Opinion ID: 1917628
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Unsettled Law

Text: The government argues that the police officers who seized the incriminating evidence from Debruhl's car satisfied the good-faith test by taking objectively reasonable [84] action in doing so. They adhered, says the government, to the traditional understanding of the Supreme Court's authoritative decision in Belton and this court's application of that authority in Harris [85] and Staten [86] case law in effect at the time of Debruhl's arrest a few months before Gant was decided. Even according to Justice Stevens for the Gant majority, notes the government, Belton has been widely understood to allow a vehicle search incident to the arrest of a recent occupant even if there is no possibility the arrestee could gain access to the vehicle at the time of the search. [87] Therefore, says the government, exclusion of the evidence from Debruhl's trial would not deter police misconduct because the officers, applying the correct law at the timeindeed, engaging in a practice they never expected to be invalidated [88] did nothing wrong. Counsel for the government was asked at oral argument whether the universe of appellate opinions that yields the settled law for this case is limited to the jurisprudence of this court (as we have interpreted Belton ), or embraces the larger universe that includes relevant case law from other jurisdictions, as well as Supreme Court developments. Counsel replied that this court is the proper source of settled law for good-faith purposes (although he acknowledged that the relevant universe would not necessarily be limited to local case law if it was so obviously incorrect that the police should favor sound law found elsewherea remote possibility, he said, not presented here). We agree with the government: we need not definitively resolve how broadly the universe of settled law might extend in unusual circumstances; we are satisfied that Belton, as interpreted by this court as of the time of the officers' search, is the law on which this case should turn. [89] We do not believe that our case law supports the government's position in light of the strict requirements for appraising settled law for good-faith exception purposes. If we focus carefully on this court's Belton decisions before Gant, it is possible to saycontrary to the government's contention that this court might well have held the search of Debruhl's car unlawful and the evidence inadmissible. We say this because Debruhl's facts differ from those in Staten and Harris in a legally significant way, indeed in the very way that became determinative in Gant. In neither Staten nor Harris had all the occupants been removed from the car and secured with handcuffs before the search; they were, as we have noted, pure Belton cases, legally indistinguishable from Belton on the facts. [90] In Debruhl's case, like Gant's, all occupants of the car had been removed and secured before the search, a factual distinction from Belton which, as we have repeated, caused three federal circuits before Gant to rule that Belton did not apply. [91] Therefore, if Debruhl's counsel had litigated his motion to suppress before Gant was decided, counsel might well have persuaded the Superior Court, and then this court, that on the facts here the law was unsettled in this jurisdiction; that Staten and Harris were therefore not controlling; and that in light of the case law from other jurisdictions reflecting Chimel's limitation on Belton's reach, Belton should not be read to permit the search of Debruhl's car. [92] (In this hypothetical case, of course, as explained in Part IV., the officers would have relied on a mistake of law, and the good-faith exception would not have applied.) We are not saying to a certainty that, before Gant, every division of this court would unanimously have found an unlawful search based on the facts here. We are saying, however, that the facts matter in determining what is settled law, and that the police officer's reliance on Staten and Harris on pure Belton  casesto justify the search of Debruhl's car would have been reliance on relevant but not on settled law; the case was one of first impression in this jurisdiction. All things considered, therefore, it is not possible to conclude that Officers Eglund and Cepeda relied on settled law authorizing their search of Debruhl's car. Even if, as Justice Stevens acknowledged, Belton may have been widely understood [93] to allow warrantless searches of vehicle passenger compartments without limitation incident to an arrest, momentum against such a sweeping interpretation on facts such as those in Debruhl's case had been accelerating in the courts for years before his arrest. And no decision by this court had held that a police officer had a right, under Belton, to search a car after all its occupants had been removed and secured.