Search Incident to Arrest

A search incident to a lawful arrest is an exception to the general rule that warrantless searches violate the Fourth Amendment. The exception allows a police officer making a lawful arrest to conduct a search of the area within the arrestee's “immediate control,” that is, “the area from within which [an arrestee] might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969) (internal quotation marks omitted), abrogated on other grounds by Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 344, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009).

The Exigency Exception

Under the exigency exception, officers may make a warrantless search if: (1) they have probable cause to believe that the item or place to be searched contains evidence of a crime, and (2) they are facing exigent circumstances that require immediate police action. See Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298–301, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967) (upholding a warrantless search where “the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative”). We have defined exigent circumstances as “those circumstances that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry [or search] ... was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other persons, the destruction of relevant evidence, the escape of the suspect, or some other consequence improperly frustrating legitimate law enforcement efforts.” United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 1195, 1199 (9th Cir.1984) (en banc), overruled on other grounds by Estate of Merchant v. Comm'r, 947 F.2d 1390, 1392–93 (9th Cir.1991). To be reasonable, a search under this exception must be limited in scope so that it is “strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation.” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. Reyes–Bosque, 596 F.3d 1017, 1029 (9th Cir.2010) ( “In order to prove that the exigent circumstances doctrine justified a warrantless search, the government must [also] show that ... the search's scope and manner were reasonable to meet the need.”).

The Vehicle Exception

Another exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement is the vehicle exception. Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 153–54, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925). Under the vehicle excep

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Early one October morning, defendant Isaiah Hendrix walked up to a house in **281 Oxnard, knocked on the door, and rang the doorbell. Hearing no response, Hendrix walked around the house to the backyard, opened a screen door, and attempted to open the locked glass door behind it. Then, failing that, Hendrix sat down on a bench and stayed there. Hendrix was sitting on the bench when police arrived. Hendrix told police he was there to visit his cousin, but Hendrix's cousin did not, in fact, live in the house. Hendrix was charged with burglary. 

At trial, the court gave the jury a standard mistake of fact instruction, which informed jurors that they should not convict Hendrix if they determined he lacked criminal intent because he mistakenly believed a relevant fact — namely, that the house belonged to his cousin and not to a stranger. But the instruction specified that the mistake in question had to be a reasonable one. All parties now acknowledge this was error: To negate the specific criminal intent required for burglary, a defendant's mistaken belief need not be reasonable, just genuinely held. The question before us is whether the instructional error was prejudicial and thus requires reversal. The Court of Appeal, concluding Hendrix's claim of mistake was not credible in any event, answered no. We reach a different conclusion. The instructional error effectively precluded the jury from giving full consideration to a mistake of fact claim that was supported by substantial evidence, where resolution of the issue was central to the question whether Hendrix possessed the criminal intent necessary for conviction. Whether that claim is credible is a matter for a jury to decide. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand for further proceedings.

Full case here: People v. Hendrix, 13 Cal.5th 933 (2022), https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S265668.PDF


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Wilke contends that the district court erred by denying him the adjustment solely because of the time and money the Government spent before and at trial. According to Wilke, § 3.E1.1(a) of the Guidelines focuses only on whether, in its words, “the defendant clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility for his offense,” not on whether he saves Government resources. Saving the Government resources is, rather, the basis for a separate 1-point reduction under § 3E1.1(b).

Whether USSG § 3.E1.1(a) permits consideration of the Government’s
expenditure of resources is a legal question this Court reviews de novo. United States v. Dixon, 984 F.3d 814, 818 (9th Cir. 2020). We conclude that it does not. We are persuaded by the Sixth Circuit’s reasoning in United States v. Hollis, 823 F.3d 1045 (6th Cir. 2016), where it determined that USSG § 3.E1.1(a) is “[b]y its plain terms . . . focused only on whether the defendant ‘clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility,’ while subsection (b) . . . is focused only on whether the defendant[] . . . permit[s] the government to avoid preparing for trial and permit[s] the government and the court to allocate their resources efficiently.” Id. at 1048 (quotations omitted). Considering the Government’s expenditure of resources under subsection (a) risks rendering “parts of § 3E1.1(b) superfluous,” because “[i]f waste of government resources could be a basis for denying the two-level decrease under subsection (a), then there would never be a situation where a defendant would qualify for the decrease under subsection (a) but then be denied the additional decrease under subsection (b) for the reason that his or her late-in-time guilty plea caused the government to waste resources preparing for trial.” Id.

