McDonald v. State

• Decision Date: 22 June 2005
• Docket Number: No. CA CR 03-957.,CA CR 03-957.
• Citation: 210 S.W.3d 915
• Parties: Randolph McDONALD, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.
• Court: Arkansas Court of Appeals

210 S.W.3d 915

Randolph McDONALD, Appellant, v. STATE of Arkansas, Appellee.

No. CA CR 03-957.

Court of Appeals of Arkansas, Divisions I, II, III, IV.

June 22, 2005.

Laura Lee Cunningham, Rogers, for appellant.

Mike Beebe, Att'y Gen., by: Lauren Elizabeth Heil, Ass't Att'y Gen., Little Rock, for appellee.

JOHN MAUZY PITTMAN, Chief Judge.

The appellant in this criminal case entered a conditional plea of guilty pursuant to Ark. R.Crim. P. 24.3(b) to possession of methamphetamine found in a search of his automobile conducted after his arrest. On appeal, he asserts that there was no valid basis to perform an inventory of his automobile and argues that the trial court therefore erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained from the automobile following his arrest. We affirm.

The record shows that the owner of Johnson's Automotive called police to report that appellant had driven by that business several times, leading the owner to suspect that appellant would attempt to remove one of appellant's automobiles from impound after the business closed for the night. A check disclosed that there were outstanding warrants for appellant's arrest for violation of the Arkansas Hot Check Law and for failure to pay child support, and an officer was dispatched to make contact with him. The officer saw appellant driving on Route 23 and attempted to stop him by engaging the emergency lights and siren of his patrol car. Appellant indicated by waving his hand and pointing out the window that he saw the officer but, instead of stopping in a nearby parking lot as directed, he continued driving, turned onto Benton Street, and parked on the street in front of his home. Appellant exited his car and was arrested on the outstanding warrants. Officers immediately performed an inventory of appellant's automobile at the scene and discovered in a jacket in the front seat the methamphetamine that he was convicted of possessing in this case.

On appeal, appellant contends that there was no reasonable need to secure his automobile and its contents because it was parked in front of his home, and that the items discovered in his car therefore should have been suppressed as the fruits of an illegal search. Where the validity of a warrantless search is in issue, this court makes an independent determination, based on the totality of the circumstances, whether the evidence obtained by means of a warrantless arrest or search should be suppressed. The trial court's finding will not be set aside unless it is found to be clearly against the preponderance of the evidence. As the preponderance of the evidence turns heavily on the question of credibility, we defer to the superior position of the trial court in making the determination of which evidence is to be believed. Folly v. State, 28 Ark.App. 98, 771 S.W.2d 306 (1989).

As a general rule, all searches conducted without a valid warrant are unreasonable unless shown to be within one of the exceptions to the rule that a search must rest upon a valid warrant. Kirk v. State, 38 Ark.App. 159, 832 S.W.2d 271 (1992). The burden is on the State to establish an exception to the warrant requirement. Fultz v. State, 333 Ark. 586, 972 S.W.2d 222 (1998); Izell v. State, 75 Ark.App. 377, 58 S.W.3d 400 (2001).

