Court Opinion

ID: 9781442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 16:37:54.586692+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:26.532932
License: Public Domain

MANNHEIMER, Judge,
concurring.
Two questions are potentially presented in this case. First, did the search of Anderson’s person by corrections officials at the Lemon Creek Correctional Facility violate the search and seizure clause of the Alaska Constitution (Article I, Section 14) as construed by our supreme court in Zehrung v. State, 569 P.2d 189 (Alaska 1977), as modified on rehrg., 573 P.2d 858 (1978)? Second, if the search was illegal, did this illegal search actually harm Anderson, given the fact that Anderson failed to post bail and remained in jail for the next four days?
The answer to the second question is “no”; Anderson was not harmed by the search. We therefore need not resolve the first question (the legality of the search).
Anderson was arrested for driving without a valid driver’s license; at the same time, he was arrested on a bench warrant that had been issued when he failed to appear in court. Anderson’s total bail was $1050 ($1000 for the bench warrant, and $50 for the driving offense).
*989When Anderson was brought to the Lemon Creek Correctional Facility, before he had a chance to post this bail, corrections officials removed and examined the entire contents of his pockets. The corrections officer who performed this search testified that this was a standard procedure at Lemon Creek.
Twenty-five years ago, in Zehrung, the Alaska Supreme Court declared that it is illegal to subject a prisoner arrested for a minor offense to this type of inventory search until it is clear that the prisoner will be unable to post bail and, as a consequence, will in fact be placed among the general jail population. Id. at 194-95. The testimony presented in Anderson’s case suggests that, even though Zehrung has been the law of this state for a quarter of a century, the Department of Corrections routinely violates Zehrung (at least at the Lemon Creek Correctional Facility) by conducting thorough searches of newly arrived arrestees without giving them the opportunity to post bail.
However, the superior court concluded that the drugs found in Anderson’s possession would inevitably have been discovered because, as it turned out, Anderson could not post bail — and thus, within a short time, the Department of Corrections became authorized to conduct the same thorough-going search of his person and possessions.
It is uncontested that Anderson did not post' bail and that he remained in jail for another four days. But obviously, if the discovery of the drugs had led immediately to a new felony drug charge against Anderson, or even to increased bail on Anderson’s existing charges (failure to appear and driving without a valid license), this would tend to defeat the State’s argument that Anderson would “inevitably” have been unable to post bail and secure his release before corrections officers conducted the full inventory search allowed under Zehrung.
Indeed, if Anderson had testified that the discovery of the drugs affected his motivation to try to round up the bail money (by convincing him that it would be pointless to try to post the $1050, given the fact that the authorities could easily get the court to set a much higher 'bail by filing a felony drug charge), we would question the superior court’s finding of inevitability.
But Anderson never suggested that his failure to post bail stemmed from anything other than his inability to secure the needed $1050. Moreover, the superior court expressly found that the discovery of the drugs did not affect Anderson’s ability to post bail. This being so, I agree with the superior court that, even if the Lemon Creek staff violated Anderson’s constitutional rights by thoroughly searching his person upon his initial arrival at the jail, Anderson would inevitably have been subjected to the same type of search a short .time later. For this reason, I conclude that any violation of Zehrung did not prejudice Anderson, and he was not entitled to suppression of the drugs.