Court Opinion

ID: 9796546
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:59:43.725478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:34.389272
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
concurring.
The rule of decision of today’s opinion can be stated as follows. Containers that are (1) immediately associated with the person of an arrestee, and (2) within the arrestee’s immediate control when he is arrested, may be searched without a warrant as an incident to the arrest, (3) so long as the search is reasonably contemporaneous with the arrest. Since the center console of an automobile is (1) a container immediately associated with the person of the automobile driver, (2) was in the immediate control of the driver, Crawford, when he was arrested, and (3) the search was contemporaneous with the arrest, the search of the console was valid as a search incident to arrest.
In my view the first premise, that a container must be an item immediately associated with the person in order to be searched, is unnecessary. Containers must be within reach of the arrestee at the time of arrest, but whether containers can be described as items immediately associated with the person of the arrestee is irrelevant, as long as the search is reasonably contemporaneous with the arrest.
The seminal case of Chimel v. California1 expresses the rule that I believe should apply. The Chimel Court stated that a closed desk drawer within reach of the person arrested could be searched, and did so without conditioning the legality of the search on whether the drawer was an item immediately associated with the person of the arrestee. Here is the language from Chimel that I think is important:
When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer’s safety might well be endangered, danger, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee’s person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. And the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like rule. A gun on a table or in a drawer in front of *263one who is arrested can be as dangerous to the arresting officer as one concealed in the clothing of the person arrested. There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of the arrestee’s person and the area “within his immediate control” — construing that phrase to mean the area from which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence[2]
In New York v. Belton,3 the Supreme Court of the United States reiterated the Chimel rule that contents of closed containers within the reach of the arrestee at the time of the arrest may be searched:
Such a container may, of course, be searched whether it is open or closed, since the justification for the search is not that the arrestee has no privacy interest in the container, but that the lawful custodial arrest justifies the infringement of any privacy interest the arrestee may have. Thus, while the Court in Chimel held that the police could not search all of the drawers in an arrestee’s house simply because the police had arrested him at home, the Court noted that drawers within an arrestee’s reach could be searched because of the danger their contents might pose to the police.[4]
The Belton Court was discussing “any containers found within the passenger compartment” of an automobile when a person in the automobile is arrested.5 Again, no mention is made of any requirement that the containers be capable of being described as items associated with the person of the arrestee.
The “immediately associated with the person” language was first referred to by this court in Metcalfe v. State,6 and was subsequently employed in Hinkel v. Anchorage.7 These eases relied on a 1977 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States v. Chadwick.8 The facts of Chadwick as summarized in Metcalfe were as follows:
In Chadwick federal agents lawfully seized a locked footlocker from the open trunk of an automobile during the arrest of those in possession of the footlocker. More than an hour after the arrests, acting with probable cause to believe that the footlocker contained contraband drugs, but without a warrant, the agents opened the footlocker and found large amounts of marijuana.[9]
The Metcalfe court proceeded to explain its understanding of the Chadwick holding, stating:
The United States Supreme Court, in an opinion by Burger, C.J., held the search invalid. More specifically the court held that the privacy interests protected by the Fourth Amendment extended to the footlocker, that the footlocker search was not justified under the “automobile exception,” and that no exigent circumstances were present which could justify the search without a warrant. Nor could the search be justified as one incident to arrest, for as the court observed:
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.
433 U.S. at 15, 97 S.Ct. 2476 (footnote omitted).[10]
*264Based on the quote used by the Metcalfe court, one might think that Chadwick held that personal property not immediately associated with the person of the arrestee could not be searched without a warrant once police have reduced it to their exclusive control. But when more of the language used by the Chadwick Court concerning this issue is considered, this conclusion becomes less clear. A more contextual reading suggests that the Chadwick search was not valid as a search incident to arrest because the search took place at a time and place remote from the arrest and was of an item not immediately associated with the person, rather than, as suggested by the fragment in the Metcalfe opinion, because the search was of a container not immediately associated with the person that was in the exclusive control of the police. A complete excerpt of this portion of the Chadwick rationale follows:
Such searches may be conducted without a warrant, and they may also be made whether or not there is probable cause to believe that the person arrested may have a weapon or is about to destroy evidence. The potential dangers lurking in all custodial arrests make warrantless searches of items within the “immediate control” area reasonable without requiring the arresting officer to calculate the probability that weapons or destructible evidence may be involved. United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973); Terry v. Ohio, [392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)]. However, warrantless searches of luggage or other property seized at the time of an arrest cannot be justified as incident to that arrest either if the “search is remote in time or place from the arrest,” Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. [364] at 367, 84 S.Ct. [881] at 883 [11 L.Ed.2d 777 (1964)] or no exigency exists. 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.
