Court Opinion

ID: 9796545
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:59:43.720565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:34.382511
License: Public Domain

OPINION

EASTAUGH, Justice.
I. INTRODUCTION
Kirk Crawford was arrested for reckless driving. After Crawford was removed from his vehicle, handcuffed, and placed in the backseat of a police car, an Anchorage police officer searched the unlocked center console *256of Crawford’s vehicle and found a small amount of crack cocaine. Crawford claimed the warrantless search of the console was unconstitutional. The court of appeals upheld the search on the theory the officer had a reasonable and articulable basis for his suspicion that the console contained a weapon. We hold that the search was reasonable because the unlocked center console of a vehicle is an item immediately associated with the driver’s person. As such, an unlocked center console can be searched incident to arrest without a warrant if it was within the arrestee’s immediate control at the time of the arrest and the search was reasonably contemporaneous with the arrest. We therefore affirm.
II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
A. Background
Kirk Crawford was driving northbound on I Street in Anchorage in his Chevrolet Tahoe on March 23, 2000.1 Anchorage Police Department Officer Christopher Rítala, sitting in his police car on the west side of I Street at the corner of 15th Avenue, saw Crawford’s vehicle approaching and estimated that it was traveling about fifty miles per hour, twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. He radioed Officer Indrek Oruoja, who was positioned on the west side of I Street at the corner of 14th Avenue. Officer Oruoja got a radar reading of fifty miles per hour on Crawford’s vehicle. Officer Oruoja turned on his lights and siren and followed Crawford. Officer Oruoja testified that he saw Crawford change from the far right lane to the far left lane, accelerate, then change back to the far right lane without using signals. Officer Oruoja testified that the speeding and erratic lane-changing made him think that “something [was] going on with this guy” and he decided to arrest Crawford for reckless driving.
Officer Oruoja caught up with Crawford just before 9th Avenue; Crawford pulled over in traffic on I Street. With his vehicle loudspeaker, Officer Oruoja instructed Crawford to pull onto 9th Avenue to clear traffic. Officer Oruoja testified that during this time Crawford repeatedly glanced in his rearview mirror and was fidgeting in the driver’s seat as if moving objects around. Officer Oruoja observed that Crawford was specifically making motions down to his lap area and to his right. Officer Oruoja testified that his observation of those acts concerned him “from a standpoint of safety.” He was concerned that Crawford could either be concealing or producing a weapon.
Officer Oruoja testified that, as he approached Crawford’s vehicle, Crawford “appeared to be very nervous, kind of agitated, jumpy.” Officer Oruoja classified Crawford’s nervousness as “different,” striking him as “suspicious instead of just being nervous.” Officer Oruoja testified that he was worried about weapons at that point.
Officer Oruoja opened Crawford’s driver-side door to “get a clear view of his hands and what was going on inside the vehicle.” He testified that Crawford continued to act nervous so he asked Crawford to get out of the vehicle; the officer guided Crawford by his jacket sleeve and Crawford complied. As Crawford got out, Officer Oruoja saw the handle of a baseball bat wedged between the driver’s seat and the center console.
Officer Oruoja had called for assistance when he began pursuing Crawford, and Officer Rítala responded. Officer Rítala and Officer Oruoja restrained Crawford with handcuffs. Officer Oruoja told Crawford that he was under arrest for reckless driving. About the time Crawford was being put into Officer Oruoja’s police car, Officer Oruoja told Officer Rítala that he had seen a baseball bat in the car. Officer Rítala testified that he kept an eye on Crawford in the backseat of Officer Oruoja’s patrol car while Officer Oruoja returned to Crawford’s vehicle to search it. Both Officer Rítala and Officer Oruoja admitted that Crawford was handcuffed in the back seat of the police car when Officer Oruoja first searched Crawford’s car. Officer Oruoja testified that, before searching Crawford’s vehicle, he had no indication that Crawford had committed any crime other than reckless driving. Officer Oruoja testi*257fied that he suspected Crawford had weapons based on his experience and that he “routinely” found firearms on people or concealed in vehicles in similar situations.
Officer Oruoja testified that he searched “[t]he console, underneath the driver’s seat ... anything within immediate reach of [Crawford]” to look for a weapon. He explained that, as he approached where Crawford had been seated, he noticed that the lid to the center console was ajar and that some currency was hanging out. When he first saw the compartment ajar, Officer Oruoja was thinking that “there could be some sort of a weapon inside.” He testified that, in his experience, many center consoles have multiple compartments of various sizes, but that he can conceal his service weapon in his personal vehicle’s center console. Officer Oruoja opened the console and saw cash and what he recognized to be a chunk of crack cocaine and a metal rod commonly used to smoke crack cocaine. He did not find any weapons.
Crawford was taken before a magistrate and then incarcerated in the Cook Inlet Pretrial Facility. An inventory search of his person revealed a used glass crack pipe in his jacket, a straw with cocaine residue, a $20 bill containing seven rocks of cocaine, and $331 in cash.
B. Prior Proceedings
Crawford was indicted for possession of a schedule IIA controlled substance, a class C felony. He moved to suppress the drug evidence, arguing that the search did not fall within any of the exceptions to the warrant requirement. The state’s opposition contended that the search of Crawford’s vehicle was justified under the search incident to lawful arrest exception to the warrant requirement.
