People v. Inman, 88SA218

• Decision Date: 12 December 1988
• Docket Number: No. 88SA218,88SA218
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Patricia Jean INMAN, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 577

765 P.2d 577

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Patricia Jean INMAN, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 88SA218.

Supreme Court of Colorado En Banc.

Dec. 12, 1988.

Dean J. Johnson, Dist. Atty., Cortez, for plaintiff-appellant.

T. Curtis Bobbitt, Deputy State Public Defender, Durango, for defendant-appellee.

QUINN, Chief Justice.

In this interlocutory appeal the People challenge an order suppressing a small packet of cocaine seized from a purse belonging to the defendant, Patricia J. Inman, during an inventory search performed at a county jail in the course of booking the defendant for drunk driving. We conclude that the district court applied an incorrect legal standard with respect to the scope of a permissible inventory search upon arrest, and we accordingly reverse the order of suppression.

I.

The defendant was charged with the crimes of unlawful possession of cocaine, ¹ unlawful possession of not more than one ounce of marijuana, ² and operating a motor vehicle while her ability to drive was impaired by the consumption of alcohol, ³ all of which were alleged to have occurred on December 23, 1987, in Montezuma County, Colorado. After entering a plea of not guilty to the charges, the defendant filed a motion to suppress the cocaine and marijuana, claiming that the seizure of these materials from her purse violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and article II, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution.

The evidence at the suppression hearing was uncontradicted and established the following sequence of events. On December 23, 1987, at approximately 1:56 a.m., patrolman Eric Souders of the Cortez Police Department observed a car traveling west on East Main Street in Cortez without any taillights. The officer pulled over the vehicle, approached the car, and spoke with defendant who was driving the vehicle. During their conversation Officer Souders noticed that the defendant's speech was slurred and that her breath smelled of an alcoholic beverage. At the officer's request, the defendant agreed to perform some roadside sobriety maneuvers. Because the defendant's performance was unsatisfactory, Officer Souders informed her that she was under arrest for drunk driving. The defendant was carrying a purse at this time, so the officer took the purse and placed it on the passenger seat of the police vehicle. Souders released the defendant's vehicle to the passenger who was riding with her when the stop occurred, and then placed the defendant in the police vehicle and drove her to the Montezuma County Jail.

At the jail Souders gave the defendant's purse to Officer Crystal Baxter, who was a detention officer at the jail, so that Baxter could perform an inventory search of the contents of the purse. The inventory search of the purse was part of the routine booking procedure at the county jail. Upon Baxter's initial inspection of the contents of the purse, she discovered two bags containing a green leafy substance which was later determined to be marijuana. Baxter then gave the purse to Souders, who was assisting her in the booking process, so that Souders could make a further check of any items which Baxter might have overlooked. Souders, in examining the inside of the purse, located a small cosmetic bag inside the main compartment. Upon opening the cosmetic bag the officer observed a small packet of brown paper about the size of a half-dollar. Souders opened the paper packet and saw that it contained a white powdery substance which was later determined to be cocaine.

The district court, in granting the motion to suppress, ruled that Officer Souders had probable cause to arrest the defendant for drunk driving and that Officer Baxter properly took account of the contents of the defendant's purse as part of the routine booking procedure at the county jail and thus properly seized the marijuana from the purse. With respect to the brown paper packet inside the small cosmetic bag, however, the district court ruled that the officers had no reason to suspect that the packet contained contraband and that, therefore, the seizure of the packet and the examination of its contents exceeded the legitimate purposes of an inventory search and constituted an unlawful search and seizure. The district court accordingly suppressed the brown paper packet, the cocaine inside the packet, and any other evidence or testimony regarding the packet and its contents.

Pursuant to C.A.R. 4.1, the People thereafter filed this interlocutory appeal. The People claim that the district court applied an erroneously restrictive standard in ruling that Officer Souders' seizure of the paper packet and his examination of its contents were beyond the scope of a constitutionally permissible inventory search. We agree with the People's argument.

II.

Appellate review of a suppression ruling is limited to the legal bases set forth in the district court's ruling and not necessarily the grounds alleged in the motion. Although the defendant's motion to suppress cited both the United States and the Colorado Constitutions, the district court failed to state in its ruling whether the order of suppression was based on federal or state constitutional standards. In the absence of a clear statement that a suppression ruling is grounded on state as opposed to federal constitutional law, we will presume that a court relied on federal law in reaching its decision. See Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 103 S.Ct. 3469, 77 L.Ed.2d 1201 (1983) (where a state court decision fairly appears to rest on federal law or to be interwoven with federal law, it will be presumed that the case was resolved on the basis of federal law, unless the state court decision clearly indicates that the court relied on independent state grounds for its decision, with federal cases being used only for guidance and not as controlling authority); People v. Gann, 724 P.2d 1318 (Colo.1986) (where a motion to dismiss for prosecutorial suppression of exculpatory evidence is based on due process of law and the district court in its order of dismissal fails to make any specific reference to the Colorado Constitution, this court will presume that both the motion and the lower court's ruling were based exclusively on federal constitutional standards). We therefore resolve this case on the basis of federal constitutional standards applicable to an inventory search of an arrestee at a police station or jail following arrest. ⁴

The controlling federal standards applicable to this case were clearly articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U.S. 640, 103 S.Ct. 2605, 77 L.Ed.2d 65 (1983), and Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 107 S.Ct. 738, 93 L.Ed.2d 739 (1987). In Lafayette, the defendant was arrested for disturbing the peace and taken to the station house where the police, in accordance with routine administrative procedure, inventoried the contents of his shoulder bag. Ten amphetamine pills were removed from a cigarette package inside the bag, and Lafayette was charged with violating the Illinois Controlled Substances Act. The Illinois court of appeals affirmed the trial court's suppression of the amphetamines because, in its view, the legitimate goals of preserving the defendant's property and protecting the police from a claim of lost or stolen property could have been achieved in a less intrusive manner. The United States Supreme Court reversed the order of suppression and held that the search of the defendant's shoulder bag and the examination and inventory of its contents were constitutionally permissible.

The Supreme Court noted in Lafayette that "[a] so-called inventory search is not an independent legal concept but rather an incidental administrative step following arrest and preceding incarceration," Lafayette,., 462 U.S. at 644, 103 S.Ct. at 2608, and is supported by a broad range of governmental interests--namely, the protection of the arrestee's property while in police custody, the protection of the police against claims or disputes over lost or stolen property, and the protection of the arrestee and others from risks associated with a dangerous instrumentality or substance that might be concealed in an innocent looking article. Id. at 646, 103 S.Ct. at 2609; see also South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 369, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 3097, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976). In light of these interests, the Court concluded that "[e]xamining all the items removed from the arrestee's person or possession and listing or inventorying them is an entirely reasonable administrative procedure." Lafayette, 462 U.S. at...