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USCA1 Opinion
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
____________________
No. 93-2249
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff, Appellee,
v.
JOHN R. DOWARD,
Defendant, Appellant.
____________________
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Paul J. Barbadoro, U.S. District Judge] ___________________
____________________
Before
Cyr and Stahl, Circuit Judges, ______________
and DiClerico,* Chief District Judge. ____________________
____________________
Paul J. Garrity for appellant. _______________
Jean L. Ryan, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Paul M. ____________ _______
Gagnon, United States Attorney, was on brief. ______
____________________
December 14, 1994
____________________
____________________
*Of the District of New Hampshire, sitting by designation.
CYR, Circuit Judge. After entering a conditional plea CYR, Circuit Judge. _____________
of guilty, and reserving the right to appeal an earlier order
rejecting his motion to suppress a .38 caliber handgun seized
incident to his arrest, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2), defendant ___
John R. Doward was convicted and sentenced in the District of New
Hampshire on a one-count indictment charging possession of a
firearm by a convicted felon, see 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1), ___
924(e)(1). Doward contends that a warrantless search of the
hatch area of the two-door Ford Mustang which he was driving
immediately before the arrest violated the Fourth Amendment. See ___
U.S. Const. amend. IV. We affirm the district court judgment.
I I
BACKGROUND BACKGROUND __________
The relevant facts are not in dispute. On October 18,
1992, Officers James Tareco and Robert Oxley of the Manchester
Police Department stopped the Ford Mustang after it made an
illegal turn. Ten minutes later, a routine license check dis-
closed that Doward was wanted in Ohio on an outstanding arrest
warrant. Doward was ordered out of the car, arrested, hand-
cuffed, and then placed in a nearby police cruiser, awaiting
transport to the police station.
Meanwhile, the male passenger in the right front seat
had been instructed to get out of the Ford Mustang and remain on
the sidewalk as the front and back seat areas were searched.
Although the hatch area was accessible from the back seat,
2
Officer Tareco chose to gain access by unlocking the hatch from
outside the vehicle. The hatch area was found to contain two
partially zipped suitcases. In the first suitcase he searched,
Tareco discovered a gun cleaning kit and ammunition.
During the search, Doward's daughter suddenly emerged
from the gathering crowd and informed Tareco that the Ford
Mustang belonged to her, but the suitcases did not. At this
point, the police van arrived and Doward was transported to the
station. Resuming the search, Officer Oxley seized the loaded
.38 caliber handgun from the second suitcase discovered in the
hatch area. Three minutes had elapsed since Doward's arrest;
thirty seconds since he was transported from the scene. Doward's
daughter was arrested shortly thereafter, when a further check
revealed that she too was wanted on an outstanding arrest war-
rant.
II II
DISCUSSION DISCUSSION __________
The government is required to establish that the hatch-
area search which yielded the .38 caliber handgun came within a
recognized exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.
See United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 51 (1951). The ___ ______________ _______
government defends the search as "a contemporaneous incident of
[Doward's] arrest." See New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460 ___ ________ ______
(1981).