Full case here: USA V. JUSTIN WILKE, https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/memoranda/2022/09/14/21-30228.pdf

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In a per curiam opinion, the panel affirmed the district court’s denial of Sergio Guerrero’s motion to suppress because of the consistent conclusions of Judge Gould and Judge Bea, which represent a majority of the panel, even though the reasoning of Judge Gould and Judge Bea in their separate concurrences is different.

The panel noted that one exception to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of searches and seizures conducted without prior approval by judge or magistrate is a Terry stop, which allows an officer to briefly detain an
individual when the officer has a reasonable articulable suspicion that an individual is engaged in a crime, during which stop an officer may also conduct a limited protective frisk if the officer has reason to believe the individual has a weapon. The panel noted that another exception is when an officer has probable cause to arrest an individual.

Judge Gould concurred on the grounds that Trooper Amick effected a de facto arrest supported by probable cause.

Although the possession of ammunition was not illegal in Arizona, the
extremely large volume of ammunition here raises risks to society that needed to be assessed more carefully and could not be done by a lone state trooper. The federal authorities, with their special expertise and databases, were properly invited to assess the situation before Guerrero was sent on his way with the ammunition. It was reasonable for Trooper Amick to believe this, and reasonableness is indeed the touchstone of the Fourth Amendment so far as searches and detentions are concerned.

Judge Bea concurred on the grounds that Trooper Amick merely detained Guerrero and did not effectuate a de facto arrest, but that even if Trooper Amick had arrested Guerrero, there was probable cause to do so.

Dissenting, Judge Thomas wrote that Trooper Amick’s stop ripened into an arrest when he held Guerrero handcuffed, on a roadside, for approximately 40 minutes, waiting for federal officers to arrive; and that Trooper Amick had no probable cause to do so. 

Full case here: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. SERGIO GUERRERO, --- F.4th --- (2022), https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2022/09/02/21-10248.pdf

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The Fourth Amendment specifically requires a warrant to include a description of the “place to be searched.” The police officers here—at first—complied with that requirement, obtaining a warrant that listed a motel room suspected of being a hub for drug trafficking. The officers then decided to search the suspect’s home as well, and asked the judge over the phone to expand the scope of the warrant to include the home. The judge agreed, but the officers did not physically amend the warrant.

We agree with the district court that the officers violated the Fourth Amendment because the warrant was facially defective. While a judge had orally approved the search of the home, the text of the Fourth Amendment still requires the warrant to specify the place to be searched.

Full case here: Manriquez v. Ensley, --- F.4th ---- (2022), https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2022/08/30/20-16917.pdf

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The purpose behind the decision to impound is crucial because of the reason for condoning inventory searches of impounded cars. "In the interests  of public safety and as part of what the Court has called `community caretaking functions,' [citation], automobiles are frequently taken into police custody." ( Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at p. 368.) "When vehicles are impounded, local police departments generally follow a routine practice of securing and inventorying the automobiles' contents. These procedures developed in response to three distinct needs: the protection of the owner's property while it remains in police custody, [citation]; the protection of the police against claims or disputes over lost or stolen property, [citation]; and the protection of the police from potential danger, [citation]." ( Id. at p. 369.) "[T]his Court has consistently sustained police intrusions into automobiles impounded or otherwise in lawful police custody where the process is aimed at securing or protecting the car and its contents." ( Id. at p. 373.)

The decision to impound the vehicle must be justified by a community caretaking function "other than suspicion of evidence of criminal activity" ( Bertine, supra, 479 U.S. at p. 375) because inventory searches are "conducted in the absence of probable cause" ( Whren, supra, 517 U.S. at p. 811). "

Thus, as the United States Supreme Court has explained, inventory search cases apply "the principle that an inventory search must not be a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence.

