Opinion ID: 2974181
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Suppression of Cocaine

Text: Two Metropolitan Nashville Police Department officers, Jessie Burchwell and Troy Donegan, testified at the suppression hearing. Their testimony largely tracked the factual recitation presented earlier. At the close of the hearing, the district court denied the motion to suppress the cocaine based on the following reasoning: Defendant had been arrested. He could have been arrested for a variety of crimes at that point. Probable cause certainly existed for the arrest for, first of all, possession of a large quantity of cocaine. . . . The Government agents had been working with an informant for several days. . . . .... -5- No. 05-5257 United States v. Gomez So at that point, they had probable cause to arrest him for possession of cocaine and conspiracy. . . . The officers cornered the Defendant’s vehicle when he stopped for a stop light. . . . At that point he rammed the car in front of him and the car behind him, full knowing that these were officers attempting to apprehend him. So at that point we have assault on an officer, another crime that has been committed right in the presence of the officers who luckily escaped injury. . . . .... . . . The Defendant was properly under arrest and under . . . the Thornton decision from the Supreme Court in May of this year, as a recent occupant of the vehicle, the search of the vehicle would have been justified. Although not addressed by defense counsel, the district court correctly recognized that Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615 (2004), controls the resolution of this issue. In Thornton, the Supreme Court extended the authority to search to situations in which the person arrested is no longer the occupant of the vehicle subject to search: In New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), we held that when a police officer has made a lawful custodial arrest of an occupant of an automobile, the Fourth Amendment allows the officer to search the passenger compartment of that vehicle as a contemporaneous incident of arrest. We have granted certiorari twice before to determine whether Belton’s rule is limited to situations where the officer makes contact with the occupant while the occupant is inside the vehicle, or whether it applies as well when the officer first makes contact with the arrestee after the latter has stepped out of his vehicle. We did not reach the merits in either of those two cases. Arizona v. Gant, 540 U.S. 963, 124 S.Ct. 461, 157 L.Ed.2d 308 (2003) (vacating and remanding for reconsideration in light of State v. Dean, 206 Ariz. 158, 76 P.3d 429 (2003)); Florida v. Thomas, 532 U.S. 774, 121 S.Ct. 1905, 150 L.Ed.2d 1 (2001) (dismissing for lack of jurisdiction). We now reach that question and conclude that Belton governs even when an officer does not make contact until the person arrested has left the vehicle. -6- No. 05-5257 United States v. Gomez 541 U.S. at 617. This court has affirmed the denial of a motion to suppress based upon Thornton, see, e.g., United States v. Herndon, 393 F.3d 665, 668 (6th Cir.), vacated on other grounds and remanded for resentencing, 125 S.Ct. 2279 (2005), and we now do so again.