The superior court heard the testimony of three witnesses: Officer Ritala, Officer Oruo-ja, and Crawford. Superior Court Judge pro tem. John R. Lohff stated that Chimel v. California2 applied the doctrine of search incident to lawful arrest to vehicle searches and authorized a search of “the arrestee’s person and the area ‘within his immediate control’ [3] — construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” (Citation added.) The superior court noted that Dunbar v. State4 “approved of a search of a glove compartment in an investigative stop of suspects in an armed robbery” and found that Dunbar “clearly stated the same limits applied there that would also apply in a search incident to arrest.” The superior court held that containers such as a glove box or console could be searched if they were “within the suspect[’]s ‘immediate control’ ” It denied Crawford’s motion to suppress.
Crawford pleaded no contest to fourth degree misconduct involving a controlled substance and appealed the denial of his suppression motion.5 On appeal, the court of appeals recognized that an officer can “search the area within the arrestee’s reach at the time the arrest was made” even after “the arrestee has been removed from the immediate area, or has been restrained, or both, at the time the search is conducted.”6 But the court of appeals stated that “special rules ... govern police authority to open and search closed containers that they find within this area.”7 The court held that a center console was not an object “immediately associated with the person” and thus “a warrant-less search of the console is permissible only if the police have reason to believe that it contains a weapon or that it contains evidence of the crime for which the driver has been arrested.”8 Because Crawford was ar*258rested for reckless driving,9 it reasoned that the search of his center console could be justified only if the arresting officer had “reason to believe that the console contained a weapon.”10 The court of appeals remanded to the superior court to “make findings as to whether there was an articulable and reasonable basis to believe that the center console of Crawford’s vehicle might contain a weapon.”11
The superior court found on remand that Officer Oruoja had an articulable and reasonable basis to conclude that the center console might contain a weapon. The court stated that “Crawford’s behavior justified a conclusion that he was dangerous to the public as a whole as well as to Officer Oruoja.” The court based its finding on Officer Oruoja’s experience as a patrol officer and his application of this experience when observing Crawford.
Crawford again appealed, contending that the superior court’s findings were not supported by the evidence.12 The court of appeals held that there was substantial evidence in the record to support the superior court’s findings.13 The court of appeals therefore held that the findings were not clearly erroneous and upheld the search as reasonable.14
Crawfoi'd filed a petition for hearing. We granted the petition and ordered full briefing on the merits and on the issue of whether Crawford’s center console was an item immediately associated with the person.15
III. DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
In reviewing a superior court’s denial of a motion to suppress, we view the facts in a light most favorable to upholding the ruling.16 Factual findings will not be disturbed unless they are clearly erroneous.17 Whether factual findings support the court’s legal conclusions is a question of law that we decide de novo.18 We can sustain a ruling on any theory supported by the record regardless of whether that theory formed the basis for the lower court’s decision.19
B. The Search of Crawford’s Center Console Was Constitutional.
A warrantless search is per se unreasonable unless it falls within one of the recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement.20 One of the four exceptions recognized in Alaska is search incident to lawful arrest.21 Search incident to lawful arrest allows the warrantless search of the area “ ‘within [the arrestee’s] immediate control’ ” at the time of the arrest to ensure officer safety and to preserve evidence related to the crime.22 But special rules govern when *259closed containers can be searched incident to a lawful arrest and without a warrant.23
Unless exigent circumstances exist, an officer must first seize items that are not “immediately associated with the person” and then obtain a search warrant to inspect their contents.24 In Metcalfe v. State, we quoted with approval the following passage from United States v. Chadwick:
Once law enforcement officers have reduced luggage or other personal property not immediately associated with the person of the arrestee to their exclusive control, and there is no longer any danger that the arrestee might gain access to the property to seize a weapon or destroy evidence, a search of that property is no longer an incident of the arrest. [25]
But when an item is “immediately associated with the person,” no exigency is required to search the item incident to arrest.26
The court of appeals ultimately upheld the search of Crawford’s center console because there was substantial evidence to support the superior court’s finding on remand that Officer Oruoja had a reasonable and articulable basis for his belief that the console might contain weapons.27 The court of appeals reasoned that this finding was necessary to justify the search because the court of appeals had previously determined that the console was not an item “immediately associated with the person.”28 We affirm the court of appeals’s decision affirming the superior court’s judgment29 but for the reason that the search of Crawford's center console was permissible because the console was an item immediately associated with Crawford’s person.
The court of appeals concluded that the center console in a vehicle is more akin to a briefcase, an item which is not immediately associated with the person,30 than a purse or jacket, items which are immediately associated with the person.31 Because the court of appeals determined that the console was not immediately associated with the person, it concluded that “when the police arrest the driver of a vehicle, they are not authorized to search the center console of that vehicle as a matter of course.”32
Crawford contends that this conclusion of the court of appeals is correct because “[t]he console of a vehicle is a permanent part of *260the vehicle. It cannot possibly be carried about or worn by a person.” The state argues that a vehicle’s console functions similarly to a purse and that “[g]iven the typical use of vehicle consoles and the fact that they are always in the immediate proximity of a driver, they should be classified as immediately associated with a person.”
