Opinion
Case No. 02-20099-01-JWL
May 30, 2003.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Defendant Stanley R. Patrick ("Mr. Patrick") filed a motion to suppress physical evidence obtained during the search of his pickup truck allegedly conducted in violation of the Fourth Amendment (Doc. 14). The court concludes that law enforcement officials lawfully seized the weapon and ammunition incident to the arrest of Mr. Patrick's wife, Lisa Patrick. As such, the court denies his motion to suppress.
BACKGROUND
During the evening of February 4, 2002, law enforcement officials were dispatched to the "Outpost" bar on the eastern edge of LaCygne, Kansas to respond to a bar fight. Within one minute, Officer Tate A. West ("Officer West") of the LaCygne City Police Department arrived at the scene and observed approximately six to twelve individuals outside the front entrance of the bar. In particular, Officer West observed Stanley Patrick and Frankie Rookstool actively engaged in an altercation with another individual. As Officer West exited his police vehicle, Mr. Patrick, Mr. Rookstool, and others involved in the altercation began to disperse. Officer West noticed that Shawn Swisher, a bar patron, was lying on the ground outside the main entrance of the bar and was bleeding profusely from his abdomen.
Intending to secure the area so that paramedics could treat Mr. Swisher, Officer West approached Mr. Patrick and ordered him to move closer. Mr. Patrick did not comply. Officer West drew his weapon and ordered Mr. Patrick to return towards him. This time, Mr. Patrick responded reluctantly. Officer West ordered Mr. Patrick to put his hands behind his head, interlock his fingers and kneel down on the ground. Again, Mr. Patrick refused and told Officer West that he would have to shoot him. Mr. Patrick eventually complied and Officer West placed him in handcuffs. Shortly thereafter, Deputy Mark Hochalter from the Linn County Sheriff's Department arrived on the scene. The law enforcement officials placed Mr. Patrick and Mr. Rookstool under arrest and detained them in separate law enforcement vehicles.
Prior to handcuffing Mr. Patrick, the owner of the Outpost bar shined a flashlight on a utility knife ("box cutter") that was located underneath a patron's vehicle. The vehicle was parked approximately twelve feet from where Officer West first observed the altercation. Based on the location of the knife and the nature of Mr Swisher's injuries, Officer West believed that the box cutter might have been used as a weapon during the altercation. Thus, after Officer West placed Mr. Patrick in his law enforcement vehicle, he returned to seize the box cutter. The box cutter, however, was no longer located underneath the pickup truck.
After law enforcement officials realized that someone had moved the box cutter, Deputy Hochalter observed Lisa Patrick rounding the corner of the Outpost bar, presumably returning from the parking lot where her husband had parked his pickup truck just over twenty feet away from the front door of the bar. Though she was not in custody, Deputy Hochalter gave Lisa Patrick Miranda warnings and asked if she knew where the box cutter was located. Ms. Patrick initially denied any knowledge of the box cutter, but soon acknowledged that she had picked it up and placed it inside the glove box of Mr. Patrick's truck. Deputy Hochalter and Officer West then approached Mr. Patrick's vehicle and looked inside the windows. The law enforcement officials observed in plain view 9-millimeter ammunition strewn throughout the compartment of the truck. Deputy Hochalter opened the passenger side door, reached into the glove box and retrieved the box cutter. He noticed that the blade of the box cutter was clean and did not appear to have any blood stains, leading him to believe that the assailants had stabbed Mr. Swisher with a different knife that had not yet been secured.
Deputy Hochalter instructed another deputy to place Ms. Patrick under arrest for tampering with evidence. Incident to that arrest, Deputy Hochalter returned to Mr. Patrick's truck and searched the compartment for weapons. During the course of the search, the deputy picked up a black leather jacket, which was lying on the seat, and a 9-millimeter handgun fell from the right front pocket.
Later that evening, Glenn Farrell (the Chief of Police for the LaCygne Police Department) discovered a blood-stained switch blade knife lying between two parked vehicles, approximately thirty feet from Mr. Patrick's pickup truck. Law enforcement officials seized the knife and sent it to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation ("KBI") laboratory along with Mr. Swisher's shirt to determine if the blood samples matched. KBI laboratory reports confirm that Mr. Swisher was the source of both blood samples.
