Court Opinion

ID: 9538402
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:36:06.001093+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:50.557844
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE GROVES
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
The background of the order to suppress is not fully set out in the majority’s opinion. Initially, the court was ready to rule that the motion to suppress should be granted on the ground that the police had time to obtain a search warrant after taking the car to the impound lot. However, the court took the motion under further advisement upon being informed that the search had been conducted at the scene of the arrest.
Then the court ruled that the motion to suppress should be denied on the ground that the search was proper because it was incident to a valid arrest.
Upon motion for reconsideration, the court reversed itself, saying that the motion to suppress would be granted since no exigent circumstances had existed to justify the search.
Various justifications for the search were considered (and possibly confused) during the course of these rulings, but the only issue on appeal is whether the search was a valid inventory search. Regarding this issue, the district court noted that Colorado cases suggest three legitimate purposes of an inventory search: to protect property in the vehicle; to protect officers against claims regarding the property; and to protect police officers and the public from dangerous instrumentalities. People v. Counterman, 192 Colo. 152, 556 P.2d 481 (1976). Here, the court concluded:
“The evidence is not conclusive that the officers had only the three purposes in mind and that the search was for ‘caretaking’ purposes only. Therefore, in this case, the arresting officers cannot rely solely on the in*174ventory procedures to effect a valid search under these circumstances.” (Emphasis added.)
The district court found that the officers were required to inventory the vehicle and that they did so in accordance with the Steamboat Springs Police Department’s Vehicle Impound Procedure. In other cases, we have found police regulations requiring inventories of vehicles reasonable. People v. Roddy, 188 Colo. 55, 532 P.2d 958 (1975); People v. Trusty, 183 Colo. 291, 516 P.2d 423 (1973); See also South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976) where the United States Supreme Court stated:
“The decisions of this Court point unmistakably to the conclusion reached by both federal and state courts that inventories pursuant to standard police procedures are reasonable.”
The conclusion that the officers followed standard procedures is not contested on appeal.
Consequently, the only question is whether the standard procedures were used as a pretext to conceal an investigatory purpose on the part of the officers conducting the search. We have stated that an exploratory search intended to ferret out incriminating evidence does not fall within the exception to usual Fourth Amendment requirements simply because it is conducted according to a standard policy regarding inventory searches. People v. Rutovic, 193 Colo. 397, 566 P.2d 705 (1977); People v. Meeks, 194 Colo. 214, 570 P.2d 835 (1977).
This court has invalidated inventory searches only, however, when there was clear evidence supporting a finding of an investigatory, rather than a caretaking purpose. In Rutovic, supra, police searched a closed zippered compartment and an officer testified that his purpose was investigatory. In Counterman, supra, the officer inventoried the contents of a knapsack which was securely sealed. Both searches were deemed invalid. In Meeks, supra, the scope of the search was limited appropriately for a caretaking purpose and the record disclosed no bases for supposing the officer’s motives to be improper. The search was upheld.
The facts here are more akin to the situation in Meeks, supra, than those in Rutovic or Counterman, supra. The officer here testified that he conducted a routine inventory search and that he first observed items that had been reported stolen while obtaining the vehicle’s identification number. There was no testimony that the officers inventoried items in closed compartments or containers improperly. Nor was there any testimony to the effect that their purposes were investigatory. The fact that officers are aware of thefts and recognize stolen property in the course of a valid inventory does not render it an improper search or, reflexively, alter their original purpose for initiating the inventory.
The district court’s holding as to a justified inventory search indicates it misperceives the import of previous cases which held the searches *175invalid. In those cases, either the scope of the search or the officers’ testimony indicated the search was investigatory. Without such indications here, there was no evidentiary basis for holding that the officers’ search was not necessarily for caretaking purposes. The officers statements that they conducted an inventory search were uncontroverted.
On appeal, defendants only allege that seizure of certain items — which they seek to suppress — during the course of the inventory indicates the officers were rummaging for evidence. However, the same information which gave the officers probable cause to arrest the defendants also made them aware that certain items they were inventorying would quite possibly serve as evidence in a subsequent prosecution. Seizing such items is neither improper, nor, in the absence of other indications, probative of investigatory motives. People v. Roddy, supra; People v. Trusty, supra.
I would reverse the order granting the motion to suppress.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE HODGES and MR. JUSTICE PRINGLE join in this dissent.