Opinion ID: 1176846
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Decisions by Oregon Court of Appeals and by United States Supreme Court.

Text: Under these facts the Oregon Court of Appeals held that even if the seizure of defendant's billfold at the time of his arrest was valid, the subsequent search of the billfold and seizure of the plastic bags of drugs was invalid. In reaching that result a majority of that court held, among other things, that under the facts of this case and the previous decisions by this court the search of the billfold could not be justified as made for purposes of identification and was too remote in time and place to be part of a search incident to arrest; that the search was not made as a part of an inventory during the booking process; that even in such an inventory search it would not have been proper to search the contents of the billfold as a closed container and that, in any event, the police had no right to seize the drugs because there was no showing that they had probable cause to believe the powdered substances were illegal drugs. See 15 Or. App. 118, 127, 515 P.2d 195 (1973). [2] Shortly after that decision by the Oregon Court of Appeals, the United States Supreme Court, in United States v. Robinson, supra , held that because a search incident to a lawful custodial arrest is a traditional exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, particularly when the search is made of a person, rather than of the area under his control, it follows that upon the making of a lawful custodial arrest a search of a person as an incident to the arrest requires no additional justification and may include a full search of the person and the seizure of not only weapons, but drugs as `fruits, instrumentalities, or contraband' probative of criminal conduct, despite the fact that the arrest was made on some other charge  in that case for operating [an automobile] after revocation [of driver license] and obtaining a permit by misrepresentation. To the same effect, see also the companion decision in Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U.S. 260, 94 S.Ct. 488, 38 L.Ed.2d 456 (1973), and the subsequent decision in United States v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800, 807, 94 S.Ct. 1234, 1239, 39 L.Ed.2d 771, 778 (1974), in which the same rule was applied to a search of defendant's clothing made some time after an arrest and after the defendant was in jail, holding that such a search may be made, and without a warrant, even though a substantial period of time had elapsed between the arrest and the subsequent search. More recently, in State v. Williams, Or. App., 99 Adv.Sh. 305, 307-319, 522 P.2d 1213 (1974), Chief Judge Schwab of the Oregon Court of Appeals, in a specially concurring opinion, discussed the differences and inconsistencies between what he referred to as the (new) federal rule and the Oregon rule, as established by previous decisions of this court, and expressed the view that the Court of Appeals was bound by the decisions of this court, whether based upon an interpretation of Article I, § 9, of the Oregon Constitution or upon its own interpretation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. [3] Under these circumstances it is appropriate for this court to restate the rules of law to be applied by the Oregon courts in cases involving the search of a person as an incident to a valid custodial arrest. Before undertaking to do so we would emphasize that this is not a case involving the search of a house, automobile, or other place within the control of a defendant at the time of his arrest and as an incident to the arrest. See State v. Goldstein et al., 111 Or. 221, 224-225, 224 P. 1087 (1924). See also State v. Krogness, 238 Or. 135, 146, 388 P.2d 120 (1964), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 992, 84 S.Ct. 1919, 12 L.Ed.2d 1045 (1964).