Opinion ID: 1451006
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Trial Court Correctly Refused To Suppress Evidence Seized From Henry's Car Because His Recent Occupancy Of The Car Rendered Valid A Search Of It Pursuant to Henry's Arrest.

Text: Henry next contends that the trial court erred by refusing to suppress the evidence seized from his automobile. As noted above, the officers searched the car after they had arrested Henry for drug and paraphernalia possession and in the car they discovered ammunition for the handgun later found in the open lot. The trial court ruled that under Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615, 124 S.Ct. 2127, 158 L.Ed.2d 905 (2004), the car search was a valid incident of Henry's arrest and therefore that the seized ammunition was admissible. Henry contends that the trial court misapplied Thornton or, again, that Kentucky law precludes the car search in this case even if federal law does not. With both of these contentions, we disagree. As Henry notes, in New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), the United States Supreme Court 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. Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. at 617, 124 S.Ct. 2127. In Thornton v. United States, supra , the Court held that  Belton governs even when an officer does not make contact until the person arrested has left the vehicle. 541 U.S. at 617, 124 S.Ct. 2127. Consequently, we recently held that once an officer lawfully arrests an automobile's recent occupant, the officer may search the automobile's passenger compartment as a search incident to arrest. Rainey v. Commonwealth, 197 S.W.3d 89, 93 (Ky.2006) (citing Thornton ). See also Penman v. Commonwealth, 194 S.W.3d 237 (Ky.2006) (same). In this case, the officers observed Henry leave his vehicle and moments later stopped him, discovered the crack pipe, arrested him for drug possession, secured him in the back of the police cruiser, and searched his vehicle. The trial court ruled that when the officers contacted him Henry was a recent occupant of his vehicle and that under Thornton their search of the vehicle was a lawful incident of Henry's arrest. Henry contends that because at the time of the search he was secured in the back of the police cruiser and could not reach into his vehicle either to arm himself or to destroy evidence, the grounds for a Belton search did not exist and the search of his vehicle was therefore unlawful. We rejected this argument in Rainey, supra , noting that the arrestee was similarly detained prior to the search in Thornton , and yet the Supreme Court held that  Belton govern[ed]. Like Rainey , this case is on all fours with Thornton , and thus we agree with the trial court and the Court of Appeals that the search of Henry's vehicle did not violate his rights under the federal Constitution. Henry next contends that even if there was no federal violation, the search of his vehicle violated his right under Section Ten of the Kentucky Constitution to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Again, however, the general rule is that we will construe Section Ten consonant with the Fourth Amendment absent a compelling reason in our Constitution, tradition, and precedents to diverge from it. Holbrook v. Knopf, 847 S.W.2d 52 (Ky. 1992). Henry has failed to identify such a reason. He relies on Clark v. Commonwealth, 868 S.W.2d 101 (Ky.App.1993), in which the Court of Appeals held that Belton did not apply where the arrest was for a traffic violation and where, as in this case, the arrestee was secured in the police cruiser prior to the search. Recent United States Supreme Court decisions have undermined both of those holdings. In Arkansas v. Sullivan, 532 U.S. 769, 121 S.Ct. 1876, 149 L.Ed.2d 994 (2001), the Court observed that Belton applies to traffic violation arrests. And, as noted, in Thornton v. United States, supra , the Court applied Belton to recent occupant arrests even where the arrestee was secured prior to the search. Clark is thus no longer consistent with Fourth Amendment law. In effect, Henry contends that even if Clark's interpretation of federal law proved erroneous it remains a valid interpretation of Section Ten of the Kentucky Constitution. Clark did not discuss Section Ten, however, much less purport to distinguish it from the federal law at issue in Belton , and so Clark does not provide the sort of compelling reason we have required before departing from federal precedent in construing comparable state constitutional protections. In Rainey v. Commonwealth, supra , accordingly, we rejected a similar argument based on Clark and held that, like the Fourth Amendment, Section Ten permits a vehicle search incident to the arrest of a recent occupant even where the arrestee has been secured away from the vehicle. Clark having thus been rendered obsolete, we hereby expressly overrule it. Finally, Henry notes Justice Scalia's concurring opinion in Thornton , in which he discusses the tension between that case and Belton . In Belton , the Court justified the auto search incident to arrest largely as a means of preventing the arrestee from arming himself or destroying evidence. That rationale could not justify the search in Thornton , Justice Scalia argued, because once the arrestee had been secured in the police cruiser those dangers were virtually extinguished. In those circumstances a better rule than the carte blanche Belton search, Justice Scalia asserted, is one limiting vehicle searches to cases where there is reason to believe that the vehicle contains evidence of the crime of arrest, 541 U.S. at 629, 124 S.Ct. 2127. Henry urges us to adopt this limitation pursuant to Section Ten, but we decline to do so at this time, anticipating Supreme Court guidance in the near future and recognizing that the limitation would make no real difference in this case. [1] Indeed, even were we to adopt Justice Scalia's approach, the officers would have been justified in searching Henry's car for additional evidence related to the crime of arrest, possession of drug paraphernalia.
Finally, as noted above, both of Henry's indictments included illegal possession of a firearm charges based on Henry's possession of the .45 caliber handgun; first when he stole the gun in January 2004 and again when he threw it into the vacant lot in February of that year. Henry's guilty plea simply recites the indictments with the result that in both cases he was convicted of the firearm offense. Henry maintains that the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy precludes his double conviction for what amounts to a single offense. We agree. As Henry correctly observes, uninterrupted possession of the same contraband over a period of time is but one offense constituting a continuing course of conduct, precluding convictions of multiple offenses for possession of the same contraband on different dates. Fulcher v. Commonwealth, 149 S.W.3d 363, 376 (Ky.2004). Because Henry's possession of the handgun was not interrupted by legal process it thus constituted a single offense for which Henry should not have been indicted and convicted a second time. Henry did not raise this issue in the trial court, however, and the Court of Appeals ruled that his plea bargain effected a waiver of the constitutional right. Although we agree with the Court of Appeals that an express waiver of one's right to avoid double jeopardy in exchange for some benefit would preclude a subsequent double jeopardy challenge, there was no express waiver here. Moreover, the United States Supreme Court has held that where, as here, the double jeopardy violation is clear from the record without the need for additional fact finding, a guilty plea does not preclude subsequent relief. United States v. Broce, 488 U.S. 563, 109 S.Ct. 757, 102 L.Ed.2d 927 (1989) (citing Menna v. New York, 423 U.S. 61, 96 S.Ct. 241, 46 L.Ed.2d 195 (1975)). We agree with Henry, therefore, that his second conviction for illegal firearm possession in case number 04-CR-00884 must be reversed.