Opinion ID: 2445500
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Searching Appellant's Purse

Text: We reject appellant's argument that the police exceeded the scope of a permissible search by inspecting her purse. The trial judge found that the purse was large enough to contain a weapon and certainly ammunition, so, we add, there is no plausible argument that the object of the search could not have been concealed in the [purse]. United States v. Johns, 469 U.S. 478, 487, 105 S.Ct. 881, 83 L.Ed.2d 890 (1985). Although the record does not reveal the exact dimensions of the small zip loc bag of marijuana, the trial court saw it when the exhibit was identified and admitted into evidence, and there is no reason to think the officers discovered it in an area of the purse that could not have contained ammunition. Nor does it matter that the search of appellant's purse was justified by the arrest of another passenger. If the search of a vehicle is authorized incident to an arrest, officers may search containers in the passenger compartment without regard to ownership. Staten v. United States, 562 A.2d 90, 91-92 (D.C.1989) (upon arrest of driver, police could search locked glove compartment of vehicle, although car was owned by passenger). In Staten we explained: Third-party ownership of the auto or `containers' therein . . . should not. . . bar the police from searching them in the same manner as if they were owned by the arrestee. 562 A.2d at 92. See United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 224-25, 235-36, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985) (when officers saw butt of revolver protruding from underneath the passenger's seat, they had probable cause to arrest passenger and, pursuant to New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), could search interior of car owned by driver, including a bag in the back seat; discovery of additional firearms gave probable cause to arrest driver). Indeed, Gant acknowledged that  Belton searches authorize police officers to search not just the passenger compartment but every purse, briefcase, or other container within that space. Gant, 129 S.Ct. at 1720 (emphasis added). Staten applied the original justifications for searches incident to arrest (concerns for officer safety and preventing destruction of evidence), which do not apply to the facts of this case, see supra note 3. However, the portion of Staten on which we now focusaddressing the permissible scope of a search incident to arrestis equally applicable when the search is justified by the new rationale adopted in Gant reason[] to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. 129 S.Ct. at 1721. Gant reaffirms that, in many cases (and we conclude this is one of them), the offense of arrest will supply a basis for searching the passenger compartment of an arrestee's vehicle and any containers therein. Id. at 1719. Whether the warrantless search of an automobile is conducted incident to arrest, or is justified instead by probable cause, see United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982), [7] the police may search all containers that might conceal the object of the search. Ross, 456 U.S. at 817-25, 102 S.Ct. 2157. [8] In Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 119 S.Ct. 1297, 143 L.Ed.2d 408 (1999), where there was probable cause to believe there were illegal drugs in the car[,] id. at 300, 119 S.Ct. 1297, the Supreme Court upheld the search of a passenger's purse: [P]olice officers with probable cause to search a car may inspect passengers' belongings found in the car that are capable of concealing the object of the search. Id. at 307, 119 S.Ct. 1297. When there is probable cause to search for contraband in a car, it is reasonable for police officers . . . to examine packages and containers without a showing of individualized probable cause for each one[,] id. at 302, 119 S.Ct. 1297, and without qualification as to ownership. Id. at 301, 119 S.Ct. 1297. Indeed, [e]ffective law enforcement would be appreciably impaired without the ability to search a passenger's personal belongings when there is reason to believe contraband or evidence of criminal wrongdoing is hidden in the car. Id. at 304, 119 S.Ct. 1297. As the Court reasoned in Houghton, [i]f the rule of law that Ross announced were limited to contents belonging to the driver, or contents other than those belonging to passengers, one would have expected that substantial limitation to be expressed. Id., 526 U.S. at 301-02, 119 S.Ct. 1297. The same may be said about Gant. Nothing in Gant suggests that a restriction based on ownership of a container has been superimposed upon the search of a vehicle incident to arrest. Common sense counsels against imposing any such limitation. It would be impractical to always require police to sort out who owns which containers on the scene of each and every vehicle search. Moreover, in many circumstances, ownership does not determine where evidence may be found. As the Court cautioned in Houghton, once a passenger's property exception to car searches became widely known, one would expect passenger-confederates to claim everything as their own. And one would anticipate a bog of litigation. . . involving such questions as whether the officer should have believed a passenger's claim of ownership, whether he should have inferred ownership from various objective factors, whether he had probable cause to believe that the passenger was a confederate, or to believe that the driver might have introduced the contraband into the package with or without the passenger's knowledge. Houghton, 526 U.S. at 305-06, 119 S.Ct. 1297. [9] Because determinations of `reasonableness' under the Fourth Amendment must take account of these practical realities, id. at 306, 119 S.Ct. 1297, we reaffirm our holding in Staten that, during the search of a passenger compartment incident to the arrest of a recent occupant, containers may be searched without regard to ownership. [10] In this case, the police properly searched appellant's purse incident to the arrest of the front seat passenger for carrying a pistol without a license. [11]