Court Opinion

ID: 9597841
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:03:13.453541+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:09.775392
License: Public Domain

SINGLETON, Judge,
dissenting.
Having carefully reviewed the record in this case, I believe that the search of Ricks’ jacket was justified for two reasons. First, I am convinced that Ricks’ jacket was properly searched incident to his arrest. Second, the jacket itself is independent evidence of crime because eyewitness testimony established that Ricks obtained drugs from the jacket preparatory to selling them to the confidential informant. Under the circumstances, the jacket could have been seized and searched even if Ricks had avoided arrest. I therefore dissent from the decision to reverse.
In deciding whether the search in this case was a valid search incident to arrest, we must make three determinations. First, was Ricks’ jacket within his “immediate control” at the time the police officers burst into the bar with guns drawn? See Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969). Second, was the jacket in question “immediately associated with the person of [Ricks] to [his] exclusive control”? United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 15, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 2485, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977). Third, if the jacket was personal property immediately associated with Ricks, does that fact “except[ ] [the jacket] ... from the requirement that an exigency must exist to justify a search[,]” Hinkel v. Anchorage, 618 P.2d 1069, 1071 (Alaska 1980), i.e., that the jacket be within Ricks’ immediate control and therefore be a possible source for a weapon or for evidence that he could destroy.
I understand Judge Saveli to say that, as a matter of fact, the coat was within Ricks' immediate control in the seconds preceding the armed officers’ abrupt entry into the bar, but that the officers pointed their guns at Ricks and, in effect, froze him in place so that he could not get to the jacket. I would hold that Judge Saveli’s conclusion that the jacket was available to Ricks in the seconds preceding his confrontation with the officers satisfies the immediate control requirement. It appears that Judge Sa-veli’s gloss on this finding constituted a misperception of the legal rules. See New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 457-60, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 2862-64, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981); Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040; Uptegraft v. State, 621 P.2d 5, 9-10 & n. 13 (Alaska 1980); Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1070-73; Brown v. State, 580 P.2d 1174, 1176 (Alaska 1978); Middleton v. State, 577 P.2d 1050, 1055 (Alaska 1978); Daygee v. State, 514 P.2d 1159, 1162-66 (Alaska 1973); McCoy v. State, 491 P.2d 127, 138-39 (Alaska 1971); Merrill v. State, 423 P.2d 686, 700 (Alaska 1967); Jackson v. State, 657 P.2d 405, 406-07 (Alaska App.1983); Dunn v. State, 653 P.2d 1071, 1079-83 (Alaska App.1982). See also 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure, §§ 5.5, 6.3(c) (2d ed. 1987); 3 W. Lafave, Search and Seizure, § 7.1 (2d ed. 1987).
Even if Judge Saveli’s conclusions were not ambiguous and he found that the jacket was not within Ricks’ immediate control after the officers had drawn their guns, I would hold that this finding is clearly mistaken.
A number of factors lead me to this conclusion.1 A warrantless search incident *1371to arrest must be confined to the defendant’s person or “the area from which [he] might obtain weapons or evidentiary items.” Chimel, 395 U.S. at 766, 89 S.Ct. at 2041. A search incident to a lawful arrest must be limited to the area where the arrest occurred. It may not be conducted somewhere “remote in time or place from the arrest.” Id. at 764, 89 S.Ct. at 2040 (quoting Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364, 367, 84 S.Ct. 881, 883, 11 L.Ed.2d 777 (1964)). The area which may be searched encompasses any place within the defendant’s “lunge, reach, or grasp.” See State v. LeBlanc, 347 A.2d 590, 595 (Me.1975) (quoting Howell v. State, 271 Md. 378, 318 A.2d 189, 192 (1974)). It is the risk, not the probability or likelihood, that the defendant, if so motivated, could reach the item which is determinative of the area within the arrested person’s control. An item is within an arrestee’s immediate control unless there is no significant risk that the arrestee or his confederates “might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040. Thus, it is the risk of the defendant’s conduct, not the likelihood, which determines his area of control. See Uptegraft, 621 P.2d at 10 (upholding a search incident to arrest even though “it is possible to speculate that there was [only] a small likelihood that one of the suspects would have been able to leap into the car to obtain a weapon.”)
A number of factors lead me to the conclusion that as a matter of law there was a significant risk that Ricks could have reached his jacket had he been motivated to do so despite the officers’ drawn guns. First, Ricks was not placed in restraint. Second, at the time of the initial confrontation, Ricks was behind the bar. It does not appear that any of the arresting officers were positioned in such a way that they were between him and the coat rack, which was virtually at the end of the bar. Third, the evidence in question was in the pockets of the jacket, readily accessible to anyone holding the jacket. Finally, six officers were attempting to control eleven people— Ricks and ten patrons of the bar. All of these reasons militate in favor of a finding that the jacket was within Ricks’ immediate control. See 2 W. LaFave, supra, § 6.3(c), at 630-31.
Although the question in Ricks’ case is much closer than that in Hinkel, it seems to me that Hinkel also supports Judge Saveli’s conclusion that Alaska law excepts, for purposes of search incident to an arrest, items immediately associated with the person of the defendant from the requirement that they be within his immediate control at the time of the search. Hinkel, 618 P.2d at 1071.2 Reading Hink-el and McCoy together, it seems to me that the supreme court is saying that the police *1372have the right to search the person of a suspect incident to his or her custodial arrest, and that this right to search narrows pro tanto the suspect’s reasonable expectations of privacy. Because the supreme court views items immediately associated with a person, such as clothing, purses, and wallets, as extensions of the person, it necessarily follows that this reduced expectation of privacy attaches to these items as well. The reduced expectation of privacy would not extend to boxes, whether locked or unlocked or luggage, not so immediately associated with the person, to which greater reasonable expectations of privacy might be presumed to exist. This interpretation of Hinkel, McCoy, Dunn, and Jackson provides additional support for the search in this case.3
Apart from this search being justified as a search incident to arrest, I also believe that the jacket could have been seized as independent evidence of crime. I do not find persuasive the majority's suggestion that the jacket could have been impounded and taken to the police station where it could have been searched after a search warrant was obtained. In my view, the right to seize the jacket as independent evidence was clear, and an immediate inventory of its contents was necessary. This was so in order to prevent Ricks from later claiming, either accurately or inaccurately, that something of value had been taken from the jacket. It was also necessary, in my view, in a case where the police had probable cause to believe that the jacket contained contraband, to prevent Ricks from later claiming, truthfully or falsely, that the police planted contraband in the jacket. While an immediate inventory would not rule out these possibilities absolutely, it would certainly limit the risk. Ricks was the subject of a custodial arrest in a public place at a time when his jacket was ten to fifteen feet away; therefore, the need for an immediate inventory justifies the search of the jacket.4
I therefore dissent from the decision to reverse the order denying suppression in this case.
*1373[[Image here]]