Doward argues that the search which yielded the handgun
3
was not sufficiently contemporaneous with his arrest because the
handgun was seized after he had been removed from the scene, at a _____
time when there was no conceivable risk that he could have
reached it. Thus, even if the handgun were the fruit of an
automobile passenger-compartment search commenced as a contem- _________
poraneous incident of his arrest, Doward would urge a per se ___ __
suppression rule as to any evidence seized after the arrestee has
been removed from the scene and the security rationale for the
Belton rule no longer obtains. See, e.g., State v. Badgett, 512 ______ ___ ____ _____ _______
A.2d 160, 169 (Conn.) (holding that the right to continue a
Belton search "ceases the instant the arrestee departs the ______
scene"), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 940 (1986); State v. Fry, 388 ____ ______ _____ ___
N.W.2d 565, 577 (Wis.) (same), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 989 (19- ____ ______
86).1 Alternatively, Doward argues that the hatch area was not
____________________
1Since Doward simply contrasts the present case with those
in which an arrestee remains in close proximity to the vehicle
and continues to pose at least some unpredictable, albeit slight,
risk to the security of the officers or the evidence (e.g., ____
arrestee handcuffed in back of guarded police cruiser), we do not
understand him to challenge the great weight of authority which
holds that Belton's bright-line rule applies even in cases where ______
the arrestee is under physical restraint and at some distance
from the automobile during the search. See, e.g., United States ___ ____ _____________
v. Jackson, 918 F.2d 236, 240 (1st Cir. 1990) (arrestee hand- _______
cuffed in police cruiser); United States v. White, 871 F.2d 41, _____________ _____
43 (6th Cir. 1989) (in police cruiser); United States v. Karlin, _____________ ______
852 F.2d 968, 970-71 (7th Cir. 1988) (handcuffed in police
cruiser), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1021 (1989); United States v. _____ ______ _____________
Cotton, 751 F.2d 1146, 1148 (10th Cir. 1985) (handcuffed); ______
United States v. Collins, 668 F.2d 819, 821 (5th Cir. 1982) ______________ _______
(same); see also Traylor v. State, 458 A.2d 1170, 1174 (Del. ___ ____ _______ _____
1983) (outside car, handcuffed); State v. Wheaton, 825 P.2d 501, _____ _______
502-03 (Idaho 1992) (handcuffed in police cruiser); State v. _____
Miskolczi, 465 A.2d 919, 920-21 (N.H. 1983) (same); State v. _________ _____
Hensel, 417 N.W.2d 849, 852-53 (N.D. 1988) (same); State v. ______ _____
Fladebo, 779 P.2d 707, 711-12 (Wash. 1989) (in cruiser); cf. _______ ___
United States v. Vasey, 834 F.2d 782, 787 (9th Cir. 1987) (citing _____________ _____
4
subject to a warrantless "contemporaneous" search incident to
arrest, because the hatch area is more akin to an automobile
trunk, which the Belton Court clearly differentiated from the ______
"passenger compartment." Consequently, he insists, the trial
court was required to conduct a post hoc analysis as to whether ____ ___
either vehicle occupant could have reached into the hatch area
for a weapon or evidence.
Since Doward's arguments test the temporal and spatial
limits of the bright-line rule announced in Belton, its context ______
and rationale must be parsed exactingly at the outset. As a
general rule, a lawful custodial arrest may be accompanied by a ______
warrantless search not only of the arrestee's "person" but the ______
area within the arrestee's "immediate control" for "any _________ _______
weapons that the [arrestee] might seek to use in order to resist
arrest or effect his escape [and jeopardize] . . . the officer's
safety," as well as for "evidence on the arrestee's person [or in
'the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a
weapon or evidentiary items'] in order to prevent its concealment
or destruction . . . ." Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762- ______ __________
63 (1969) (invalidating, as overbroad, search of entire residence _________
in which owner was arrested) (emphasis added). Some years later,
in Belton, supra, the Court outlined the scope of the zone of ______ _____ _____
"immediate control," see Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763, in the context ___ ______
of a warrantless security search of an automobile passenger
compartment conducted as a contemporaneous incident of the
____________________
United States v. Abel, 707 F.2d 1013, 1015 n. 3 (9th Cir. 1983)). _____________ ____
5
arrests of all its occupants. Belton upheld a warrantless search ______
of the entire "passenger compartment" against a claim that all
its occupants were outside the vehicle at the time of the search _______
thus, as a practical matter, no longer within "reach" of any
weapons, evidence or contraband located within the passenger
compartment. Belton, 453 U.S. at 460. ______
Alluding to the difficulties encountered by lower
courts in adapting for application to arrest-related automo-
bile searches the "immediate control" concept announced in
Chimel, the Belton Court's opinion stressed that its bright-line ______ ______
rule was designed to foster both privacy and law enforcement
interests: "[T]he protection of the Fourth and Fourteenth __________
Amendments 'can only be realized if the police are acting under a ___ ____ __ ________ __
set of rules which, in most instances, makes it possible to reach ___ __ _____ __ ____ _________ _____ __ ________ __ _____
a correct determination beforehand as to whether an invasion of _ _______ _____________ __________
privacy is justified in the interest of law enforcement,'" id. at ___
458 (citation omitted) (emphasis added), especially since police
officers engaged in an arrest on the highway have "only limited
time and expertise to reflect on and balance the social and
individual interests involved in the specific circumstances they
confront." Id. at 458-59 (noting earlier Supreme Court cases ___
rejecting the view that "there must be litigated in each case the
issue of whether or not there was present one of the reasons
supporting the authority for a search of the person incident to a ______
lawful arrest") (citation omitted) (emphasis added).
