Perez v. The People Of The State Of Colo.

• Decision Date: 21 June 2010
• Docket Number: No. 09SC171.,09SC171.
• Citation: 231 P.3d 957
• Parties: Jaime PEREZ, Petitionerv.The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

231 P.3d 957

Jaime PEREZ, Petitionerv.The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent.

No. 09SC171.

Supreme Court of Colorado En Banc.

May 10, 2010.

Rehearing Denied June 21, 2010.^*

Douglas K. Wilson, Colorado State Public Defender, Katherine Brien, Ned R. Jaeckle, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, Attorneys for Petitioner.

John W. Suthers, Attorney General, Rebecca A. Adams, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, Attorneys for Respondent.

Chief Justice MULLARKEY delivered the opinion of the court.

I. Introduction

Today we are issuing a series of opinions interpreting and applying Arizona v. Gant,¹ the recent United States Supreme Court decision pertaining to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement in the car context. We conduct a substantive analysis of the decision's implications in the other opinions.² We apply that analysis here.

We granted certiorari to review the court of appeals' published affirmance of a trial court's denial of defendant Jaime Perez's motion to suppress evidence. People v. Perez, 214 P.3d 502 (Colo.App.2009). Under controlling precedent in effect at the time of Perez's arrest and applied by the trial court and court of appeals in their rulings, police officers were allowed to search the entire passenger compartment of a vehicle, and any open or closed containers within it, upon the arrest of any of its recent occupants. Shortly after the court of appeals released its opinion, however, the United States Supreme Court significantly narrowed this search-incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. In Arizona v. Gant, the Supreme Court announced that the search-incident-to-arrest exception no longer applies to cases where the arrested party has been secured by the police and cannot access the interior of the vehicle, unless it is reasonable to believe that evidence of the offense upon which the arrest is based might be found in the vehicle. --- U.S. at ----, 129 S.Ct. at 1714.

We conclude that, following Gant, the search-incident-to-arrest exception does not apply in this case and the search of the passenger compartment of Perez's car was unconstitutional. The drugs found in the glove compartment during the search are not admissible in evidence. Because statements Perez made following the discovery of the drugs were the fruit of this unlawful search, the evidentiary use of the statements must also be suppressed.

II. Facts and Procedural History

In late 2006, Officer Jason Sawyer of the Grand Junction police department pulled over Jaime Perez for driving with a broken headlight. One passenger was also in the car. When Perez could not provide a license, insurance, or registration, Officer Sawyer ran his name through a database and learned that Perez had a suspended license and an outstanding warrant for his arrest. The officer arrested him on the outstanding warrant and placed him in handcuffs in the backseat of his patrol car.

Officer Sawyer then conducted a search of the passenger compartment of the vehicle while Perez's passenger stood outside with another officer. While searching the car, he saw that the glove compartment was broken, allowing him to see into it through a three-quarter inch crack at the side of the compartment door. He saw a cloth pouch that he suspected contained drugs. The glove compartment was locked with a combination lock built into the door, and the officer was unable to open it. He asked Perez and his passenger whether they knew the code; neither did. Upon returning to the vehicle the officer found that he was able to reach into the compartment through the crack and remove the pouch. It contained twenty-two individual baggies of methamphetamine. From his perch in the backseat of the cruiser, Perez saw Officer Sawyer remove the drugs from the car.

During the drive to the police station, Officer Sawyer read Perez his Miranda³ rights and elicited statements from him about the drugs. Officer Sawyer maintains that Perez told him the drugs were his and he planned to sell them. Perez later claimed that he was not read his rights during the drive and had said that the drugs were not his.

At a suppression hearing, Perez testified that the car was borrowed from a friend and that he had been driving it for only a short time-he had driven from a friend's home to a store and was returning when he was pulled over. He testified that he had no access to the glove compartment, did not have the combination to it, and had never been in it.

The trial court ruled that both the drugs and Perez's statements to the police officer were admissible. Although the prosecution did not make any arguments about the defendant's standing, the trial court ruled sua sponte that because Perez had disclaimed any possessory interest in the glove compartment he had no expectation of privacy under the Fourth Amendment and therefore had no standing to raise a claim of an unconstitutional search. The trial court also ruled that Officer Sawyer had properly advised Perez of his Miranda rights, and that his statements in the police car were admissible.