Full case here: People v. Torres, 188 Cal.App.4th 775 (Cal. Ct. App. 2010), https://casetext.com/case/people-v-torres-1078

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The Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures extends to the brief investigatory stop of a vehicle. United States v. Brignoni–Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2578–79, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975). An officer may not detain *246 a motorist without a showing of “reasonable suspicion.” Rodriguez, 976 F.2d at 594. This “objective basis, or ‘reasonable suspicion,’ must consist of ‘specific, articulable facts which, together with objective and reasonable inferences, form the basis for suspecting that the particular person detained is engaged in criminal activity.’ ” Id. (citations omitted). A “gloss on this rule prohibits reasonable suspicion from being based on broad profiles which cast suspicion on entire categories of people without any individualized suspicion of the particular person to be stopped.” United States v. Rodriguez–Sanchez, 23 F.3d 1488, 1492 (9th Cir.1994). United States v. Garcia-Camacho, 53 F.3d 244, 245–46 (9th Cir. 1995)

This court recently stated in Gonzalez–Rivera v. INS, 22 F.3d 1441, 1446 (9th Cir.1994), that “[u]nder Ninth Circuit law, a driver's failure to look at the Border Patrol cannot weigh in the balance of whether there existed reasonable suspicion for a stop.” The court stated:

A driver's failure to look at the border patrol car [cannot be used to justify the agent's suspicion] since the opposite reaction, a driver's repeated glancing at a Border Patrol car, can also be used to justify the agent's suspicion. To give weight to this type of justification “would put the officers in a classic ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ position [and] the driver, of course, can only lose.” Id. at 1447 (citation omitted). United States v. Garcia-Camacho, 53 F.3d 244, 247 (9th Cir. 1995)

Full case here: United States v. Garcia-Camacho, 53 F.3d 244, 247 (9th Cir. 1995), https://cite.case.law/f3d/53/244/

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B

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Following a traffic stop, officers searched Brandon Lance Lee's car without a warrant and discovered 56 grams of cocaine, a firearm, and other items associated with selling narcotics. After Lee was charged with various drug and weapons offenses, he filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained from the warrantless vehicle search. The trial court granted Lee's motion, rejecting the People's contentions that the search was proper under the automobile exception as supported by probable cause or, alternatively, as an inventory search of a vehicle following an impound. Reviewing that order, we rely on the trial court's express and implied factual findings, provided they are supported by substantial evidence, to independently determine whether the search was constitutional.

In evaluating the People's reliance on the automobile exception to the warrant requirement, we weigh the totality of the circumstances to determine whether officers had probable cause to search Lee's car. Our analysis, like that of the trial court, does not overlook the small, permissible amount of marijuana found in Lee's pocket. But following the legalization of marijuana in 2016, California law now expressly provides that legal cannabis and related products “are not contraband” and their possession and/or use “shall not constitute the basis for detention, search, or arrest.” (Health & Saf. Code, § 11362.1, subd. (c).) As a result, the trial court properly concluded that Lee's possession of a small amount of marijuana was of little relevance in assessing probable cause. Because the other factors relied on by the People were also of minimal significance, we conclude that even considering the totality of circumstances known to the officer there did not exist “ ‘ “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found.” ’ ” (Alabama v. White (1990) 496 U.S. 325, 330, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (Alabama).)

We likewise find no error in the trial court's conclusion that the search was not valid as an inventory search. The search here served no community caretaking function. And based on the manner in which the search was conducted and the statements of the officer to Lee and his passenger, the trial *857 court reasonably found that the primary purpose of the search was not to inventory the contents of Lee's car, but rather to investigate Lee for possible criminal behavior.

We therefore affirm the order granting Lee's motio

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The Fourth Amendment guards “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. To challenge the legality of a search under the Fourth Amendment, a criminal defendant must prove that he has a “legitimate expectation of privacy” in the item or area searched.  “A person who is aggrieved by an illegal search ... of a third person's premises or property has not had any of his Fourth Amendment rights infringed.” 

