State v. VanNess
State v. VanNess
Opinion of the Court
¶1
Stephen Lee VanNess appeals his conviction for possession of heroin and possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver. He claims that a post-arrest search of a locked box police found in his backpack violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 7 of the Washington State Constitution. Because the State does not show that this search meets any exception to the warrant requirements of
FACTS
¶2 On November 29, 2012, the Everett Police Department received a citizen report about seeing Stephen Lee VanNess. The dispatcher informed responding Officer Robert Edmonds that VanNess had warrants out for his arrest. Edmonds obtained a physical description, made contact with VanNess, and arrested him. When arrested, VanNess was wearing a backpack and carrying a bag. Edmonds removed the backpack. A second officer arrived. Edmonds handcuffed VanNess, walked him and his bags to the patrol car, and placed the backpack on top of the car trunk. A third officer arrived.
¶3 Edmonds asked VanNess for permission to search the backpack. VanNess did not respond. The Everett Police Department had a policy requiring officers to search backpacks for dangerous items, adopted after an officer had failed to search a backpack and, after transporting it to the police station, discovered a pipe bomb inside. Following that policy, Edmonds searched VanNess’s backpack. During the search, at least one officer stood near VanNess next to the right rear passenger door of Edmonds’s patrol car. Edmonds found three knives attached to the exterior of the backpack and another inside. Edmonds then arrested VanNess for possessing these knives because their blade length made them dangerous weapons under the Everett Municipal Code.
¶5 Edmonds applied for and received a warrant to search the box. When he searched the box, he found suspected methamphetamine and heroin, a digital scale, a glass pipe, and several plastic baggies. The State charged VanNess with possession of heroin with intent to deliver and possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver.
¶6 The trial court denied VanNess’s motion to suppress evidence of the box contents, concluding that Edmonds lawfully searched the backpack and the locked box incident to VanNess’s arrest. The court noted its concern for officer safety and reasoned that because officers found knives outside and in the backpack, the box could have also contained dangerous materials. The court ruled that officers conducted a proper inventory search of VanNess’s backpack but ruled that the inventory search exception did not justify a warrantless search of the locked box. It then found that the items discovered in the box during the search incident to arrest established probable cause to obtain a warrant.
¶7 At trial, the court admitted the evidence the police found in the locked box. A jury found VanNess guilty of
STANDARD OF REVIEW
¶8 A Washington court must presume that a warrantless search violates both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 7 of the Washington State Constitution.
¶9 This court also reviews de novo a trial court’s assessment of a magistrate’s probable cause determination when issuing a search warrant.
¶10 VanNess contends that Edmonds’s warrantless search of the locked box violated both the Fourth Amendment and article I, section 7. The State asserts that the search incident to arrest and inventory exceptions to the constitutional warrant requirements validate this search. We agree with VanNess.
¶11 The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures.
¶12 A warrantless search is per se unreasonable, unless the State can prove a “ ‘carefully drawn and jealously guarded exception! ]’ ” applies.
¶13 We first consider if the search incident to arrest exception validates Edmonds’s warrantless search of the locked box. VanNess does not challenge the lawfulness of his arrest. Citing State v. Byrd,
¶14 In Byrd, decided in 2013, the Washington Supreme Court considered the validity of a warrantless search of Byrd’s purse, seized from her lap and set on the ground by the police when arresting Byrd.
¶15 In Riley, decided in 2014, the Supreme Court narrowed the search incident to arrest exception, holding that police generally may not search the digital information on a cell phone seized from a person at the time of arrest.
Absent more precise guidance from the founding era, we generally determine whether to exempt a given type of search from the warrant requirement ‘by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.”[25 ]
¶16 It then looked at its earlier application of the underlying reasons for a warrantless search incident to arrest by reviewing three related precedents that set forth the rules for this search. The Court described the first, Chimel v. California,
“When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer’s safety might well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addi*158 tion, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee’s person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. . . . There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of the arrestee’s person and the area ‘within his immediate control’ — construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.”[28 ]
¶17 The Court next summarized Robinson, which it said applied the Chimel analysis to a search of an arrestee’s person and adopted the rule that a search of the person incident to a custodial arrest based on probable cause requires no additional justification.
¶18 Finally, the Court summarized Arizona v. Gant
¶19 The Riley Court acknowledged that a mechanical application oí Robinson’s categorical rule might support the warrantless searches at issue but rejected this approach.
¶20 The Riley Court did not apply the “ ‘case-by-case adjudication’ ” that Robinson rejected.
¶21 The Riley Court then examined an arrestee’s privacy interests in cell phone content. It recognized both a quantitative and qualitative difference between cell phones and other physical objects that might be found on an arrestee’s person.