Perez argued to the court of appeals that the evidentiary use of the drugs and his statements in the police car should be suppressed because the search of the locked glove compartment had been improper and the questioning in the police car was a fruit of the unlawful search. The court of appeals did not address the issue of standing. Instead, it held that the search of the locked glove compartment was not a violation of Perez's Fourth Amendment rights. Because the search was constitutional, the questioning was not the fruit of any unlawful action and Perez's statements were admissible.

The court of appeals issued its decision on February 5, 2009, and on April 21, 2009, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Gant, significantly limiting the reach of New York v. Belton, which had previously governed searches incident to the arrest of vehicle occupants. 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981). Perez now appeals to this court, arguing that Gant applies to this case and the drugs and statements should be suppressed as the fruit of an unlawful search. The state argues that Perez lacks standing to challenge the search because he disclaimed any possessory interest, and therefore he had no reasonable expectation of privacy, in the glove compartment.

III. Standard of Review

When reviewing suppression orders, we defer to the trial court's factual findings as long as they are supported by competent evidence in the record. People v. Platt, 81 P.3d 1060, 1065 (Colo.2004). We review de novo whether a search or seizure satisfies the requirements of the Federal Constitution. People v. Matheny, 46 P.3d 453, 461 (Colo.2002).

IV. Analysis

A. Evidentiary Use of the Drugs is Suppressed

Perez must have standing before he can challenge the search of the vehicle. The Fourth Amendment right to be free of unlawful searches and seizures is a personal right and may not be asserted vicariously. Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 133, 99 S.Ct. 421, 58 L.Ed.2d 387 (1978) (citations omitted). The only person who can assert the right is a person with a possessory or proprietary interest in the property or premises searched. Id. at 134, 99 S.Ct. 421. A vehicle occupant who is arrested must have a possessory or proprietary interest in the vehicle in order to assert a Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unlawful search. Id. at 149, 99 S.Ct. 421; see also, United States v. Jefferson, 925 F.2d 1242, 1250 (10th Cir.1991). Without such a possessory interest, an individual lacks standing to assert a Fourth Amendment violation.

In this case, there is no dispute between the parties that Perez was using the car with the permission of the owner on the night of his arrest, and both parties acknowledge that such permission gave Perez a possessory interest in the vehicle. People v. Naranjo, 686 P.2d 1343, 1346 (Colo.1984). Perez has standing to assert his Fourth Amendment right to be free of an unlawful search of the vehicle he possessed.

Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Gant, New York v. Belton controlled, in the car context, the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. As we discuss in People v. Chamberlain, Belton had been widely understood to establish a bright line test: if an occupant of a car was arrested, the passenger compartment of that vehicle could be searched. 229 P.3d at 1056. Colorado followed this generally accepted interpretation of Belton. People v. Kirk, 103 P.3d 918, 922 (Colo.2005) (“The authority to search a vehicle's passenger compartment incident to the arrest of an occupant is automatic and does not depend on the facts of a particular case.”).

Gant narrowed this rule, leaving only two scenarios in which police officers may search a vehicle's passenger compartment after arresting an occupant. --- U.S. at ----, 129 S.Ct. at 1714. First, an officer may search the vehicle if the arrested occupant is unsecured and can access the interior of the vehicle. Id. Second, an officer may conduct a search if it is reasonable to believe that evidence of the offense of arrest might be found in the vehicle. Id.

Perez was handcuffed and secured in the back of a police cruiser at the time the search was conducted. Under Gant, the officers could not search the vehicle in those circumstances unless it was reasonable to believe that evidence of the offense of arrest might be found in the vehicle. In the cases decided today, we hold that a reasonable belief to conduct such a search exists when there is a “degree of articulable suspicion commensurate with that sufficient for limited intrusions like investigatory stops.” People v. McCarty, 229 P.3d 1041, 1046 (Colo.2010) (citing People v. Chamberlain, 229 P.3d 1054, 1057).

In Gant, the Supreme Court held that an officer arresting a suspect for driving with a suspended license did not have the requisite degree of suspicion...