Here the search was conducted more than an hour after federal agents had gained exclusive control of the footlocker and long after respondents were securely in custody; the search therefore cannot be viewed as incidental to the arrest or as justified by any other exigency.[11]
The Chadwick holding thus could have been based on two theories. The first, which is suggested by the language quoted in Met-calfe, is that once arresting officers have possession of a container not immediately associated with the person it may not be searched under the search incident to an arrest rationale. The second is that when arresting officers search a container that was previously in the possession of an arrestee but the search takes place at a time and place remote from the arrest, the search may not be justified as a search incident to an arrest unless the container is an item immediately associated with the person of the arrestee.
Four years after Chadwick was decided, the United States Supreme Court in Belton interpreted Chadwick as holding simply that a container search that is not close in time or place to the arrest cannot be justified as a search incident to arrest. Speaking of Chadwick, and another case, the Court stated:
But neither of those cases involved an arguably valid search incident to a lawful custodial arrest. As the Court pointed out in the Chadwick case: “Here the search was conducted more than an hour after federal agents had gained exclusive control of the footlocker and long after respondents were securely in custody; the search therefore cannot be viewed as incidental to the arrest or as justified by any other exigency.” [12]
By contrast, the Court strongly rejected the New York Court of Appeals reliance on the “exclusive control” rationale of Chadwick. The Belton Court stated:
It seems to have been the theory of the Court of Appeals that the search and sei*265zure in the present ease could not have been incident to the respondent’s arrest, because Trooper Nicot, by the very act of searching the respondent’s jacket and seizing the contents of its pocket, had gained “exclusive control” of them. But under this fallacious theory no search or seizure incident to a lawful custodial arrest would ever be valid; by seizing an article even on the arrestee’s person, an officer may be said to have reduced that article to his “exclusive control.” [13]
The clarification of Chadwick in Belton came after our decisions in Metcalfe and Hinkel. In Hinkel the defendant was lawfully arrested in her car. After she was removed from her car and placed in the backseat of the patrol car, a police officer took her purse from her vehicle, opened it, and discovered a loaded handgun.14 The Hinkel search was thus reasonably contemporaneous with the arrest, but it was of a container that at the time of the search was controlled by the police. We upheld the search, relying on the “immediately associated with the person” language of Chadwick,15 We used this language to distinguish between containers that were in the exclusive control of the police that could be contemporaneously searched incident to an arrest and those that could not be. We cited a recent Seventh Circuit case, United States v. Berry,16 and quoted language from that case indicating that while purses were items immediately associated with the person, briefcases and luggage were not.17
Belton demonstrates that this court’s reliance on the “exclusive control” rationale of Chadwick was, in hindsight, wrong. But the results in Metcalfe and Hinkel still appear to be correct. The search of the box that the defendant had just received by air freight in Metcalfe, like the search in Chadwick, was of an item not immediately associated with the person and was both remote in time and place from the arrest. It therefore fell within the rationale of Chadtoick that is still valid. And the search in Hinkel, as a contemporaneous search of a container that was within reach of the arrestee when she was arrested, was permissible, even though the court’s inquiry as to whether the container was an item immediately associated with the defendant’s person turned out to be superfluous.
Subsequent to Belton, briefcases and luggage have been routinely considered appropriate subjects of contemporaneous searches incident to arrest,18 notwithstanding that after Chadwick and before Belton they may have been characterized as items not immediately associated with the person of the arrestee.19 Also subsequent to Belton most opinions involving container searches sought to be justified as searches incident to an arrest do not even inquire whether the container is an item immediately associated with the person of the arrestee.20
*266Both Metcalfe and Hinkel are interpretations of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution; neither opinion of the court mentions the similar search and seizure clause of the Alaska Constitution. Thus Metcalfe and Hinkel are not interpretations of the Alaska Constitution and they do not enshrine in the state constitution the “immediately associated with the person” test. I do not understand today’s opinion to take this step, since it relies on federal and state cases interpreting the federal constitution and does not state that it is establishing, or following, a rule of state constitutional law.
In my opinion, the court should recognize that the “immediately associated with the person” factor when applied to a reasonably contemporaneous search incident to arrest is an artifact of a reasonable but mistaken i’eading of United States Supreme Court case law. Accordingly, it should no longer be used in circumstances such as are present here. Because its use here, as in Hinkel, is merely superfluous, I concur with the opinion of the court. My concern is that in future cases continued use of this factor will cause confusion as to what properly may be searched.
Specifically, retention of the factor implies that containers not immediately associated with the person of an arrestee but within his reach at the time of his arrest can not be searched. This could compromise the goals of the search incident to arrest exception, officer safety and evidence preservation. Further, since the factor under federal constitutional law provides a means that separates containers that are searchable from those that are not as to searches that are remote in time and place from an arrest, an overly broad definition of what containers are immediately associated with the person — arguably what we have here21 — could lead to unconstitutional station-house searches.

