Opinion ID: 1395862
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: search in interrogation room

Text: McCoy next raises several complex questions concerning the interrogation room search of the pocket of his jacket. It is clear that Officers Weaver and Rice could have, without a search warrant, lawfully searched the pocket of McCoy's jacket when they arrested McCoy at the airport. McCoy asserts that the interrogation room search was too remote in time and place to the arrest to qualify as a search incident to an arrest. On this record we hold that the search conducted at the stationhouse was incident to the arrest. In United States v. DeLeo [10] a warrantless search similar to the one carried out in the case at bar was upheld. There an FBI agent arrested appellant in a drug store pursuant to an arrest warrant. The agent searched DeLeo for weapons in the drug store and then transported him to local FBI headquarters where another search was made. DeLeo argued that the second search was too remote in time and place to be incident to his arrest. The First Circuit disagreed holding that the fact that a suspect, arrested in a public place, has been subjected only to a hasty search for obvious weapons has a reasonable nexus with the necessity of conducting a more deliberate search for weapons or evidence just as soon as he is in a place where such a search can be performed with thoroughness and without public embarassment to him. (citation omitted) While the legal arrest of a person should not destroy the privacy of his premises, it does  for at least a reasonable time and to a reasonable extent  take his own privacy out of the realm of protection from police interest in weapons, means of escape, and evidence. Were this not to be so, every person arrested for a serious crime would be subjected to thorough and possibly humiliating search where and when apprehended. (citation omitted) We see no constitutional mandate for such a practice. (footnotes omitted) [11] The view of the First Circuit that a search which is conducted at the stationhouse within a reasonable time of the arrest qualifies as a search incident to an arrest has wide support in the case law. [12] We find the reasoning of DeLeo persuasive. We therefore adopt the rule that a search of an arrestee remains incident to an arrest when it is conducted shortly thereafter at the jail or place of detention rather than at the time and place of arrest. On the facts of the case at bar, we conclude that the interrogation room search of McCoy's jacket pocket was incident to his arrest at the airport.