We have previously interpreted the phrase “items immediately associated with the person” to mean that:
[C]ontainers found in clothing pockets may be searched. In our view ... containers such as purses which are often worn on the person and generally serve the same function as clothing pockets are also excepted from the strict exigency requirement. It would be possible, of course, to treat containers found in clothes pockets, such as billfolds, differently from items such as purses which are not carried in pockets but serve the same purpose. However, we can think of no reasons to justify such a distinction^[33]
In Hinkel, we referred to United States v. Berry for guidance in classifying which items are “immediately associated with the person.” 34 In Berry, the Seventh Circuit held that an attache case was not “immediately associated with the person.”35 The Seventh Circuit considered the attache case’s common usage and held that “a briefcase is not an item carried on an individual’s person in the sense that his clothing or items found in his pocket are.”36 The court reasoned that, unlike a purse, an attache case may not always be carried with the person but is more like luggage in that it is often out of a person’s reach — in Berry, the suspect had retrieved the attache case from the trunk of a car.37 The court also recognized that a suspect’s expectation of privacy diminishes after a lawful arrest, such that a search of the suspect’s person and pockets is reasonable.38 But the court held that the search of the interior of the attache case constituted a “ ‘far greater intrusion into Fourth Amendment values.’ ”39
Following the reasoning of Hinkel and Berry, we conclude here that a vehicle’s center console can be an item immediately associated with the driver’s person. When a driver is seated in the vehicle, the center console can “generally serve the same function as clothing pockets.”40 Like a pocket, the center console is commonly used to hold money, a cellular telephone, and personal hygiene items. Unlike a briefcase, which can be placed in the trunk or otherwise made inaccessible to the driver, the center console is permanently located directly next to the driver. Unless the console is locked, we can see no reason why a driver would have a greater expectation of privacy in the center console than in his or her purse or wallet.41
Crawford argues that his center console is “easily distinguished” from the purse in Hinkel because “the purse was being re*261turned to [Hinkel] in accordance with police policy at the time it was searched.” Crawford claims that the Hinkel rule does not allow the search of a center console when the arrestee no longer has access to it. But Hinkel does not depend on an arrestee’s access to the item at the time of the search. If an item is classified as “immediately associated with the person” and the arrestee had access to the item at the time of the arrest, as we saw above, an officer is justified in searching the item even after the arrestee is detained so long as the search is reasonably contemporaneous with the arrest.42
Crawford contends that classifying a center console as “immediately associated with the person” would greatly expand the rule and “allow the search of a vehicle in the driveway of a person arrested in his yard.” But that argument ignores the first requirement for a warrantless search if it is to be a legal search incident to arrest. The initial inquiry is whether the arrestee had access to the item at the time of arrest.43 The “immediately associated with the person” distinction is irrelevant unless the item was accessible to the suspect at the time of arrest.44 An officer cannot search an item, even one that is “immediately associated with the person,” without a warrant if that item was not in the arrestee’s immediate control at the time of the arrest.45
Crawford argues that, aside from the distinction for items “immediately associated with the person,” the general justifications underlying the search incident to arrest exception do not support the search of his console. The Supreme Court in Chimel v. California held that, in conducting a search incident to arrest, police officers could search the area “within [the arrestee’s] immediate control” because of a concern for officer safety and a need to prevent evidence concealment or destruction.46 It is undisputed that because Crawford was arrested for reckless driving, there was no concern about evidence destruction.47 Crawford contends that, because he was handcuffed in the backseat of a police car at the time of the search, there was also no threat to officer safety. But we have held that the twin rationales for search incident to arrest outlined in Chimel apply only to define the search area; they do not regulate the scope or intensity of the search.48 Once the area “within the arres-tee’s immediate control” is defined, the search need not be justified by officer safety or evidence preservation. Warrantless searches of items immediately associated with the person are justified even after the arrestee is in police custody because, by their nature, they do not involve “any greater reduction in the arrestee’s expectations of privacy than that caused by the arrest itself.”49 The search can occur at any time reasonably contemporaneous with the arrest50 because *262“[wjhile the legal arrest of a person should not destroy the privacy of his premises, it does — for at least a reasonable time and to a reasonable extent — take his own privacy out of the realm of protection.”51
We have upheld searches of items immediately associated with the person when the search occurred thirty to forty-five minutes after the suspect was detained.52 Officer Oruoja testified that he returned to Crawford’s vehicle and searched the console after he and Officer Rítala placed Crawford in the backseat of Officer Oruoja’s car. The search of Crawford’s console therefore occurred within a reasonable time of his arrest.
We hold that an unlocked center console of a motor vehicle is an item immediately associated with the person of the driver. Crawford’s center console was immediately accessible to him when he was removed from his vehicle and arrested and the search of the console occurred reasonably contemporaneously with his arrest. The search in this case was therefore a valid warrantless search incident to arrest.53
IV. CONCLUSION
Because we conclude that the search of Crawford’s center console was a reasonable search incident to arrest, we AFFIRM.

