Court Opinion

ID: 9586155
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:07:50.069487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:21.573999
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Judge
(concurring in part and concurring in the result in part):
¶ 211 agree with the majority’s analysis in this case, except as to Part 3, in which I concur only in the result.
¶22 The majority correctly relies upon New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981). Belton and State v. Moreno, 910 P.2d 1245 (Utah Ct. App.1996), foreclose any argument that under Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), the arres-tee must be in'close physical proximity to the vehicle at the time of the search. See State v. Giron, 943 P.2d 1114, 1118 (Utah Ct.App. 1997) (holding that “a search conducted of the arrestee’s car is not too remote in place, or does not lack the requisite physical proximity to the arrest, even when the arrestee has been handcuffed and removed from the car”). Further, Belton adopted a so-called “workable rule” that the entire passenger compartment of a vehicle is considered within the arrestee’s immediate control and thus *1283may be searched. See Belton, 453 U.S. at 460, 101 S.Ct. at 2864.
¶23 Nonetheless, I do not believe this court should perpetuate the fiction that the physical proximity requirements of Chimel continue to have any efficacy when the vehicle is searched after the arrest and when the arrestee no longer has control over or access to the vehicle. See Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040 (holding that search of area around arrestee is reasonable only when there is a danger the arrestee could obtain a weapon or destroy evidence). Despite the Supreme Court’s protestations in Belton that its holding “d[id] no more than determine the meaning of Chimel’s principles in this particular and problematic context [and] in no way alter[ed] the fundamental principles established in the Chimel case regarding the basic scope of searches incident to lawful custodial arrests,” Belton, 453 U.S. at 460 n. 3, 101 S.Ct. at 2864 n. 3, as illustrated by this case, the exceptions have swallowed the physical proximity requirement of Chimel. Belton, Moreno, and their progeny modified Chimel when vehicle searches are concerned and we should stop pretending that Chimel’s “area within the arrestee’s immediate control” has any further application in that context.