Court Opinion

ID: 9746119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:00:22.603088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:09.141699
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, J.
I respectfully dissent.
In my view, the majority opinion contains the seeds of its own destruction. The opinion quotes the very language from United States Supreme Court decisions which requires law enforcement agencies to establish “standardized procedures” for the conduct of inventory searches. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 374, citing and quoting from South Dakota v. Opperman (1976) 428 U.S. 364 [49 L.Ed.2d 1000, 96 S.Ct. 3092] and Florida v. Wells (1990) 495 U.S. 1 [109 L.Ed.2d 1, 110 S.Ct. 1632].) The nation’s highest court has held the searches must be conducted in compliance with these standardized procedures to “ensure that the intrusion [will] be limited in scope to the extent necessary to carry out the caretaking function.” (South Dakota v. Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at p. 375 [49 L.Ed.2d at p. 1008].)
The majority opinion does not offer any “standardized procedures” Inglewood or the state has established defining how inventory searches are to be conducted. Instead-it relies on Vehicle Code section 22651 which merely describes when vehicles may be impounded (and thus presumably subjected to some sort of inventory search). (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 371, fn. 2.) True, adherence to section 22651 ensures the vehicle will only be impounded if *376certain circumstances exist. But it does not address in any way the high court’s concern the ensuing search “be limited in scope to the extent necessary to carry out the caretaking function” (South Dakota v. Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at p. 375 [49 L.Ed.2d at p. 1008]) and only broad enough “to produce an inventory” not a “ ‘purposeful and general means of discovering evidence of crime.” ’ (Florida v. Wells, supra, 495 U.S. at p. 4 [109 L.Ed.2d at p. 6].) Thus, by itself, Vehicle Code section 22651 simply does not satisfy the requirements laid down by the United States Supreme Court if the search of a vehicle is to qualify as an “inventory search” and thus pass constitutional muster.
For this reason, I would affirm the trial court’s order suppressing the evidence seized as a result of this unlawful search of respondent’s vehicle.
Respondent’s petition for review by the Supreme Court was denied September 18, 1996. Mosk, J., Kennard, J., and Werdergar, J., were of the opinion that the petition should be granted.