. The facts are derived from the testimony of Officer Rítala, Officer Oruoja, and Crawford at the superior court’s hearing on Crawford's motion to suppress the drug evidence.

. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969).

. Dunbar v. State, 677 P.2d 1275, 1277 (Alaska App.1984).

. See Cooksey v. State, 524 P.2d 1251, 1255-57 (Alaska 1974).

. Crawford v. State, 68 P.3d 1281, 1284 (Alaska App.2003) (Crawford I).

. Id. at 1284.

. Id.

. We have noted that the search of a container incident to an arrest for reckless driving could not be justified by a need to preserve evidence because no evidence associated with reckless driving could be stored in a container. Hinkel v. Anchorage, 618 P.2d 1069, 1070 (Alaska 1980).

. Crawford I, 68 P.3d at 1284.

. Id. at 1285.

. Crawford v. State, 87 P.3d 824, 826 (Alaska App.2004) (Crawford II). Crawford also argued that the superior court exceeded its authority by hearing additional testimony before entering its findings on remand. Id. at 825. The court of appeals recognized the power of the superior court to "take additional evidence, in its discretion, so that it could meet its obligation to enter the additional findings." Id. Crawford’s petition does not seek review of this determination.

. Id. at 826.

. id.

. We also asked the parties to brief two other issues that are not relevant to our disposition of this case.

. State v. Joubert, 20 P.3d 1115, 1118 (Alaska 2001).

. Id.

. Id.

. Id.

. Erickson v. State, 507 P.2d 508, 514 (Alaska 1973).

. See McCoy v. State, 491 P.2d 127, 130 (Alaska 1971).

. Id. at 133 (quoting Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969)).

. Hinkel v. Anchorage, 618 P.2d 1069 (Alaska 1980) (distinguishing between items "immediately associated with the person” and those that are not).

. Id. at 1071; see also Metcalfe v. State, 593 P.2d 638, 640 (Alaska 1979) (holding that box held by suspect when arrested could not be searched without warrant).

. Metcalfe, 593 P.2d at 640 (quoting United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 15, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977)).

. Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1071 (observing that exigent circumstances are not required to search personal property "immediately associated with the person of the arrestee”).