As Officer West began to transport Mr. Patrick to police headquarters, he removed Mr. Patrick's drivers license from his wallet. Officer West immediately believed that the photograph on the drivers license matched a photograph published on the KBI's registry of sex offenders. Officer West compared the photograph from the sex offender registry (which he had placed inside a binder located in his patrol car) with Mr. Patrick's drivers license and confirmed that the individual depicted in the drivers license photograph was the same individual depicted on the sex offender registry. At that time, Officer West had reason to believe that Mr. Patrick was a convicted felon who unlawfully possessed a firearm. Officer West testified that even if the law enforcement officials had not searched the pickup truck incident to Ms. Patrick's arrest, he would have sought a warrant to search the vehicle and seize any firearms and/or ammunition, based on his belief that Mr. Patrick was a convicted felon in possession.
On November 14, 2002, a grand jury indicted Mr. Patrick on one count of unlawfully possessing a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). On March 27, 2003, Mr. Patrick filed his motion to suppress the firearm and ammunition found in his truck. On May 9, 2003, the court held an evidentiary hearing on the motion.
DISCUSSION
Mr. Patrick believes that the search of his pickup truck, which led to the discovery of the 9-millimeter handgun and ammunition, violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment. The government contends that law enforcement conducted a lawful search incident to the arrest of his wife.
Typically, warrantless searches violate the Fourth Amendment unless they fall within a specific exception to the warrant requirement. United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705, 717 (1984). One of those specific exceptions is a search incident to arrest. The Supreme Court has held 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 containers found within the passenger compartment." New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460 (1981). The scope of a vehicle search incident to the arrest of an occupant is not without limits. The Tenth Circuit has aptly described the geographic and temporal limits of such a warrantless search:
The scope of a search incident to arrest must be strictly tied to and justified by the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible. Because searches incident to arrest are meant to discover hidden weapons and to prevent the suspect from destroying evidence, a search incident to arrest may extend only to the area within the suspect's immediate control, as that is the only area from which the suspect could draw a weapon or damage evidence. Thus, if the police arrest the occupant of a car they may also search the passenger compartment of the vehicle, but they may not search other areas that are outside the suspect's immediate control or "grab" space. The justification for allowing searches incident to arrest also places a temporal restriction upon the police's conduct. As this court stated in United States v. Lugo, 978 F.2d 631, 635 (10th Cir. 1992), once the immediate rationale for conducting a search incident to arrest has passed, the police may not then engage in a search absent probable cause to do so.
United States v. Edwards, 242 F.3d 928, 937 (10th Cir. 2001) (internal quotes and cites omitted). In short, a warrantless search incident to arrest is valid so long as law enforcement officials had a legitimate basis for the arrest prior to the search and the search was not attenuated from the arrest. United States v. Lugo, 170 F.3d 996, 1003 (10th Cir. 1999). Both requirements are satisfied in this case.
I. Valid Basis for Arrest
First, law enforcement officers had a valid basis for arresting Ms. Patrick prior to the search of the vehicle. Kansas law prohibits individuals from obstructing law enforcement's official duties. Obstruction of an official duty is defined to include "knowingly and intentionally obstructing, resisting or opposing any person authorized by law to serve process in the service or execution or in the attempt to serve or execute any writ, warrant, process or order of a court, or in the discharge of any official duty." K.S.A. § 21-3808(a). The courts construe this statute broadly in Kansas. State v. Stewart, ___ Kan. App. ___, 65 P.3d 555, 557 (2003). Generally, the prohibition "encompasses two different possible scenarios: one in which an individual is obstructed in the service or execution of process or order of a court, the other in which an officer is obstructed in the discharge of any official duty." Id. In short, K.S.A. § 21-3808 "criminalizes conduct that interferes with the performance of law enforcement" and is "designed to encourage citizens to cooperate with law enforcement and punish those who make the officer's job more difficult and dangerous." State v. Carter, ___ Kan. App. ___, 57 P.3d 825, 830 (2002). An individual (such as Ms. Patrick) who obstructs law enforcement's official duties in investigating a felony (such as the assault at the Outpost bar) commits a severity level 9, nonperson felony. K.S.A. § 21-3808(b)(1).
The undisputed testimony of Officer West and Deputy Hochalter establishes that Lisa Patrick moved the box cutter located near the scene of the bar fight to the glove box of her husband's pickup truck in an effort to disguise potentially incriminating evidence. Clearly, Lisa Patrick's attempt to hide the box cutter interfered with the performance of law enforcement and made the officers' jobs more difficult and potentially dangerous and the defendant does not argue otherwise. As such, she was subject to arrest under Kansas law. See K.S.A. § 22-2401(c) (permitting officer to arrest individual where he or she has probable cause to believe that the person is committing or has committed a felony).