. In order to better understand the factual assumptions in this dissent, it is helpful to look at defendant’s exhibit A, a diagram of the Buffalo Bar showing the respective positions of Ricks, the bar, the cigarette machine, the cooler, and *1371the coat rack. I have attached a copy of that exhibit as an addendum to this dissenting opinion. This drawing is not to scale and may exaggerate the distances involved. The photographs introduced in evidence are of poor quality. Nevertheless, they appear to indicate that the distance from the end of the bar to the cigarette machine was very short. On the diagram, Ricks’ position, behind the bar, is marked "1" and the coat rack is shown as parallel lines at the end of the bar between the cooler and the cigarette machine (marked "cig"). According to Officer D’Angelo’s testimony, Ricks was ten feet or less from the coat rack, behind the bar, at the time the police entered the room. Ricks testified that he was approximately fifteen or twenty feet from the coat rack at that time. The trial court did not resolve this dispute in the evidence, beyond finding that Ricks was ten to fifteen feet from the coat rack, apparently in the belief that it would not have mattered where Ricks was with respect to the coat rack once he had loaded handguns pointed at his face.

. The majority’s suggestion that access at the moment of arrest validates a search conducted at a later time, after all exigencies have disappeared, is problematical. The supreme court does not specifically say this in either McCoy or Hinkel, although we intimated it in Dunn. The only case in which the supreme court specifically held that exigencies at the time of an arrest justify a later search, after the exigencies have disappeared, is Daygee, 514 P.2d at 1165-66. However, the supreme court criticized this holding in a decision reached subsequent to Hinkel. See Uptegraft, 621 P.2d at 10 n. 13. The fact that the court in Uptegraft does not mention Hinkel suggests that it understands the holding of that case to rest on other grounds. See New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981) (reaching the same result as Daygee on slightly different grounds).

. The rule distinguishing items immediately associated with the person from other items in the vicinity is derived from Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 14-15, 97 S.Ct. at 2485-2486. However, Chadwick was not primarily a search incident to arrest case. See Belton, 453 U.S. at 461-62, 101 S.Ct. at 2864-65.

. The jacket was hanging in plain view. An undercover officer observed Ricks taking drugs out of the jacket for sale to the informer. Thus the jacket was independent evidence warranting its seizure. As discussed, the justifications for an immediate inventory apply here. In addition, an immediate search might disclose that the officer was in error, i.e., that the drugs actually came from somewhere else, perhaps from behind the adjacent cooler or cigarette machine. Bearing in mind that the jacket was in a public place, immediate assurance that the source of drugs was established would permit the officers to leave the bar without fear that Ricks’ confederates might recover the drugs at a later time.