The Belton Court explicitly predicated its bright-line ______
6
rule on "the generalization that articles inside the relatively ______________
narrow compass of the passenger compartment of an automobile are
in fact generally, even if not inevitably, within 'the area into ____ __ ___ __________ ____
which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or _____
evidentiary [item].'" Id. at 460 (quoting Chimel, 395 U.S. at ___ ______
763) (emphasis added). Against this pragmatic framework the
Court articulated its bright-line rule: "we hold that when a
policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of
an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that _______________ ________ __ ____
arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile," and ______
"examine the contents of any [open or closed] containers found
within the passenger compartment . . . ." Id. (footnote omitted) ___
(emphasis added).2 Finally, the scope of the "passenger com-
partment" under the bright-line rule announced in Belton would ______
not encompass the trunk. Id. at 460-61 n.4. ___
We think Belton leaves no doubt that post hoc analyses ______ ____ ___
like those presently urged by Doward are precluded. The Belton ______
majority's circumspect use of the discrete phrase "contemporane-
____________________
2The Belton bright-line rule likewise extends to any con- ______ ___
tainer within the passenger compartment even though its outward
appearance might foreclose the possibility that it could hold a
weapon or evidence: "The authority to search the person incident ___ ______
to a lawful custodial arrest, while based upon the need to disarm
and to discover evidence, does not depend on what a court may ___ ______
later decide was the probability in a particular arrest situation ___________
that weapons or evidence would in fact be found upon the person
of the suspect. A custodial arrest of a suspect based on proba-
ble cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment;
that intrusion being lawful, a search incident to the arrest
requires no additional justification." Belton, 453 U.S. at 461 ______
(citing United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235 (1973)) _____________ ________
(emphasis added).
7
ous incident of that arrest," rather than the less expansive ________
phrase "contemporaneous with that arrest" as Doward would have ____
us read it plainly implies a greater temporal leeway between
the custodial arrest and the search than Doward advocates.
Moreover, the temporal limitation urged by Doward would undermine
Belton's bright-line rule by requiring courts to second-guess the ______
security assessments made by law enforcement officers at the
scene.3
Nor is the variant urged by Doward consonant with the
bright-line rule as the Court articulated it. Nothing in the
majority opinion even remotely implies that law enforcement
officers must discontinue a passenger-compartment search ___________
properly initiated as a contemporaneous incident of an occupant's ________
arrest the instant the arrestee is transported from the scene.
As must be the usual case in automobile-related arrests, Belton
and the three passengers were no longer in the vehicle when the
automobile search began. Although their location outside the
vehicle virtually eliminated any chance that they could "reach"
____________________
3We need not consider whether the time span between an
automobile-related arrest and the initiation of a warrantless __________
search of the passenger compartment might become so protracted as
to raise judicial eyebrows in an exceptional case, see, e.g., ___ ____
United States v. Vasey, 834 F.2d 782, 787 (9th Cir. 1987) (dis- _____________ _____
tinguishing invalid automobile search, occurring 30-45 minutes
after arrest, from searches which "followed closely on the heels
of the arrest"), since this is anything but an exceptional case.
