Court Opinion

ID: 9795884
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:41:20.001846+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:40:31.355591
License: Public Domain

MANNHEIMER, Judge,
concurring.
I agree with my colleagues that the evidence in this case was lawfully seized and searched, but I disagree with the lead opinion's analysis of why this is so. In particular, I disagree with Judge Coats's conclusion that the plastic storage container was an article "immediately associated with [Howard's] per-H son .
Judge Coats reaches this conclusion because the plastic container was found at Howard's feet, and because the contents of this container were items personal to Howard (for example, his inhaler). But this analysis of the issue is inconsistent with the analysis adopted by the Alaska Supreme Court in Crawford v. State, 138 P.3d 254, 258-262 (Alaska 2006).
In Crawford, the supreme court held that the center console of a car is a closed con*1051tainer that is "immediately associated with the person" of the driver. 138 P.3d at 262. Conceivably, this conclusion might support the result reached by my colleagues in this case-because the plastic storage container found at Howard's feet might be analogized to the center console of a vehicle.
But in Crawford, the supreme court reaffirmed its adherence to the holding of the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Berry, 560 F.2d 861, 864-65 (7th Cir.1977)1-the holding that an attaché case is not a closed container that is "immediately associated with the person", even though an attaché case is often employed to carry items that are personal to its owner. According to Berry and Crawford, the reason an attaché case is not "immediately associated with the person" is that it is "not ... carried on an individual's person in the sense that his clothing or items found in his pocket are." 560 F.2d at 864.
Relying on Berry, our supreme court in Crawford reasoned that an attaché case or briefcase is "unlike a purse" because these containers are "not always ... carried with the person". Crawford, 188 P.3d at 260 (citing Berry, 560 F.2d at 864). Rather, an attaché case or briefcase "is more like lug-gagel,] in that it is often out of a person's reach"-for instance, carried or stored in the trunk of a car. Id.
Applying these same criteria to the plastic storage container in Howard's case, I conclude that the plastic storage container is not an article that is "immediately associated with [Howard's] person". True, people often use these plastic storage containers to carry household items or other items of a personal nature (as well as to store food, which is the container's primary intended function). But these storage containers do not fit in a person's pockets, and they are not normally carried continuously on one's person like a purse. Rather, they are like the attaché case in Berry. They function like small pieces of luggage. True, they are often carried in the passenger compartment of a car, but they are just as often-and just as easily-stored in the trunk of the car, or in some other place not immediately accessible to the owner.
Judge Coats's analysis of this question ultimately leads to results that are flatly inconsistent with Crawford and the recognized law of search and seizure. The same two factors that Judge Coats relies on-(1) the fact that the storage container was found next to Howard's body, and (2) the fact that the storage container apparently contained items that were personal to Howard-might apply to almost any attaché case, backpack, duffel, or small suitcase. But under Crawford, containers of this nature are not subject to warrantless search.
For these reasons, I can not join my colleagues in declaring the plastic storage container to be an item "immediately associated with [Howard's] person".
I conclude, nevertheless, that the search of the plastic container was lawful because this particular container was transparent, and (according to the officer's testimony) its contents were in plain view.

. Later vacated as improvidently rendered: 571 F.2d 2 (7th Cir.1978).