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

. Id. at 763, 89 S.Ct. 2034.

. 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981).

. Id. at 461, 101 S.Ct. 2860.

. Id. at 460, 101 S.Ct. 2860. The Belton Court defined the term "container" as denoting "any object capable of holding another object. It thus includes closed or open glove compartments, consoles, or other receptacles located anywhere within the passenger compartment, as well as luggage, boxes, bags, clothing, and the like.” Id. at 461 n. 4, 101 S.Ct. 2860.

. 593 P.2d 638 (Alaska 1979).

. 618 P.2d 1069 (Alaska 1980).

. 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977).

. Metcalfe, 593 P.2d at 640.

. Id.

. Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 14-15, 97 S.Ct. 2476 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added).

. Belton, 453 U.S. at 461-62, 101 S.Ct. 2860.

. Id. at 461 n. 5, 101 S.Ct. 2860 (citation omitted).

. 618 P.2d at 1069.

. Id. at 1071.

. 560 F.2d 861 (7th Cir.1977).

. Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1072.

. See, e.g., United States v. Tavolacci, 895 F.2d 1423 (D.C.Cir.1990) (locked suitcase); United States v. Mitchell, 64 F.3d 1105 (7th Cir.1995) (briefcase); Ricks v. State, 322 Md. 183, 586 A.2d 740 (1991) (suitcase); Savoie v. State, 422 So.2d 308 (Fla.1982) (locked attache case); United States v. Herrera, 810 F.2d 989, 990-91 (10th Cir.1987) (briefcase).

. See Hinkel, 618 P.2d 1069; Berry, 560 F.2d 861; United States v. Schleis, 582 F.2d 1166, 1170 n. 3 (8th Cir.1978) (reviewing cases holding that luggage and briefcase searches are subject to suppression under Chadwick).

.See Tavolacci, 895 F.2d 1423; Mitchell, 64 F.3d 1105; United States v. Litman, 739 F.2d 137, 139 (4th Cir.1984); United States v. Fleming, 677 F.2d 602, 607 (7th Cir.1982); Savoie, 422 So.2d 308; State v. Wickline, 232 Neb. 329, 440 N.W.2d 249 (1989); Ricks, 322 Md. 183, 586 A.2d 740; see also 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 5.5(a), 216-20 (noting Beltons impact on incident to arrest container searches).
But the "immediately associated with the person” language may still be useful when a search is remote in time or place from the place of arrest. In such cases the phrase may serve to distinguish between the "effects" of an arrested person which are searchable under the search incident to arrest exception at a time or place remote from the arrest under the authority of United States v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800, 809, 94 S.Ct. 1234 (1974), and containers that may be *266searchable under the incident to arrest exception if the search is contemporaneous with the arrest but not if the search is remote in time or place from the arrest. The seemingly diverse results of our remote search cases of Metcalfe, 593 P.2d 638 (station-house search of a box that Metcalfe had received by air freight held invalid), and Middleton v. State, 577 P.2d 1050 (Alaska 1978), and McCoy v. State, 491 P.2d 127 (Alaska 1971) (station-house searches of small containers carried in clothing of arrestees held valid) may be reconciled by this factor because the box in Met-calfe was not an item immediately associated with the person of the arrestee, whereas the items carried in the clothing of the arrestees in McCoy and Middleton were.
Care must be taken not to construe the "immediately associated with the person” phrase too broadly, for this could lead to upholding remote searches that violate federal constitutional standards. In this regard I note that many federal courts apply a more narrow definition of "items immediately associated with the person” than the court uses today. See, e.g., Curd v. City Court of Judsonia, Arkansas, 141 F.3d 839, 843 (8th Cir.1998) (concluding that a purse is an item immediately associated with the person because it is "so closely associated with the person that [it is] identified with and included within the concept of one’s person.”); Beny, 560 F.2d at 864 (concluding in dicta that a purse "might be characterized as 'immediately associated with the person of the arrestee' because it is carried with the person at all times.”), vacated on other grounds by United States v. Berry, 571 F.2d 2, 3 (7th Cir.1978).

. See supra note 20.