One recognized exception is the so-called "inventory search" of an automobile, which permits police officers to conduct a warrantless inventory of a vehicle that is being impounded in order to protect an owner's property while it is in the custody of the police, to insure against claims of lost, stolen, or vandalized property, and to guard the police from danger. Bratton v. State, 77 Ark.App. 174, 72 S.W.3d 522 (2002); see Ark. R.Crim. P. 12.6(b). However, the police may impound a vehicle and inventory its contents only if the actions are taken in good faith and in accordance with standard police procedures or policies; an inventory "may not be used as a guise for `general rummaging to discover incriminating evidence.'" Bratton v. State, 77 Ark.App. at 177-78, 72 S.W.3d at 525 (quoting Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 4, 110 S.Ct. 1632, 109 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990)). Although the fact that a vehicle is legally parked does not necessarily negate the need to take the vehicle into protective custody, Folly v. State, supra, factors such as hazard to public safety, possibility of vandalism, and the risk of theft are to be considered when determining whether protective custody is necessary. Izell v. State, supra. In the present case, we need not decide whether the State demonstrated circumstances justifying an inventory because a search of the passenger compartment of appellant's automobile was clearly permitted under the facts of this case as an incident of appellant's arrest. We will affirm the trial court if it is correct even though the court states the wrong reason for its ruling, and this principle has been applied in cases where the issue was the validity of a search. See, e.g., Moya v. State, 335 Ark. 193, 981 S.W.2d 521 (1998); McKenzie v. State, 69 Ark.App. 186, 12 S.W.3d 250 (2000); Hicks v. State, 28 Ark App. 268, 773 S.W.2d 113 (1989). The United States Supreme Court has held that, when a police officer makes a lawful custodial arrest of an automobile's occupant or recent occupant, the Fourth Amendment allows the officer to search the vehicle's passenger compartment and containers found therein as a contemporaneous incident of arrest. New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460-61, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981). The justification for the search is not that the arrestee has no privacy interest in the vehicle's passenger compartment but that the lawful custodial arrest justifies the infringement of any privacy interest the arrestee may have. Id. This rule is not limited to situations where the police officer makes contact with the occupant while the occupant is inside the vehicle, but also applies in cases where a recent occupant of a vehicle is first contacted and arrested in close proximity to the vehicle. Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615, 622, 124 S.Ct. 2127, 158 L.Ed.2d 905 (2004). Our review of the totality of the circumstances leads us to conclude that the officer initiated contact with appellant while appellant was occupying his vehicle, and that appellant was clearly at least a recent occupant of his vehicle and in close proximity to his vehicle when he was placed under arrest; indeed, he had just stepped out of the car after being stopped by the officer. The search of the passenger compartment of that vehicle clearly was authorized under both New York v. Belton, supra, and Thornton v. United States, supra, and thus was permissible under the federal constitution.

Likewise, we think that the search of the vehicle incident to appellant's arrest was proper under Arkansas law. As Judge Hart correctly notes in her dissent, article 2, section 15 of the Arkansas Constitution provides protection against unreasonable searches similar to that of the Constitution of the United States, and Arkansas courts are not bound by the federal interpretation of the Fourth Amendment when interpreting our own law. However, the Arkansas Supreme Court has considered this precise issue and expressly declined to depart from federal interpretation in the vehicular search-incident-to-arrest context, noting that it has long followed the rule enunciated in New York v. Belton and has found it to provide a practical and workable rule. Stout v. State, 320 Ark. 552, 898 S.W.2d 457 (1995); see State v. Sullivan, 348 Ark. 647, 650-51, 74 S.W.3d 215, 217-18 (2002). Consequently the term "unreasonable search" as employed in article 2, section 15 of the Constitution of Arkansas is to be interpreted in the same manner the United States Supreme Court interprets the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Stout, 320 Ark. at 555-56, 898 S.W.2d at 460. Furthermore, the Stout court expressly rejected the argument that the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure provide greater protection against unreasonable searches than does the Fourth Amendment in this context. The court noted that, although Rule 12.4, standing alone, does provide a more narrow definition of a reasonable search than does Belton, Rule 12.1 embraces the Belton rationale and allows the search of the passenger compartment of a car incident to a lawful custodial arrest without regard to whether the circumstances warrant a reasonable belief that the vehicle contains things connected with the offense for which the arrest was made. Stout, 320 Ark. at 556, 898 S.W.2d at 460-61.

Judge Neal, in his dissent, asserts that there must be some relationship between the vehicle and the reason for the arrest to support a valid search of the vehicle incident to the occupant's arrest. No authority for this assertion is cited, and it is therefore difficult to address with specificity but we note that the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit appears to be unaware of any such principle. In circumstances similar to those presented here, that court upheld the search of the automobile recently driven by a man arrested on an outstanding arrest warrant for assault as a valid search incident to his arrest. United States v. Poggemiller, 375 F.3d 686 (8th Cir.2004). In any event, the qualification that Judge Neal would place upon the Belton rule is plainly one that neither the United States Supreme Court nor the Arkansas Supreme Court has ever stated. Rather, Belton unqualifiedly holds 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." Belton, 453 U.S. at 460, 101 S.Ct. 2860.

In his dissent, Judge Griffen argues that the search of a vehicle may be conducted as an incident of the occupant's arrest only where there is reasonable cause to believe that the search will yield evidence of a crime. He is...