. Crawford II, 87 P.3d 824, 826 (Alaska App. 2004). In Crawford's first appeal, the court of appeals remanded to the superior court for findings on whether Officer Oruoja had a "reasonable and articulable basis” for his belief that the center console might have contained a weapon. Crawford I, 68 P.3d 1281, 1285 (Alaska App. 2003). The superior court found on remand that Officer Oruoja did have a reasonable and articu-lable basis for believing that Crawford's console contained a weapon. In Crawford's second appeal, the court of appeals upheld the search, holding that there was substantial evidence to support the superior court’s finding. Crawford II, 87 P.3d at 826. Crawford now argues that there was inadequate evidence to support the superior court’s finding. Because we hold that the center console is an item immediately associated with the person, the challenged finding is irrelevant to our analysis. We therefore do not address the merits of Crawford’s inadequate-evidence argument.

. Crawford I, 68 P.3d at 1284.

. Crawford II, 87 P.3d at 826.

. Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1071-72 (citing with approval United States v. Berry, 560 F.2d 861, 864 (7th Cir.1977), vacated on other grounds, 571 F.2d 2 (7th Cir.1978)) (classifying attaché case as luggage and not immediately associated with person).

. Crawford I, 68 P.3d at 1284; see also Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1072 (holding purse was item immediately associated with arrestee); Dunn v. State, 653 P.2d 1071, 1083 (Alaska App.1982) (holding jacket was item immediately associated with ar-restee).

. Crawford I, 68 P.3d at 1284.

. Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1071.

. Id. at 1072.

. United States v. Berry, 560 F.2d 861, 864 (7th Cir.1977), vacated on other grounds, 571 F.2d 2 (7th Cir.1978).

. Id.

. Id.

. Id.; see also United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235, 94 S.Ct. 467 (1973). Robinson states:
A custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search incident to the arrest requires no additional justification. It is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and we hold that in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a "reasonable” search under that Amendment.

Id.

. Id. (quoting United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 13 n. 8, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977)).

. Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1071.

. See Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 11, 97 S.Ct. 2476 (holding that placing item inside double-locked footlocker "manifested an expectation that the contents would remain free from public examination”); see also State v. Stroud, 106 Wash.2d 144, 720 P.2d 436, 441 (1986) (noting that police may not conduct warrantless search of vehicle's locked glove compartment, in part because act of locking shows individual “reasonably expects the contents to remain private”).

. Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1071; see also McCoy v. State, 491 P.2d 127, 138 (Alaska 1971) (holding that search must be "roughly contemporaneous" with arrest to be reasonable under search incident to arrest exception).

. See State v. Ricks, 816 P.2d 125, 125 (Alaska 1991) (holding that there was no exigency to justify search of jacket which was ten to fifteen feet from arrestee at time of arrest).

. Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1072 (holding that distinction between items immediately associated with person and those not immediately associated with person comes into play “once any danger that the arrestee may gain access to the container to seize a weapon or destroy evidence no longer exists”).

. Ricks, 816 P.2d at 125 (holding that there was no exigency to justify search of jacket that was ten to fifteen feet from arrestee at time of arrest).

. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969).

. See Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1070 (observing that there is no concern for evidence destruction in context of reckless driving).

. McCoy, 491 P.2d at 133 ("While it is clear from Chimel that the twin rationales ... supply the appropriate analytic scheme to define the area 'within (the arrestee's) immediate control’, it by no means follows that they also supply the appropriate analysis for limiting searches of the arrestee’s person....").

. Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1072 (quoting United States v. Berry, 560 F.2d 861, 864 (7th Cir.1977), vacated on other grounds, 571 F.2d 2 (7th Cir.1978)).

. McCoy, 491 P.2d at 138 (holding that search must be "roughly contemporaneous” with arrest to fall within search incident to arrest exception to warrant requirement).

. Id. at 137 (quoting United States v. DeLeo, 422 F.2d 487, 493 (1st Cir.1970)).

. Id. at 128 n. 1, 130-31; cf. Middleton v. State, 577 P.2d 1050, 1055 (Alaska 1978) (upholding search of wallet which involved opening and reading piece of paper twenty to thirty minutes after suspect arrived at police station); Lemon v. State, 514 P.2d 1151, 1158 (Alaska 1973) (holding that short delay between bringing suspect to station house and search and seizure of clothing fell within "reasonably contemporaneous” guideline of McCoy).

.Because we can affirm by applying the "immediately associated with the person” standard that has been recognized in Alaska since 1979, it is not necessary here to consider the broader question addressed by the concurrence.