State v. Vrieling

• Decision Date: 09 August 2001
• Docket Number: No. 68672-6.,68672-6.
• Citation: 144 Wn.2d 489,144 Wash.2d 489,28 P.3d 762
• Court: Washington Supreme Court
• Parties: STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. Christina VRIELING, Petitioner.

28 P.3d 762

144 Wn.2d 489

144 Wash.2d 489

STATE of Washington, Respondent, v. Christina VRIELING, Petitioner.

No. 68672-6.

Supreme Court of Washington, En Banc.

Argued October 17, 2000.

Decided August 9, 2001.

Washington Appellate Project, Oliver Davis, Seattle, for Petitioner.

James Krider, Snohomish County Prosecutor, Karen Moore, Deputy, Everett, for Respondent.

MADSEN, J.

Petitioner Christina Lyn Vrieling contends that the search, incident to her arrest, of the motor home she was driving violated article I, section 7 of the Washington State Constitution. Therefore, she maintains, evidence found within a zippered cushion in the living area of the vehicle must be suppressed. We conclude that under State v. Stroud, 106 Wash.2d 144, 720 P.2d 436 (1986) and State v. Johnson, 128 Wash.2d 431, 909 P.2d 293 (1996), the search was constitutional. We affirm the Court of Appeals.

Facts

The parties have stipulated to facts contained in police reports. The reports, with two additional facts clarified by the trial court, indicate that on the afternoon of July 29, 1997, police dispatch advised that a vehicle prowl had occurred in a store parking lot. Dispatch described the suspect, said that he and a female companion had left in a white Winnebago motor home, and gave the license number of the Winnebago. Shortly thereafter, Snohomish County Deputy Cervarich saw the Winnebago driving well under the speed limit and swerving over the fog line on the highway. He stopped the vehicle and asked for identification from the driver, later identified as Christina Vrieling. She gave a false name and two different false birth dates. Cervarich was unable to find a record of a driver's license using this information in Washington and, when Cervarich told the driver this, she then said she had not had a license in five years and her last license was either from Colorado or Montana. Dispatch checked and found no record in either state.

During this time, Deputy Cervarich returned to his vehicle trying to verify information that Vrieling provided. While he was there, Vrieling left the driver's seat, walked to the back of the motor home, and entered the bathroom.

Unable to verify any information provided by Vrieling, Cervarich arrested her for driving without a valid license and placed her in his patrol car. He then had the passenger in the vehicle, who also gave false information but was later identified as Christina's husband, step out of the Winnebago while Cervarich searched it. Cervarich found a loaded pistol with a full magazine along with a second magazine inside a zipped cushion in the back of the Winnebago. Dispatch informed Cervarich that the pistol had been reported stolen. Cervarich arrested Mr. Vrieling for possession of a stolen firearm.

Later at the police station, Christina Vrieling said that the gun was hers and she used it for target practice. Once she admitted her true identity, a criminal history check showed she had a previous felony conviction. Vrieling was charged with second degree unlawful possession of a firearm.

Prior to trial, she moved to suppress evidence of the pistol on the basis the search of the Winnebago was unconstitutional. The trial court denied the motion to suppress. Following a jury trial, Vrieling was convicted as charged. She appealed, arguing that the search was unconstitutional under article I, section 7, and that even if the search were permissible, Deputy Cervarich's search of the cushion exceeded the permissible scope of the search. The Court of Appeals affirmed. State v. Vrieling, 97 Wash.App. 152, 983 P.2d 1150 (1999). We granted Ms. Vrieling's petition for discretionary review. The only issue before us is whether the search of the motor home was unconstitutional under article I, section 7.

Analysis

Article I, section 7 provides that "[n]o person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law." While warrantless searches are per se unreasonable, an exception to the warrant requirement allows for a warrantless search incident to arrest. Johnson, 128 Wash.2d at 446-47, 909 P.2d 293. The state bears the burden of proving an exception to the warrant requirement applies. Id. at 447, 909 P.2d 293.

