Opinion ID: 1873366
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Second Search

Text: ¶ 43 For purposes of this part of the opinion, we assume that Officer Garcia searched the canister and seized its contents during his second search of the defendant's bedroom and that the officers' presence in the home was lawful. ¶ 44 The record offers little information regarding what happened during the second search of the bedroom. Officer Garcia testified that he discovered the canister and contraband during his second search of the bedroom while he was looking under the bed. ¶ 45 The defendant was arrested in the living room. The parties do not dispute that the police had probable cause to arrest the defendant for obstructing an officer. The State relies on the search incident to an arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement to justify the second search of the bedroom. ¶ 46 The State's brief seems to assume that if the second warrantless search of the bedroom falls within an exception to the warrant requirement, the search of the canister and seizure of its contents during the second search of the bedroom also fall within an exception to the warrant requirement. ¶ 47 The circuit court concluded that the search of the bedroom was a valid search pursuant to an arrest. ¶ 48 The scope of what is conventionally termed the search incident to arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement was set forth in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969). In Chimel, the United States Supreme Court held that a lawful arrest creates a situation justifying a contemporaneous, warrantless search of the arrestee's person and the area within his immediate control. [24] It is a search of the area within the arrestee's immediate control that is at issue here. ¶ 49 This exception to the warrant requirement serves two primary governmental interests. One is the need to detect and remove any weapons that the arrestee might try to use to resist arrest or escape. Another is the need to prevent the destruction or concealment of evidence. [25] ¶ 50 Significantly, while the Chimel rule states that it is reasonable to search an area near the arrestee, the rule does not permit a warrantless search of an area so broad as to be unrelated to the protective purposes of the search. [26] Thus, Chimel defines the area of `immediate control' within which the police may reasonably search incident to arrest as `the area from within which [the arrestee] might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.' [27] ¶ 51 The State contends that Officer Garcia's second search of the defendant's bedroom was justified as a search incident to arrest under the Chimel standard because the bedroom was within [the defendant's] immediate presence or control when he barricaded himself in the bedroom and was out of the police officers' sight. [28] ¶ 52 Although the bedroom might be considered within the defendant's immediate presence or control for Chimel purposes, we do not agree with the State that the second search of the bedroom was a search incident to arrest under the circumstances of the present case. The second search occurred after the defendant had been removed from the home. [29] The defendant could not have gained possession of a weapon or destructible evidence from his bedroom when the defendant was not even inside the home when the bedroom and canister were searched and the contents of the canister seized. ¶ 53 The State relies upon State v. Murdock, 155 Wis.2d 217, 227, 455 N.W.2d 618 (1990), to support the second search of the bedroom under the Chimel standard even though the defendant in the instant case had been removed from the home. Murdock does not authorize the search of the bedroom at issue in the present case as a search incident to arrest. ¶ 54 In Murdock, law enforcement officers performed a warrantless search of an area immediately surrounding the defendant. The search was contemporaneous with handcuffing the defendant. [30] The search involved a pantry-type closet connected to the room in which the arrest was made. The court upheld the search notwithstanding the defendant's restrained condition and apparent inability to access the areas immediately surrounding him. The Murdock court was unwilling to say that a defendant who is arrested in and remains in his or her dwelling as the search is conducted could never regain access to areas in his or her immediate control at the time of arrest. [31] ¶ 55 The Murdock court also determined that even when an arrestee is handcuffed, we cannot require an officer to weigh the arrestee's probability of success in obtaining a weapon or destructible evidence hidden within his or her immediate control.  [32] According to the Murdock court, Chimel authorizes a limited, contemporaneous search for weapons and evidence in the area surrounding the arrestee. Its sanction of a contemporaneous, limited search protects the individual's privacy interests in areas outside his or her immediate control and also serves valid societal interests in protecting officer safety and preserving evidence. [33] ¶ 56 The facts in the present case do not resemble those in Murdock. In the instant case, unlike in Murdock, the defendant was not in his home when the bedroom was searched. The defendant had already been removed from the home at the time of the search. No possibility existed that the defendant could obtain a weapon or destroy evidence in the home. The purposes of the search incident to arrest were achieved by removing the defendant from his home. By removing the defendant from the home, the officers eliminated the need to detect and remove any weapons that the arrestee might try to use to resist arrest or escape or to prevent the destruction or concealment of evidence. ¶ 57 Neither Chimel nor Murdock governs the instant case, in which the defendant was removed from the home before the search supposedly incident to the arrest. ¶ 58 At oral argument, the State suggested that the law enforcement officers were justified in conducting the second warrantless search of the defendant's bedroom because it was highly likely that persons other than the defendant would destroy evidence inside the defendant's bedroom had the officers waited to obtain a warrant before searching for the evidence. Nothing in the record supports speculation that other persons posed risks. Nothing in the record suggests that the law enforcement officers could not have maintained the status quo and could not have obtained a search warrant promptly upon a showing of probable cause to believe illicit drugs were in the home. ¶ 59 Accordingly, we determine that the second search of the bedroom does not fall within the search incident to arrest exception to the search warrant requirement. If the canister was searched and the contents seized during the second search of the defendant's bedroom, the search and seizure were not within the State's claimed search incident to arrest exception to the search warrant requirement. The physical evidence in the canister is therefore the fruit of a search that violated the Fourth Amendment and must be suppressed.