding that the police have constitutional authority unilaterally to decide what extra clothing an arrestee needs and then to locate and search those articles, 13 such authority would avail them little in this case; the Government conceded that the police did not anticipate giving--and did not in fact give--the coat to Lyons. 33 Second, it has been held that, when the police have reason to suspect that confederates of an arrestee are hiding somewhere in the room or house in which (or near which) the arrest takes place and might attempt to liberate their comrade, the police may legitimately search the area more thoroughly than would otherwise be permitted. See United States v. Irizarry, 673 F.2d at 558; United States v. Dien, 609 F.2d 1038, 1047 (2d Cir.1979) (dicta), aff'd, 615 F.2d 10 (2d Cir.1980). Clearly, however, there were no such exigent circumstances in this case. The police had been following Lyons' movements for two days, and Centrella and Bland had just spent a significant amount of time in the room with him; the police thus knew to a certainty that Lyons was alone when he was arrested. 34 In sum, we conclude that this case is controlled by the principle that a warrantless search remote in time or place from the arrest is not, for constitutional purposes, a search incident to that arrest. Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 367, 84 S.Ct. 881, 883, 11 L.Ed.2d 777 (1964). 35