Court Opinion

ID: 9625458
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:41:40.758075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:29:32.340423
License: Public Domain

BURKE, Justice,
concurring.
Unlike the majority, I think there is merit to the argument that inventory searches, under circumstances such as those present in this case, are necessary to protect the police against false claims. That such *419claims are not mere figments of police imagination is amply demonstrated by the facts in Gottschalk v. State, 575 P.2d 289 (Alaska 1978). Unless someone is able to testify from personal observation that a container did or did not contain a specific item when seized, the police will be seriously hampered in their ability to defend against a charge that the item was removed from the container while it was in police custody. Testimony that the container itself was stored securely is no substitute for testimony that the “missing” item was never in it in the first place.
Nevertheless, I believe that the holding of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977), requires us to affirm the suppression order in this case. Like the majority, I am unable to perceive any principled distinction between locked containers and those that are unlocked but closed. Thus, I concur.