Court Opinion

ID: 9516799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 23:52:46.337295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:17.646551
License: Public Domain

RILEY, Judge,
dissenting with separate opinion.
I respectfully dissent from the majority's decision to affirm the trial court's forfeiture of Meister's vehicle This case comes to us on remand from the United States Supreme Court, instructing us to consider the cause "in light of Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. - [, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485] (2009)." In Gant, our Supreme Court reigned in the expansive interpretation of Belton and its progeny and brought the nature of a vehicle search back to its original limited rationale, as first pronounced in Chimel. As the majority noted, the Supreme Court concluded that Belton's, broad interpretation "unteth-erfed] the rule from the justifications underlying the Chimel exception-a result clearly incompatible with our statement in Belton that it 'in no way alters the fundamental principles established in the Chi-mel case regarding the basic scope of searched incident to lawful custodial arrests'" Gant, 129 S.Ct. at 1719. As a result, the Court held in Gant that
we reject this [expansive] reading of Belton and hold that the Chimel rationale authorizes police to search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search. Although it does not follow from Chimel, we also conclude that circumstances unique to the vehicle context justify a search incident to a lawful arrest when it is "reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the erime of arrest might be found in the vehicle."
Id.
Neither the possibility of access nor the likelihood of discovering offense-related evidence authorized the search in this case. Here, Officer Bradbury testified that after he observed Wymer drive his mother's vehicle, he ran a driver's license check as he believed Wymer's license to be expired. While waiting for the result on the license check, the Officer noticed Wymer pull into the parking lot of a local store. After Wymer had returned from the store and while he was sitting in his car, Officer Bradbury was notified that Wymer's license was expired. Officer Bradbury then walked over to Wymer and Wymer exited his vehicle. Officer Bradbury advised Wymer that he was under arrest for driving while suspended and placed him in handcuffs. Searching Wymer's person, Officer Bradbury located an ink pen without inner parts but with "powdery looking residue inside it." (Transcript p. 7). At that point, the Officer did not field test the residue nor did he place Wymer under arrest for possession of illegal substances.
After searching Wymer, Officer Bradbury conducted "a search [of the vehicle] incident to arrest." (Tr. p. 8). During this search, officers found a pill bottle with a powder residue inside it. Thereafter, *420Captain Smith was contacted to conduct a field test on the residue of both items.
Based on the facts before us, it is clear that Wymer was handcuffed and secured prior to the search of his car. He was not within reaching distance of the car's interi- or. An evidentiary basis for the search was also lacking. Wymer was arrested for driving with a suspended license-an offense for which the officers could not expect to find evidence in the vehicle.2 Because the officers could not reasonably have believed either that Wymer could have accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he was arrested might have been found therein, the search in this case, pursuant to Gant's directives, was unreasonable.

. I note that if the officers had charged Wymer with possession of illegal substances after finding the ink pen and prior to the search, the search could be upheld based on the evi-dentiary prong of Gant.