¶22 After Riley, a lawful arrest no longer provides categorical justification to search, without a warrant, all items found on an arrested person at the time of arrest. Instead, if the item to be searched falls within a category that implicates an arrestee’s significant privacy interests, the court must balance the government interests against those individual privacy interests. Only when government interests in officer safety and evidence preservation exceed an arrestee’s privacy interest in the category of item to be searched may it be searched incident to arrest without a warrant.
¶23 The Washington Supreme Court has stated that this balancing of interests is not appropriate under article I, section 7.
¶24 While State v. Stroud
Where a container is locked and officers have the opportunity to prevent the individual’s access to the contents of that container so that officer safety or the preservation of evidence of the crime of arrest is not at risk, there is no justification under the search incident to arrest exception to permit a warrantless search of the locked container.[49 ]
¶25 The State argues that Byrd and State v. MacDicken
¶26 At the time of VanNess’s arrest, the arresting officers removed his backpack, which contained the locked box. Officer Edmonds then handcuffed VanNess and walked him and the backpack to the patrol car. Officer Edmonds put the backpack on the trunk of his patrol car while VanNess stood next to the right passenger side of the car with another officer present. VanNess no longer had access to the contents of his backpack. In addition, a combination lock separated VanNess from the locked box’s contents.
¶27 While Officer Edmonds found knives on and inside the backpack, in his affidavit of probable cause he did not
¶28 Since Officer Edmonds arrested VanNess on outstanding warrants, the State cannot show that Officer Edmonds reasonably believed evidence relevant to the crime of arrest would be found in the locked box.
¶29 We next consider the State’s assertion that the inventory search exception to the warrant requirement justified the search of the locked box.
¶30 Officers may conduct a warrantless inventory search (1) to protect the arrestee’s property, (2) to protect the government from false claims of theft, and (3) to protect police officers and the public from potential danger.
¶31 But an officer’s compliance with an established police procedure does not constitutionalize an illegal search.
¶32 The State claims that the inventory search exception applies to Officer Edmonds’s search of VanNess’s locked box because he searched it to protect officer safety when transporting goods to the police station. VanNess responds that the State could not prove the manifest necessity needed to justify the search of a locked container.
¶33 At the CrR 3.6 suppression hearing, Officer Edmonds did not identify any evidence that the locked box contained any dangerous item or otherwise presented a safety issue. His use of a screwdriver to pry the box open in the immediate presence of others undermined the State’s effort at the hearing to suggest that he opened the box to check for a possible bomb or hair-trigger firearm. In State v. Houser,
¶34 The State next argues that it does not need to show manifest necessity to search the locked box. It reasons that unlike the contents of a locked vehicle trunk, an arrestee has “a diminished expectation of privacy in the clothing and personal possessions closely associated with an arrested person.” To support this argument, the State cites State v. Smith,
¶35 Also, the State’s position conflicts with our decision in State v. Dugas.
¶36 We conclude that neither the search incident to arrest nor the inventory search exception applies to the officer’s initial search of VanNess’s locked box. Therefore, the officer unconstitutionally searched the locked box.
¶37 VanNess claims that Officer Edmonds obtained a search warrant based on probable cause supported solely by this unconstitutional search of the locked box, and therefore
¶38 A search warrant may be issued only upon a magistrate’s determination of probable cause.
¶39 Edmonds requested a search warrant based on the baggies and digital scale he saw in the locked box and the heroin-like odor of vinegar coming from it. But because Edmonds obtained this evidence as a result of an illegal, warrantless search, it cannot provide the basis for a warrant.
¶40 If an affidavit contains facts sufficient to establish probable cause independent of illegally obtained information also in the affidavit, a court will not invalidate the warrant.
¶41 Because of our resolution of the search and seizure issue in VanNess’s favor, we need not consider VanNess’s statement of additional grounds.
CONCLUSION
¶42 Because the State does not show that the search of VanNess’s locked box satisfied any exception to the constitutional warrant requirements, we hold that Edmonds un
State v. Kirwin, 165 Wn.2d 818, 824, 203 P.3d 1044 (2009).
Kirwin, 165 Wn.2d at 824.
State v. Hinton, 179 Wn.2d 862, 867, 319 P.3d 9 (2014) (citing State v. Schultz, 170 Wn.2d 746, 753, 248 P.3d 484 (2011)); State v. Brock, 182 Wn. App. 680, 685, 330 P.3d 236 (2014), review granted, 181 Wn.2d 1029 (2015).
State v. Neth, 165 Wn.2d 177, 182, 196 P.3d 658 (2008).
State v. Lyons, 174 Wn.2d 354, 360, 275 P.3d 314 (2012); State v. Fisher, 96 Wn.2d 962, 964, 639 P.2d 743 (1982).
State v. Ladson, 138 Wn.2d 343, 359, 979 P.2d 833 (1999).
State v. Young, 123 Wn.2d 173, 196, 867 P.2d 593 (1994).
