Opinion ID: 3029843
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: search incident to arrest; the

Text: HATCHBACK AREA [6] Mayo finally contends that officers were not entitled to search the hatchback area of his vehicle, where some of the stolen mail was found, as part of a search incident to his arrest. Our approach to this issue is informed by New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460 (1981), which held that officers may conduct a search of the entire passenger compartment of a vehicle, as well as any containers within it, as an incident to the arrest of one of the vehicle’s occupants. Of particular importance for our purposes is the emphasis the Court placed 10 Mayo contends that he was arrested for refusing to consent to the search of his automobile. He relies on Gasho v. United States, 39 F.3d 1420, 1431-32 (9th Cir. 1994), which held that refusal of consent to search did not support probable cause to arrest. Here, however, the probable cause was supplied by the felonious attachment of a stolen sticker to an expired license plate. Where an arrest is supported by probable cause, a subjective intent of the officers to conduct a search is irrelevant, so long as the search is not conducted in an extraordinary manner. See United States v. Hudson, 100 F.3d 1409, 1416 (9th Cir. 1996). There was nothing extraordinary about the search of Mayo’s vehicle. UNITED STATES v. MAYO 741 on the need for a workable and straightforward rule to identify the area that may be searched without requiring an individualized factual inquiry into whether the arrestee likely could access the area for the purpose of grabbing a weapon or destroying evidence. See id. at 459-60. The Court therefore relied on the “generalization that articles inside the relatively narrow compass of the passenger compartment of an automobile are in fact generally, even if not inevitably, within ‘the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m].’ ” Id. at 460 (quoting Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763 (1969)). The Court deemed it appropriate to rely on this generalization to authorize search of the entire passenger compartment “[i]n order to establish the workable rule this category of cases requires.” Id.; see also Thornton v. United States, 124 S. Ct. 2127, 2132 (2004) (“The need for a clear rule, readily understood by police officers and not depending on differing estimates of what items were or were not within reach of an arrestee at any particular moment, justifies the sort of generalization which Belton enunciated.”). [7] Our task, therefore, is to determine a workable rule, consistent with the regime of Belton, to govern searches of the cargo area behind the rear seat of a hatchback vehicle.11 We conclude that the hatchback area meets the criterion for automobile searches under Belton; it is “generally, even if not inevitably,” accessible to an arrestee from the passenger area of the vehicle. 453 U.S. at 460. Contrary to Mayo’s contention, the hatchback area is much more easily viewed as part of the passenger compartment than as the equivalent of a conventional vehicle trunk.12 Accordingly, an officer conducting 11 We recognize that recent occupants, following their arrest and restraint, are frequently in no position to gain access to any portion of the passenger compartment of the vehicle, but this fact does not preclude the application of the Belton rule. See Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2132. As one Justice observed, application of the rule in this context brings to mind “the mythical arrestee possessed of the skill of Houdini and the strength of Hercules.” Id. at 2134 (Scalia, J., concurring) (internal quotation omitted). 12 As in Belton, our ruling does not extend to the trunk of a vehicle. See 453 U.S. at 460-61 n.4. 742 UNITED STATES v. MAYO a search incident to the arrest of an occupant of the vehicle may search the hatchback area. We adopt that workable rule for this circuit. Our decision echoes that of other circuits that have addressed comparable searches. United States v. Caldwell, 97 F.3d 1063, 1067 (8th Cir. 1996); United States v. Doward, 41 F.3d 789, 794 (1st Cir. 1994); see also United States v. Olguin-Rivera, 168 F.3d 1203, 1205-07 (10th Cir. 1999) (allowing search of covered cargo area of a sport utility vehicle); United States v. Pino, 855 F.2d 357, 364 (6th Cir. 1988) (allowing search of cargo area of mid-size station wagon). [8] Mayo urges us to draw a distinction between covered and uncovered hatchback cargo areas. We see no principled distinction, however. A covered hatchback area is generally, if not inevitably, accessible from the passenger compartment, albeit with some difficulty in some instances. Our ruling that the hatchback area can be searched should not be clouded by the interposition of a cover, any more than it would be by the interposition of a locked container. See Olguin-Rivera, 168 F.3d at 1206 (citing Belton, 453 U.S. at 460). Thus, officers may search the hatchback cargo area “whether covered or uncovered.” Id. at 1207. [9] We conclude that, under Belton and its progeny, the officers here properly searched the entire passenger compartment of Mayo’s automobile, including the hatchback cargo area, as an incident to the arrest of Mayo, a recent occupant of the vehicle.13 AFFIRMED. 13 In his opening brief, Mayo contended that Belton did not apply because he was outside of his vehicle when the officers arrived. Subsequently, however, the Supreme Court decided Thornton, which held that the Belton rule also applied to recent occupants of the vehicle. Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2132.