Opinion ID: 1273782
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Compliance with the Policy/Bad Faith

Text: Hall next argues Officer Kasper violated the Fourth Amendment by conducting the inventory search in bad faith, as evidenced by his failure to comply with the Policy in several respects. See, e.g., United States v. Rowland, 341 F.3d 774, 780 (8th Cir.2003) (holding that the searching officers failed to follow [the department's] own procedures by failing to make a record of all property within the inventoried vehicle). The district court found that the searching officers complied with the Policy in all respects. Hall first urges us to find that the district court's findings of fact regarding Officer Kasper's compliance with the Policy are clearly erroneous. Hall argues that the government was not able to prove that Officer Kasper issued Hall a ticket, as required by the Policy, and that Officer Kasper did not follow Policy instructions regarding closed containers in the vehicle. Hall's argument fails for two reasons. First, the district court found Officer Kasper credible, and a district court's credibility determinations are virtually unassailable on appeal. United States v. Watson, 479 F.3d 607, 611 (8th Cir.2007) (internal quotation omitted). Second, even if we were to determine that the district court's findings of fact are clearly erroneous, the failure to abide by standardized procedures does not necessarily require the suppression of evidence discovered in Hall's vehicle. There must be something else; something to suggest the police raised `the inventory-search banner in an after-the-fact attempt to justify' a simple investigatory search for incriminating evidence. Rowland, 341 F.3d at 780 (quoting Marshall, 986 F.2d at 1175). That something else is not present here. The Hospital asked Officer Kasper to remove Hall's vehicle. Officer Kasper thus had a legitimate reason to treat the case as a private-property tow, and acted accordingly. Pursuant to the Policy, Officer Kasper called a tow company and conducted an inventory search. In doing so, he completed a CRPD vehicle impounding report, cataloguing both the lawful and incriminating contents of the vehicle. Cf. Id. 341 F.3d at 782 (finding an inventory search invalid when law enforcement sifted through the vehicle's contents searching only for and recording only incriminating evidence). Officers Kasper testified that he knew Hall's vehicle was linked to the manufacture of methamphetamine and that the reason officers were securing the vehicle was because of this suspicion. As we stated above, however, provided that the search is conducted according to standard procedures, officers may keep their eyes open for potentially incriminating items that they might discover in the course of an inventory search, as long as their sole purpose is not to investigate crime. Marshall, 986 F.2d at 1176. The search here was conducted pursuant to the Policy, and, looking at the totality of the circumstances, we find no evidence that the searching officers acted in bad faith.