Opinion ID: 186894
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Custodial Arrest Versus Formal Arrest

Text: 12 Powell argues that Rawlings applies only in cases where the challenged search was preceded by a custodial arrest. Noting, as did the Seventh Circuit in Ochana, that a custodial arrest takes place when a reasonable person in the suspect's position would have understood the situation to constitute a restraint on freedom of movement of the degree which the law associates with formal arrest, 347 F.3d at 270, Powell apparently reads our decision in Riley to mean that a search may precede the formal announcement of arrest if and only if it follows the functionally more important custodial arrest. 13 In cases involving a search incident to arrest neither we nor the Supreme Court have previously expanded upon the distinction between a custodial and a formal arrest, but the Supreme Court did at least advert to such a distinction in Rawlings, 448 U.S. at 111, 100 S.Ct. 2556 (search may lawfully precede arrest so long as formal arrest follow[s] quickly on [its] heels), and the taxonomy is, of course, familiar from the Miranda line of cases, see, e.g., Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 440, 104 S.Ct. 3138, 82 L.Ed.2d 317 (1984) ([T]he safeguards prescribed by Miranda become applicable as soon as a suspect's freedom of action is curtailed to a degree associated with formal arrest. If a motorist who has been detained pursuant to a traffic stop thereafter is subjected to treatment that renders him `in custody' for practical purposes, he will be entitled to the full panoply of protections prescribed by Miranda.  (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). 14 Powell argues—and it is possible, though ultimately inconsequential—that the suspects in Rawlings and Riley were under custodial but not formal arrest when they were searched. In Riley police officers ordered the suspect to dismount his moped and searched his sock only after they had surrounded him in such a way that he couldn't have moved without actually making contact with one of them. Riley, 351 F.3d at 1267. The court noted the seizure (of the suspect's person) that preceded the search might have been deemed an investigative stop pursuant to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), but for some reason that elude[d] the court, the Government conceded the initial seizure was not a Terry stop. 351 F.3d at 1267. The court accordingly treated the encounter as an arrest from the moment the officers converged on the moped. Id. The suspect was therefore under custodial arrest, or so the argument goes, before the challenged search took place. 15 In Rawlings, the suspect was detained at the residence he was visiting and, unless he would consent to a body search, was not permitted to leave for the 45 minutes it took the police to obtain a search warrant. 448 U.S. at 100, 100 S.Ct. 2556. When an officer returned with the warrant, Rawlings admitted the drugs found in another guest's purse were his. Id. at 100-01, 100 S.Ct. 2556. Having thus obtained probable cause to arrest Rawlings, the officers first searched him and then placed him under arrest. Id. at 101, 100 S.Ct. 2556. The Supreme Court expressly reserved the question whether the temporary detention of the occupants of the house was a lawful seizure that was less intrusive than a traditional arrest, id. at 110 & n. 5, 100 S.Ct. 2556, that is, something less than a custodial arrest, but the Court assumed for the sake of the argument it was an illegal detention, id. at 106, 100 S.Ct. 2556. 16 Whether the suspects in Rawlings and Riley were under custodial arrest when they were searched, however, is of no moment. Neither the Supreme Court in Rawlings nor this court in Riley suggested the lawfulness of the search turned upon the suspect being in custody before he was searched. On the contrary, the Supreme Court in Rawlings said that the formal arrest may follow quickly on the heels of the challenged search, id. at 111, 100 S.Ct. 2556, and this court in Riley similarly held it was of no import that the search came before the actual arrest because the actual arrest followed quickly after the search, 351 F.3d at 1269—exactly as happened in this case. 17 Powell and our dissenting colleague nonetheless seem to find implicit in these decisions the requirement that the search follow the custodial arrest because to hold otherwise would sever the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the warrant requirement from its two historical rationales— namely, protection of the officer's safety and the preservation of evidence, see, e.g., Belton, 453 U.S. at 457, 101 S.Ct. 2860— which are not triggered until an encounter ripens into an arrest, that is, until the suspect is taken into custody. But that is not correct. If anything, both concerns are greater before the police have taken a suspect into custody than they are thereafter. See, e.g., Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615, 618, 124 S.Ct. 2127, 158 L.Ed.2d 905 (2004) (upholding search under Belton where officer handcuffed petitioner, informed him that he was under arrest, and placed him in the back seat of the patrol car before searching his vehicle); cf. id. at 627-28, 124 S.Ct. 2127 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment) (noting cases upholding search after suspect is handcuffed and secured in back of squad car are legion and mordantly criticizing application of Belton to suspects who no longer pose a danger to police). By searching the suspect before they arrest him, the officers can secure any weapon he might otherwise use to resist arrest or any evidence he might otherwise destroy. 18 In this case the presence of another person in the searched vehicle illustrates the need for police who have probable cause to make an arrest in some circumstances, in the interest of safety, to conduct a search before making the arrest. Here the police approached two suspects in proximity to a probable associate who, for all they knew, had access to a weapon. Cf. Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 334, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990) (holding that, incident to an arrest in a home, officers may as a precautionary matter and without probable cause or reasonable suspicion, look in closets and other spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be immediately launched). 19 Powell and our dissenting colleague also contend our decision is inconsistent with Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 119 S.Ct. 484, 142 L.Ed.2d 492 (1998) (holding an officer may not conduct a search incident to arrest when, although the officer has probable cause to make an arrest, he issues a citation instead of arresting the suspect). But that is not correct either. Had the officers failed to arrest Powell and merely issued him a citation, then indeed the search would be invalid under Knowles. 525 U.S. at 117, 119 S.Ct. 484 (The threat to officer safety from issuing a traffic citation ... is a good deal less than in the case of a custodial arrest). That, of course, is not what happened, and we do not say that having probable cause to arrest is by itself sufficient to bring a search within the Belton exception to the warrant requirement. Rather, it is the fact of the arrest that makes all the difference. Id. (quoting United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 234 n. 5, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973) (The danger to the police officer flows from the fact of the arrest, and its attendant proximity, stress, and uncertainty)); see also Washington v. Chrisman, 455 U.S. 1, 7, 102 S.Ct. 812, 70 L.Ed.2d 778 (1982) (Every arrest must be presumed to present a risk of danger to the arresting officer). As we have recently noted: The key point in Knowles ... was not that the officer had a lawful ground for arrest upon which he did not rely, but that he did not arrest the defendant at all. United States v. Bookhardt, 277 F.3d 558, 566 (D.C.Cir.2002). 20 Two additional considerations impel our conclusion that Rawlings controls this case. The first is the Supreme Court's teaching that in this area of the law bright-line rules are necessary. See, e.g., Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. at 623, 124 S.Ct. 2127 (need for a clear rule ... justifies the sort of generalization which Belton enunciated). The second is that, even if Knowles could be taken by implication to call Rawlings into question, we are not at liberty to disregard the Supreme Court's straightforward statement that it is not particularly important that the search preceded the arrest rather than vice versa, 448 U.S. at 111, 100 S.Ct. 2556. See Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484, 109 S.Ct. 1917, 104 L.Ed.2d 526 (1989) (If a precedent of [the Supreme] Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to [the Supreme] Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions).