U.S. v. Haro-Salcedo

• Decision Date: 19 February 1997
• Docket Number: D,HARO-SALCED,No. 96-4053,96-4053
• Citation: 107 F.3d 769
• Parties: 97 CJ C.A.R. 263 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Saulefendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 769

107 F.3d 769

97 CJ C.A.R. 263

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Saul HARO-SALCEDO, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 96-4053.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

Feb. 19, 1997.

Stephen R. McCaughey, Salt Lake City, UT, for Defendant-Appellant.

Richard D. McKelvie, Assistant United States Attorney (Scott M. Matheson, Jr., United States Attorney, with him on the brief), Salt Lake City, UT, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Before PORFILIO, McWILLIAMS, and HENRY, Circuit Judges.

JOHN C. PORFILIO, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Saul Haro-Salcedo entered a plea of guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), conditioned on appeal of the district court's denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized at the time of his arrest. On appeal, Mr. Haro-Salcedo argues that impoundment of his vehicle was not authorized by Utah law; that the subsequent search of his vehicle exceeded the permissible scope of an inventory search; and that consequently, the seized evidence was not admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine. We affirm.

I.

In April 1995, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Brady Mackay contacted the Salt Lake City Police Department for assistance in arresting Mr. Haro--Salcedo and his brother on outstanding warrants for drug distribution and attempted homicide. When local police stopped their car, Mr. Haro-Salcedo and his brother presented false identification and could not provide any documentation of ownership of the vehicle. Although he explained he had bought the car a few hours earlier, Mr. Haro--Salcedo was unable to provide any information about the purchase. A vehicle check revealed the car was not registered to Mr. Haro-Salcedo, and the attached license plates matched a vehicle of a different make and model. Police arrested Mr. Haro-Salcedo and his brother on the outstanding warrants and impounded the vehicle pending identification of the owner and further DEA investigation.

Agent Mackay searched the vehicle and discovered 420 grams of cocaine in a box in the trunk. Mackay testified that he conducted the search because he believed the car may have contained contraband. He did not complete an inventory form. Salt Lake City police did fill out a form, but it did not list any items because none were taken into separate custody.

II.

Mr. Haro-Salcedo contends both the impoundment and the subsequent search of his automobile violated his Fourth Amendment rights, and therefore any evidence seized should have been suppressed. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963); United States v. Ibarra, 955 F.2d 1405 (10th Cir.1992). Following an evidentiary hearing, the district court concluded the impoundment of Mr. Haro-Salcedo's vehicle was lawful, and while the DEA search for contraband did exceed the permissible scope of an inventory search, the cocaine would have been inevitably discovered during a subsequent proper inventory search. In reviewing the district court's denial of a motion to suppress, we examine the court's findings of fact for clear error, viewing all facts in the light most favorable to the government, but review de novo the reasonableness of the seizure and search. United States v. Johnson, 994 F.2d 740, 742 (10th Cir.1993).

Utah law permits an officer to seize a vehicle without a warrant if he believes the vehicle may have been stolen or if the driver is operating the vehicle without valid registration. Utah Code Ann. § 41-1a-1101. ¹ The district court found that Salt Lake City police officers impounded the vehicle for two reasons: to hold pending identification of the owner and to hold for further investigation by the DEA. This finding is supported by the record.

Agent Mackay testified that Salt Lake City police officers decided to impound the vehicle after determining that Mr. Haro-Salcedo could not provide proof of ownership and that his license plates matched a different vehicle. A Salt Lake City police officer stated he had impounded the vehicle for investigative reasons, but explained that, in any event, department policy dictated impoundment of an automobile in cases where the driver is arrested. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the district court's findings, Ibarra, 955 F.2d at 1409, we hold the court's factual findings regarding justification for the impoundment are not clearly erroneous.

Furthermore, in light of these factual findings, impoundment of Mr. Haro-Salcedo's vehicle was reasonable. The driver of the car and one of the passengers were placed under arrest. Neither could prove ownership of the vehicle nor provide proof of registration. ² The license plates affixed to the car matched a different vehicle. Under these conditions, the car could not be lawfully operated on Utah's roads. See Utah Code Ann. § 41-1a-701, 703 (requiring new owner of vehicle to obtain new license plates and registration before operation). Although the record indicates a third person occupied the vehicle, under the circumstances she could not have taken immediate custody of the car. The vehicle, of necessity, had to be impounded.

We have upheld the legality of impoundments in cases which presented similar facts. In United States v. Horn, 970 F.2d 728 (10th Cir.1992), we deemed impoundment necessary where defendant, traveling alone, was arrested on an outstanding warrant and provided an unnotarized, handwritten bill of sale to prove ownership of the vehicle. Id. at 732. We held in United States v. Kornegay, 885 F.2d 713 (10th Cir.1989), that even where defendant's arrest did not take place in close proximity to his automobile, the agents' decision to impound the vehicle was reasonable: defendant had presented false identification, no one could take custody of the car, and to have left the vehicle in a public parking lot could have subjected it to vandalism or theft. Id. at 716. See also United States v. Long, 705 F.2d 1259, 1262 (10th Cir.1983) (holding that police properly impounded vehicle pending proof of ownership).

Other courts have reached similar conclusions in determining the propriety of an impoundment. In United States v. Williams, 936 F.2d 1243 (11th Cir.1991), the Eleventh Circuit was faced with the same multiple-motivation scenario at issue in the instant case. There, an officer, having learned the license plate on defendant's car matched a different vehicle, looked through the car windows and saw two women's purses with their contents spilled on the seat and floor. He conducted a thorough search of the vehicle before impounding it. Id. at 1248. The court of appeals affirmed the district court's factual determination that the officer decided to impound the car at the time he discovered the license violation, not at the time he discovered the purses. The court further reasoned that because the officer had the legal right to impound the vehicle and had followed applicable police regulations, evidence was properly seized pursuant to an authorized inventory search. Id. at 1249.

The court in United States v. Zapata, 18 F.3d 971 (1st Cir.1994), did not require the officers to actually impound defendant's vehicle as a predicate to affirming the legality of an inventory search. Instead, relying on an "inevitable impound" theory, the court concluded "the car containing the contraband was unregistered and uninsured. Because the car could not lawfully be driven on a public highway, the state police surely would have impounded it." Id. at 978 (footnote omitted).

Mr. Haro-Salcedo's insistence that Ibarra and United States v. Pappas, 735 F.2d 1232 (10th Cir.1984), mandate reversal misses the mark. In Ibarra, we ruled that seizure of defendant's vehicle was not authorized by Wyoming law since the vehicle had not been reported stolen, the person in charge of the vehicle could have provided for its custody, and the defendant was not under arrest at the time the vehicle was impounded. 955 F.2d at 1409. None of those findings apply in the present case. ³ Furthermore, unlike the impoundment statute at issue in Ibarra, Utah law expressly permits seizure of an improperly registered vehicle. Pappas is as easily distinguished. Although the defendant in that case had been arrested prior to the impoundment, ownership of his vehicle was never in question, and friends were available to take custody of the car. Id. at 1234.

III.

The district court correctly concluded the officers' decision to impound Mr. Haro-Salcedo's vehicle was proper and reasonable under the facts of this case. Having determined the seizure comported with the prescriptions of the Fourth Amendment, we must now review the reasonableness of the DEA agent's subsequent inventory search. Mr. Haro-Salcedo argues Agent Mackay's search exceeded the permissible scope of an inventory search because it was conducted for the sole purpose of discovering incriminating evidence.

An inventory search is a well-defined exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 107 S.Ct. 738, 93 L.Ed.2d 739 (1987); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976), designed to effect three purposes: protection of the owner's property, protection of the police against claims of lost or stolen property, and protection of the police from potential danger. Opperman, 428 U.S. at 369, 96 S.Ct. at 3097; United States v. Lugo, 978 F.2d 631, 636 (10th Cir.1992). However, inventory searches are reasonable only if conducted according to standardized procedures. Bertine, 479 U.S. at 377, 107 S.Ct. at 744 (Marshall, J., concurring). An inventory search must not be a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence, but rather an administrative procedure designed to produce an inventory. Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 4, 110 S.Ct. 1632, 1635, 109 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990). See also United States v. Thompson, 29 F.3d 62, 65 (2d Cir.1994) ("The fruit...