U.S. Const, amend. TV.
State v. Valdez, 167 Wn.2d 761, 772, 224 P.3d 751 (2009) (citing York v. Wahkiakum Sch. Dist. No. 200, 163 Wn.2d 297, 305-06, 178 P.3d 995 (2008)).
Wash. Const, art. I, § 7.
State v. MacDicken, 179 Wn.2d 936, 940, 319 P.3d 31 (2014).
York, 163 Wn.2d at 306.
State v. Byrd, 178 Wn.2d 611, 616, 310 P.3d 793 (2013) (quoting State v. Bravo Ortega, 177 Wn.2d 116, 122, 297 P.3d 57 (2013)).
United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 94 S. Ct. 467,38 L. Ed. 2d 427 (1973); Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S. Ct. 2034, 23 L. Ed. 2d 685 (1969); Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 129 S. Ct. 1710, 173 L. Ed. 2d 485 (2009); Byrd, 178 Wn.2d at 617.
State v. Tyler, 177 Wn.2d 690, 302 P.3d 165 (2013); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 96 S. Ct. 3092, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1000 (1976).
State v. Eserjose, 171 Wn.2d 907, 913, 259 P.3d 172 (2011).
178 Wn.2d 611, 310 P.3d 793 (2013).
_U.S._, 134 S. Ct. 2473, 2484, 189 L. Ed. 2d 430 (2014).
Byrd, 178 Wn.2d at 617-25; Robinson, 414 U.S. at 235.
414 U.S. 218, 235, 94 S. Ct. 467, 38 L. Ed. 2d 427 (1973).
Byrd, 178 Wn.2d at 625.
Byrd, 178 Wn.2d at 625.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2484-85.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2482-83.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2484 (quoting Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 300, 119 S. Ct. 1297, 143 L. Ed. 2d 408 (1999)).
395 U.S. 752, 89 S. Ct. 2034, 23 L. Ed. 2d 685 (1969).
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2483.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2483 (alteration in original) (quoting Chimel, 395 U.S. at 762-63).
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2483.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2483.
556 U.S. 332, 129 S. Ct. 1710, 173 L. Ed. 2d 485 (2009).
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2484.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2484.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2485.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2489.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2485.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2485 (quoting Gant, 556 U.S. at 343).
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2485-87.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2489.
See Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2484.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2488.
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2488 (quoting Maryland v. King,_U.S._, 133 S. Ct. 1958, 1979, 186 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2013)).
Riley, 134 S. Ct. at 2484.
Valdez, 167 Wn.2d at 775-76.
Valdez, 167 Wn.2d at 776.
Valdez, 167 Wn.2d at 776 (second alteration in original) (quoting State v. Stroud, 106 Wn.2d 144, 152, 720 P.2d 436 (1986), overruled on other grounds by Valdez, 167 Wn.2d at 776-77).
106 Wn.2d 144, 720 P.2d 436 (1986), overruled on other grounds by Valdez, 167 Wn.2d at 776-77.
167 Wn.2d 761, 224 P.3d 751 (2009).
Valdez, 167 Wn.2d at 776-77.
179 Wn.2d 936, 319 P.3d 31 (2014).
Valdez, 167 Wn.2d at 778.
VanNess assigns error to the court’s conclusion that the inventory search exception justified the search of his backpack. VanNess does not support this contention with citation to authority or reference to the record, required for this court’s proper review of the issue. Cowiche Canyon Conservancy v. Bosley, 118 Wn.2d 801, 809, 828 P.2d 549 (1992). Further, VanNess admits the constitutionality of the search of his backpack as incident to arrest, resolving the issue.
Tyler, 177 Wn.2d at 701; Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 371, 107 S. Ct. 738, 93 L. Ed. 2d 739 (1987).
State v. Smith, 76 Wn. App. 9, 13, 882 P.2d 190 (1994).
Tyler, 177 Wn.2d at 701; Opperman, 428 U.S. at 369.
Smith, 76 Wn. App. at 13-14 (citing Bertine, 479 U.S. at 375-76).
State v. White, 135 Wn.2d 761, 771, 958 P.2d 982 (1998).
White, 135 Wn.2d at 771.
95 Wn.2d 143, 155-56, 622 P.2d 1218 (1980).
Houser, 95 Wn.2d at 158.
76 Wn. App. 9, 11, 15, 882 P.2d 190 (1994).
Smith, 76 Wn. App. at 16.
109 Wn. App 592, 36 P.3d 577 (2001).
Dugas, 109 Wn. App. at 597.
Neth, 165 Wn.2d at 182.
State v. Thein, 138 Wn.2d 133, 140, 977 P.2d 582 (1999).
State v. Maxwell, 114 Wn.2d 761, 769, 791 P.2d 223 (1990).
Reference
- Full Case Name
- The State of Washington v. Stephen Lee VanNess
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