Paschall v. State

• Decision Date: 08 June 1988
• Docket Number: No. 1285,1285
• Parties: Michael L. PASCHALL, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below). S 504.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Page 1359

523 N.E.2d 1359

Michael L. PASCHALL, Appellant (Defendant Below), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff Below).

No. 1285 S 504.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

June 8, 1988.

J.J. Paul, III, James H. Voyles, Jr., Indianapolis, for appellant.

Linley E. Pearson, Atty. Gen., Amy Schaeffer Good, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, for appellee.

DICKSON, Justice.

Defendant Michael Paschall, convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to deliver, a class A felony, claims the trial court erroneously denied his motion to suppress and admitted into evidence items seized during an unreasonable and illegal search.

On December 24, 1984, defendant was injured in a one-car accident on interstate highway I-465 in Marion County. His Chevrolet Corvette automobile was totally disabled. When Sergeant Steve Rendleman of the Marion County Sheriff's Department arrived at the accident scene, fire personnel, paramedics, ambulance service personnel and other police officers were already present. Scattered debris was removed from the highway, and rescue personnel and vehicles were contained within the median area. Sergeant Rendleman, as officer-in-charge at the scene, began preparing an accident report and approached defendant, who was receiving medical treatment in the ambulance, to ask questions. Sergeant Rendleman also radioed for a wrecker and for a report on the license plate of the disabled vehicle. He instructed Deputy Sheriff Jerry Morgan to look inside the Corvette for a registration.

Officer Morgan searched the vehicle for the registration by quickly scanning the interior of the car, checking above the sun visor and on the dash, looking above and under the seats, inspecting the pocket on the backside of the driver's seat, and unsuccessfully trying to open the storage compartment between the seats. Unable to find the registration in these expected places, and before checking with Sergeant Rendleman to determine if identification was found on the driver, Officer Morgan proceeded to unzip a closed gym bag found behind the front seat. In the gym bag he discovered a set of balance scales, a plastic bag containing white powder, and a document which appeared to describe possible drug transactions. He then proceeded to unzip and inspect a soft luggage suitcase and discovered other drug paraphernalia.

While the vehicle was being searched for registration papers, Sergeant Rendleman received a radio report that the license plate on the Corvette was registered to defendant for a 1984 Cadillac and continued his efforts to question defendant regarding his identification. Defendant was at first disoriented and unable to provide sufficient answers, but he gradually appeared to become coherent and responded with moans and pointed to his leg where two wallets were found. The first wallet contained cash and some personal papers but lacked sufficient identification. The second wallet held defendant's drivers license, credit cards, employee identification card, and vehicle registration. In inspecting the second wallet, however, Sergeant Rendleman failed to notice the vehicle registration, which was not found until a subsequent search at the police station. Likewise, proper documents regarding the transfer of plates from the Cadillac to the Corvette were also discovered to have been among the papers on defendant's person.

Items observed during Officer Morgan's search of the gym bag and suitcase subsequently served as a basis to obtain a warrant authorizing the search of a locked briefcase also found in defendant's car. Inside the briefcase were two plastic bags together containing over 14 grams of cocaine.

Gym Bag Search

The first issue is whether the police intrusion into defendant's gym bag constituted a prohibited unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Resolution of this issue is guided by Cady v. Dombrowski (1973), 413 U.S. 433, 439, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 2527, 37 L.Ed.2d 706, 713, which also involved a warrantless automobile search:

The ultimate standard set forth in the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. In construing this command, there has been general agreement that "except in certain carefully defined classes of cases, a search of private property without proper consent is 'unreasonable' unless it has been authorized by a valid search warrant." [citation omitted] One class of cases which constitutes at least a partial exception to this general rule is automobile searches.

In Cady, the United States Supreme Court approved a police search of an automobile disabled as a result of an accident, wherein police opened a locked trunk which the police officer reasonably believed to contain a revolver vulnerable to intrusion by vandals. As in the present case, the officer in Cady was not using the search as a subterfuge for criminal investigation.

The Framers of the Fourth Amendment have given us only the general standard of "unreasonableness" as a guide in determining whether searches and seizures meet the standard of that Amendment in those cases where a warrant is not required. * * * Where, as here, the trunk of an automobile, which the officer reasonably believed to contain a gun, was vulnerable to intrusion by vandals, we hold that the search was not "unreasonable" within the meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Id. at 448, 93 S.Ct. at 2531, 37 L.Ed.2d at 718.

Indiana law requires an officer to make an accident report obtaining specified information if it is available. Ind.Code Sec. 9-3-1-2. A person in control of a motor vehicle must have the car registration in the vehicle or on his person. Ind.Code Sec. 9-1-4-5.

In Muegel v. State (1971), 257 Ind. 146, 151, 272 N.E.2d 617, 620, police officers were permitted to investigate abandoned vehicles including the right to search for a registration certificate in "those areas of a vehicle where it would reasonably be expected that such a certification of registration might be found." Similarly, in South Dakota v. Opperman (1976), 428 U.S. 364, 368, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 3097, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000, 1005, the United States Supreme Court observed:

In the interests of public safety and as part of what the Court has called "community caretaking functions," * * * automobiles are frequently taken into police custody. Vehicle accidents present one such occasion. To permit the uninterrupted flow of traffic and in some circumstances to preserve evidence, disabled or damaged vehicles will often be removed from highways or streets at the behest of police engaged solely in caretaking and traffic-control activities.

The United States Supreme Court has expressly approved warrantless inventory searches as "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment. Colorado v. Bertine (1987), 479 U.S. 367, 107 S.Ct. 738, 93 L.Ed.2d 739; Illinois v. Lafayette (1983), 462 U.S. 640, 103 S.Ct. 2605, 77 L.Ed.2d 65; and Opperman, supra. In describing the nature of the inventory search exception, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote in Bertine:

In the present case, as in Opperman and Lafayette, there was no showing that the police, who were following standardized procedures, acted in bad...