U.S. v. Bloomfield

• Citation: 594 F.2d 1200
• Decision Date: 01 March 1979
• Docket Number: No. 78-1753,78-1753
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Rick Thomas BLOOMFIELD, Appellee.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

Page 1200

594 F.2d 1200

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Rick Thomas BLOOMFIELD, Appellee.

No. 78-1753.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Jan. 8, 1979.

Decided March 1, 1979.

Ann D. Montgomery, Asst. U. S. Atty., Minneapolis, Minn. (argued), Andrew W. Danielson, U. S. Atty., and Thomas Wieser, Legal Intern, on brief, for appellant.

Richard G. Spicer of Lewis & Spicer, Minneapolis, Minn., argued, for appellee; Jerome H. Lewis, Minneapolis, Minn., on brief.

Before STEPHENSON and McMILLIAN, Circuit Judges, and FILIPPINE ^*, District Judge.

McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge.

The government appeals the district court's order suppressing evidence seized from a knapsack belonging to appellant, Rick Thomas Bloomfield, during a routine inventory search of the personal belongings in appellant's automobile. We find that the police officers exceeded the permissible scope of a routine inventory search and affirm the order of the district court. ¹

On May 29, 1978, at approximately 1:00 p. m., police were summoned to appellant's car which was blocking traffic. Appellant was at the wheel, unconscious and suffering from seizures. Bloomfield was transported by ambulance to a hospital, and the officers ordered a tow truck to remove his automobile from the public highway. Before the tow truck arrived, the officers conducted a routine inventory search of the articles in the automobile. In so doing they opened a knapsack which was zipper-closed and tied with string. Inside they found 10,360 dosage units of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), 23 grams of phencyclidine (PCP) and $1,300.00 cash. The narcotics formed the basis of the indictment against appellant for possession of controlled substances with the intent to distribute, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a) (1). The district court granted appellant's motion to suppress the evidence in the knapsack on the ground that itemizing the contents of the knapsack, instead of storing the bag as a unit, exceeded the scope of an inventory search. ² The government appeals pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731.

We note initially that routine inventory searches do not require a warrant. United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 10 n.5, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 53 L.Ed.2d 538 (1977) ³; South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 370 n.5, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1975); United States v. Collins,549 F.2d 557, 559 (8th Cir. 1977). As the Supreme Court has explained, the concept of probable cause, which underlies the warrant requirement, is "unhelpful when analysis centers upon the reasonableness of routine administrative caretaking functions, particularly when no claim is made that the protective procedures are a subterfuge for criminal investigations." ⁴ South Dakota v. Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at 370 n.5, 96 S.Ct. at 3097. Therefore it is not relevant that the officers did not obtain a warrant to search Bloomfield's knapsack. ⁵ Furthermore, because the warrant requirement is inapplicable to routine inventory searches, it is not necessary that we consider whether the search of appellant's knapsack can be justified under any other of the exceptions to the warrant requirement, such as the automobile exception or exigent circumstances. Indeed, as the parties have precisely stated, the only issue before this court is whether, in an inventory search of an automobile, a knapsack found therein should be inventoried as a unit or opened and itemized.

To answer this question we must ascertain whether the governmental interests in performing an inventory search are better served by itemizing the contents of a container or by storing the container as a unit. The commonly avowed purposes of an inventory search are (1) "the protection of the owner's property while it remains in police custody"; (2) "the protection of the police against claims or disputes over lost or stolen property"; and (3) "the protection of the police from potential danger." ⁶ South Dakota v. Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at 369, 96 S.Ct. at 3097.

In this instance, because the knapsack was tightly sealed and there was no danger of anything slipping out, the first two purposes are better served if the knapsack is inventoried as a unit. In this way the knapsack, which is locked up as a whole in police headquarters, has never been opened and its contents have never been removed, reshuffled and replaced. To our minds, this would minimize the possibility of loss and the possibility of false claims against police by the owner.

As to the last purpose, however, protecting the police from danger, an argument could be made that by inventorying the contents of the knapsack, the police would more likely become apprised of harmful items within. In determining whether this governmental interest warrants the further infringement on a citizen's right to privacy that an itemized inventory would impose, we must balance the "governmental and societal interests advanced to justify such intrusions against the constitutionally protected interest of the individual citizen in the privacy of his effects". South Dakota v. Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at 378, 96 S.Ct. at 3101 (Powell, J., concurring); Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 447-48, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20-21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Justice Powell has described the potential for harm to this privacy interest: "(a)s part of their inventory search the police may discover materials such as letters or checkbooks that 'touch upon intimate areas of an individual's personal affairs,' and 'reveal much about a person's activities, associations and beliefs'." South Dakota v. Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at 380 n.7, 96 S.Ct. at 3102 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring).

It seems to us, in the case at hand, that comparing this right to privacy with the governmental interest at stake, the governmental interest is slight. It is simply not reasonable to assume that, given the circumstances in which this knapsack was found, storing it as a unit at the police station, without specific knowledge of its contents, can pose a danger to police. As Justice Powell acknowledged in his concurring opinion in South Dakota v. Opperman, supra, 428 U.S. at 378, 96 S.Ct. 3092, while the danger associated with impounding unsearched automobiles can not be discounted, it is rare. In addition, there are alternative ways of detecting such danger, such as use of dogs trained to locate explosives. Because there is no indication in this situation that appellant's knapsack posed any danger to police, we do not believe that opening and inventorying its contents, rather than storing the knapsack as a unit can be justified on the basis of protecting police.

In conclusion, we note that our holding that the knapsack should have been inventoried as a unit rather than opened and itemized is...