To determine whether a legitimate expectation of privacy exists, we look to “concepts of real or personal property law or to understandings that are recognized and permitted by society.” Byrd v. United States, ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 1518 (2018). Applying those principles, the Supreme Court has recognized that a driver in “lawful possession” of a rental car may have such a legitimate expectation of privacy, even if the rental agreement does not authorize that driver to drive the car. Id. at 1531.

To prevail in a Fourth Amendment challenge, the criminal defendant bears the burden of establishing a legitimate expectation of privacy in the searched property, at the time of the search, by a preponderance of the evidence. United States v. Castellanos, 716 F.3d 828, 833–35 (4th Cir. 2013).  Defendant's failure to prove ownership through a title, bill of sale, vehicle registration, or “anything else,” and the failure to prove lawful possession through evidence that anyone “had granted him permission to use the vehicle ... or any other right of any kind to the vehicle.” 

Under Byrd, an unauthorized driver of a rental car only has a legitimate expectation of privacy in a car when (1) they possess the rental car and (2) that possession is “lawful.” 138 S. Ct. at 1531. And here, as in Castellanos, Daniels had the burden of producing evidence that he had possession and that his possession was lawful. Although Daniels' counsel claimed at the suppression hearing and in his briefs that Baldwin allowed him to drive the car, Daniels did not introduce any evidence at the suppression hearing to support that claim—not even a statement of his own to suggest that he had permission. Counsel's unsupported claim is not evidence. Because Daniels did not put forward any evidence that would support his claim that Baldwin let him use the car—or that he “lawfully” possessed the rental car by other means—he fails to carry his burden that he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the rental car. Thus, his challe

Anton Vialtsin, Esq.
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Penal Code section 16470 defines a dirk or dagger as "a knife or other instrument with or without a handguard that is capable of ready use as a stabbing weapon that may inflict great bodily injury or death." (Ibid. ) This definitional language is immediately followed by an exemption: "A nonlocking folding knife, a folding knife that is not prohibited by Section 21510[, i.e., a switchblade], or a pocketknife is capable of ready use as a stabbing weapon that may inflict great bodily injury or death only if the blade of the knife is exposed and locked into position." (Ibid .)

Penal Code section 16470 excludes only nonlocking folding knives, non-switchblade folding knives, and pocketknives. The box cutter in defendant's backpack was nonfolding. If the Legislature had wanted to exclude nonfolding box cutters from the definition of "dirk" or "dagger," or to exclude all box cutters as they chose to exclude all pocketknives, they could have said so. "Our function is not to judge the wisdom of statutes. Nor are we empowered to insert what a legislative body has omitted from its enactments."

The Supreme Court has held the definition of dirk or dagger includes a knowledge element. ( People v. Rubalcava (2000) 23 Cal.4th 322, 331–332, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 735, 1 P.3d 52, discussing former Pen. Code, § 12020.) "Thus, to commit the offense, a defendant must still have the requisite guilty mind : that is, the defendant must knowingly and intentionally carry concealed upon his or her person an instrument ‘that is capable of ready use as a stabbing weapon.’ " ( Rubalcava, at p. 332, 96 Cal.Rptr.2d 735, 1 P.3d 52.)

"In addition to incorporating a knowledge element, the California Supreme Court has generally recognized that when a defendant is charged with an offense that penalizes possession of an instrument that is ordinarily usable for peaceful purposes, the defendant may justify the possession by showing the possession was ‘in accordance with [the instrument's] ordinary legitimate design.’ " 

[A] morally blameless person carrying a concealed box cutter for innocent purposes, such as a grocery store worker, carpenter or car mechanic, cannot be convicted of violating Penal Code section 21310. Defendant was convicted of violating section 21310 because he inflicted a deep, bloody wound on the victim and yelled at the victim as he sat slumped against a wall that defendant would kill him (and the eyewitness, too), leaving th

Anton Vialtsin, Esq.
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