In Stroud, this court held that "[d]uring the arrest process, including the time immediately subsequent to the suspect's being arrested, handcuffed, and placed in a patrol car, officers should be allowed to search the passenger compartment of a vehicle for weapons or destructible evidence." Stroud, 106 Wash.2d at 152, 720 P.2d 436. However, the officers may not unlock and search a locked container or locked glove compartment without obtaining a warrant. State v. Fladebo, 113 Wash.2d 388, 395, 779 P.2d 707 (1989); see Stroud, 106 Wash.2d at 152,

720 P.2d 436.¹

In establishing a bright line rule, the court in Stroud expressly overruled State v. Ringer, 100 Wash.2d 686, 674 P.2d 1240 (1983), where the court had held that during a search incident to the arrest of the driver of a vehicle, the officer may search the person arrested and the area within his immediate control to remove any weapons the person might try to use to escape or resist arrest, and to avoid destruction of evidence of the crime for which the person is arrested. Ringer, 100 Wash.2d at 699-700,674 P.2d 1240. The court in Ringer had concluded, under this holding, that in the two cases before it searches of the vehicles could not be justified as searches incident to arrest because the drivers had been handcuffed and placed in the back of patrol cars prior to the searches. Id. at 700, 674 P.2d 1240.

The rule in Stroud was specifically adopted to eliminate the need for a case by case assessment of when a warrantless search of an automobile incident to the arrest of the driver would be permissible, an approach deemed to be too burdensome for police officers in the field. Stroud and Fladebo acknowledge the greater privacy interest that this state's citizens have in their vehicles under article I, section 7 of the state constitution than under the Fourth Amendment, because locked containers within the vehicle are not subject to search. However, the bright line rule that the rest of the passenger area may be searched incident to arrest of the driver recognizes that "concerns for the safety of officers and potential destructibility of evidence do outweigh privacy interests and warrant a bright-line rule permitting limited searches." State v. Patterson, 112 Wash.2d 731, 735, 774 P.2d 10 (1989) (citing Stroud).²

In State v. Johnson, 128 Wash.2d 431, 909 P.2d 293 (1996), this court was asked to decide whether a sleeper compartment in the cab of a tractor trailer was part of the passenger compartment subject to search incident to the driver's arrest. The defendant in Johnson claimed that the sleeper was his temporary residence, and as such was not subject to search incident to arrest. We rejected this argument, noting that the sleeper compartment was not really a home. Id. at 448, 909 P.2d 293. We also observed that the defendant was asking this court to retreat from Stroud and "return to the confusion of Ringer." Id. We declined to do so. We noted that "[v]ehicles traveling on public highways are subject to broad regulations not applicable to fixed residences," which do not afford the defendant the "same heightened privacy protection in the sleeper that he would have in a fixed residence or home." Id. at 449, 909 P.2d 293. Finally, we quoted with approval the reasoning of the Court of Appeals:

"[W]hen a home is located in a vehicle, in such a way as to make it readily accessible from the passenger compartment, the safety of law enforcement officers and the need for a bright-line rule militate against prohibiting officers from searching a sleeping area which is readily accessible from the passenger compartment."

Id. at 449, 909 P.2d 293 (quoting State v. Johnson, 77 Wash.App. 441, 447, 892 P.2d 106 (1995)).

Under Stroud and Johnson, search of a motor home like the one involved here falls within the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement. Just as in the case of the tractor trailer in Johnson, motor homes traveling the highways are heavily regulated, as is true of all vehicles, and privacy interests are thus not as great as in a fixed residence.³ Further, exactly as in Johnson, the back of this motor home was accessible to the driver, and therefore concerns about officer safety and the need for a bright line rule militate against prohibiting officers from searching the motor home. Also, as this court said in State v. Hendrickson, 129 Wash.2d 61, 73, 917 P.2d 563 (1996), in the context of searches incident to arrest the court has "been sensitive to the reality that the passenger compartment of a vehicle may harbor weapons for an occupant, and to the exigenc[y] that an occupant could ... drive the vehicle away." The same thing is true of a motor home.

Vrieling maintains in a Gunwall argument, however, that two statutes show that Washington law recognizes a heightened security and privacy interest in motor homes. Although the parties have engaged in a Gunwall analysis, State v. Gunwall, 106 Wash.2d 54, 720 P.2d 808 (1986), no Gunwall analysis is necessary. See, e.g., State v. White, 135 Wash.2d 761, 769, 958 P.2d 982 (1998)

(it is well established that article I, section 7 provides greater protection in context of search and seizure than Fourth Amendment).

As to whether the two statutes cited by Vrieling indicate that Stroud should not be applied, we are not persuaded that the statutes compel a different analysis. The first statute provides that motor home prowling is a first degree felony offense. RCW 9A.52.095. However, as the State points out, this statute does not equate a motor home to a residence, because a violation of this statute is a class C felony while residential burglary is a class B felony. See RCW 9A.52.025. The second statute cited is RCW 46.61.519,...