The officers initiated the three-minute contemporaneous search _________
immediately after Doward was placed under arrest, and completed
it within thirty seconds after he was transported from the scene. ______ _______
Compare United States v. Lugo, 978 F.2d 631, 634 (10th Cir. 1992) _______ _____________ ____
(invalidating search initiated after arrestee left scene) with _________ ____
United States v. McCrady, 774 F.2d 868, 871-72 (8th Cir. 1985) ______________ _______
(upholding search initiated after arrestee left scene). _________
8
into the passenger compartment for any purpose, the Court con-
spicuously passed up the opportunity to limit its bright-line
rule by requiring that the warrantless search cease once all
occupants were removed from the passenger-compartment.4 In-
stead, the Belton majority opted to relax Chimel's residence- ______ ______ _________
related arrest rationale in automobile-related arrests lest its
fact-intensive inquiries immerse the courts in second-guessing
security decisions made by law enforcement officers in rapidly
evolving circumstances fraught with unpredictable risks to life
and limb. See, e.g., United States v. Karlin, 852 F.2d 968, 971 ___ ____ _____________ ______
(7th Cir. 1988) (hindsight-based probability determinations would
eviscerate Belton bright-line rule); see also United States v. ______ ___ ____ ______________
McCrady, 774 F.2d 868, 871-72 (8th Cir. 1985) (upholding search _______
initiated after arrestee had left the scene).5 _________
____________________
4Indeed, as the dissent noted, see Belton, 453 U.S. at 468 ___ ______
(Brennan, J., dissenting), "the result would presumably be the
same even if [the police officer] had handcuffed Belton . . . in
the patrol car . . . ." See also supra note 1. ___ ____ _____
5Although such considerations are not determinative, the
unpredictable developments ultimately confronting the officers in
this case clearly vindicate the Belton rationale. The male ______
passenger in the Ford Mustang remained in close proximity to the
vehicle during the arrest and the ensuing search. Moreover,
Doward's daughter, who also unbeknownst to the officers was
subject to an outstanding arrest warrant, unexpectedly approached
the officers from out of the gathering crowd. With only two
officers available to search the vehicle and deal with this
potentially dangerous situation, a decisional rule which would
require judicial second-guessing of the need to continue the
passenger-compartment search after Doward had been transported
from the scene would eviscerate Belton's bright-line rule. ______
Furthermore, the Belton rationale would be undermined were a ______
temporal limit to be drawn, as Doward urges, after Officer _____
Tareco's valid warrantless search of the first suitcase had
disclosed the gun cleaning kit and ammunition, which afforded
reasonable cause to believe that the passenger compartment would
9
Doward further contends, in the alternative, that the
hatch area was not subject to contemporaneous search under the
bright-line rule announced in Belton, as it is more akin to an ______
automobile trunk, which Belton was careful to differentiate from ______
the "passenger compartment." See Belton, 453 U.S. at 460-61 n.4. ___ ______
Consequently, he argues, the district court was required to
determine whether any vehicle occupant could have reached into
the hatch area while inside the Ford Mustang. And he asks this
court to take judicial notice that the Ford Mustang hatchback he
was driving had large interior dimensions which would make it
impossible to reach into the hatch area from his position in the
front seat.
We believe Belton unmistakably forecloses all such post ______ ____
facto inquiries on actual "reachability." As we have noted, the _____
Court expressly predicated its bright-line rule on "the general- ________
ization that articles inside the relatively narrow compass of the _______
passenger compartment of an automobile are in fact generally,
even if not inevitably, within 'the area into which an arrestee ____ __ ___ __________
might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary [item].'"
Id. at 461 (citation omitted) (emphasis added). Thus, the only ___
question the trial court asks is whether the area searched is
generally "reachable without exiting the vehicle, without regard _______ _______ ___ _______
to the likelihood in the particular case that such a reaching was
possible." 3 Wayne R. Lafave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on _________________________________
____________________
be found to contain a loaded firearm, a core concern undergirding
both Chimel and Belton. ______ ______
10
the Fourth Amendment 7.1(c), at 16-17 (2d ed. 1987) (collecting ____________________
cases) (emphasis added). The uncovered hatch area in this two-
door Ford Mustang unlike a trunk generally is accessible
from within the passenger compartment. Consequently, it is
immaterial to the present analysis that the police elected to
gain access by opening the outside lock on the hatch.
The district court judgment is affirmed. The district court judgment is affirmed. _______________________________________
11
Document Info
Docket Number： 93-2249
Filed Date： 12/14/1994
Precedential Status： Precedential
Modified Date： 9/21/2015