II. Validity of Search Incident to Arrest
Second, the search was not too attenuated temporally or geographically from Ms. Patrick's arrest. Law enforcement officers arrested Ms. Patrick shortly after she demonstrated control over her husband's vehicle by placing the box cutter in the glove box. Deputy Hochalter testified that he searched the truck after he instructed another deputy to place her under arrest. One can reasonably infer from the testimony that a relatively short period of time transpired between Ms. Patrick's arrest and the search of the vehicle. Mr. Patrick does not otherwise suggest that the search was attenuated temporally from his wife's arrest.
Mr. Patrick, however, suggests that the warrantless search was invalid because Ms. Patrick was not adjacent to the vehicle at the time of her arrest. As such, he believes that she posed no legitimate risk of obtaining a weapon or destroying evidence therein. Indeed, the Tenth Circuit has held that officers cannot legitimately conduct a search incident to arrest where the defendant is arrested far away from his or her vehicle and is handcuffed in the back of a police vehicle at the time of the search. Edwards, 242 F.3d at 938. In Edwards, law enforcement officials searched the defendant's rental car incident to his arrest. Id. At the time of the arrest, the defendant was not located near the car, but 100 to 150 feet away, and he was handcuffed and detained in the back of a police car at the time of the search. Id. Thus, officers had "no reason to fear that Edwards could retrieve a weapon or destroy evidence in the car, as nothing within the car was in Edwards' `grab space' or immediate control." Id. The Tenth Circuit distinguished the search in Edwards from United States v. Franco, 981 F.2d 470 (10th Cir. 1992), where the court upheld a search of the defendant's vehicle, even though police arrested him in a government vehicle (not his own automobile that was subject to the search). The Tenth Circuit reasoned that "unlike in Franco, 981 F.2d at 473, where the defendant demonstrated control over his vehicle immediately prior to and at the time of arrest, there is no evidence whatsoever that Edwards had any control over the rental car immediately preceding or at the time of his arrest. Edwards, 242 F.3d at 938.
Here, the circumstances surrounding the search are more comparable to Franco than Edwards. First, law enforcement officers arrested Ms. Patrick outside the Outpost bar just a short distance away from Mr. Patrick's truck. Her location contrasts starkly with the location of the defendant in Edwards, who was some 100 to 150 feet away from the vehicle at the time of his arrest. Second, unlike Edwards, Ms. Patrick had recently demonstrated control over the vehicle immediately prior to her arrest and during the commission of her offense. This control corroborates the fact that the search served to protect the safety of the law enforcement officers. Franco, 981 F.2d at 473. Finally, unlike Edwards, no evidence was presented that Ms. Patrick was safely restrained in the back of a squad car at the time of the search. In fact, the court inferred from the testimony of Deputy Hochalter that the search occurred virtually simultaneously with her arrest and before she was transported. Although officers handcuffed her before they searched the truck, this does not undercut their rationale for conducting a search incident to arrest. The Tenth Circuit has consistently held that where an officer has made a lawful arrest of a suspect in connection with an automobile, the officer may seize items of evidence found within the passenger compartment of the vehicle as part of a search incident to a lawful arrest, even when the suspect is outside the vehicle and handcuffed. United States v. Humphrey, 208 F.3d 1190, 1202 (10th Cir. 2000); United States v. Lacey, 86 F.3d 956, 971 (10th Cir. 1996); United States v. McKinnell, 888 F.2d 669, 672-73 (10th Cir. 1989); United States v. Cotton, 751 F.2d 1146, 1148 (10th Cir. 1985).
After examining the law enforcement officers' conduct under the totality of the circumstances, the court finds that they had a valid basis for arresting Ms. Patrick and their search was not attenuated from that arrest. As such, the challenged search falls within the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement and the court denies Mr. Patrick's motion to suppress.
The government argued, in the alternative, that the court should not suppress the gun and ammunition under the exclusionary rule because law enforcement officials would have inevitably discovered that evidence. Specifically, the government notes that Officer West observed ammunition in plain view on the seat and floorboard of Mr. Patrick's truck and, later, he had reason to believe that Mr. Patrick was a convicted felon. In light of this information, Officer West testified that he would have obtained a warrant to search the vehicle for weapons but for the search incident to arrest. The court, however, does not reach this issue in light of its finding that the officers lawfully searched Mr. Patrick's truck incident to the arrest of his wife.
IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Mr. Patrick's motion to suppress (Doc. 14) is denied.
IT IS SO ORDERED.