Caseflicks

Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit • 2009

United States v. Davis

569 F.3d 813 | 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 14427

Full access

Unlock the video and quiz

The written brief is free to read below. Subscribe to watch the video explainer and take the quiz.

Create an account Log in

Takeaway

In short, this case holds that a vehicle search survived Gant where unsecured passengers created immediate safety and evidence concerns, and, independently, the smell and discovery of marijuana supplied probable cause under the automobile exception.

Background

Joplin police officer Shelby Howard stopped Uneal Davis for speeding. As Howard approached Davis’s Nissan Altima, he smelled marijuana. He asked Davis to step out and conducted a pat-down, during which he felt a lump Davis acknowledged was a bag of marijuana. Howard arrested Davis and placed him in a patrol car.

Howard then ordered Davis’s three passengers out of the Altima and searched it. The passengers were not handcuffed; they had been drinking, and they outnumbered the two officers on the scene. Howard found a loaded 9mm handgun in the center console, as well as open beer bottles. He arrested one passenger for minor-in-possession of alcohol, while the other two left by taxi.

Davis, a prohibited person because of prior felony convictions, was charged with possessing a firearm under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 922(g)(3), and 924(a)(2). He conditionally pleaded guilty, preserving his right to appeal the denial of his suppression motion. The district court held that the warrantless vehicle search was justified both as a search incident to arrest and under the automobile exception. It did not reach the government’s alternative inevitable-discovery theory.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the warrantless search of Davis’s vehicle was valid as a search incident to his arrest under Arizona v. Gant.

Holding

Yes. The search was valid because unsecured, intoxicated passengers near the vehicle created the officer-safety and evidence-preservation concerns recognized in Gant and Chimel.

Reasoning

The court reviewed the Fourth Amendment question de novo because Davis did not dispute the district court’s factual findings. Although warrantless searches are ordinarily unreasonable, a search incident to a lawful arrest is a recognized exception to the warrant requirement.

Arizona v. Gant limits a vehicle search incident to arrest to two circumstances: when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment, or when it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. The first rule reflects Chimel’s underlying concerns for officer safety and the preservation of destructible evidence.

Here, Davis himself was secured in a patrol car, but three passengers remained unsecured near the Altima. They had been drinking, the vehicle smelled of recently smoked marijuana, and open beer bottles were visible inside. The three passengers also outnumbered the two officers. In the court’s view, those facts presented precisely the safety and evidentiary concerns that justify a contemporaneous vehicle search under Gant.

The court also noted that the marijuana found in Davis’s pocket, combined with the odor of recently burned marijuana, made it reasonable to believe that additional evidence of the marijuana offense could be found in the vehicle. The court did not rest its decision on that independent Gant rationale because it had not been established when Davis filed his appeal.

Issue #2

Whether the automobile exception independently authorized the warrantless search of Davis’s vehicle.

Holding

Yes. The odor of marijuana, reinforced by the marijuana recovered from Davis’s person, gave officers probable cause to believe the vehicle contained evidence of criminal activity.

Reasoning

Under the automobile exception, officers may search a vehicle without a warrant when probable cause supports a belief that it contains evidence of criminal activity. Unlike a search incident to arrest, this exception rests on probable cause rather than the immediate-access or arrest-related-evidence limitations discussed in Gant.

Officer Howard smelled marijuana as he approached the Altima, and his pat-down of Davis soon produced a bag of marijuana. The actual discovery of marijuana on Davis eliminated any possible doubt that the marijuana odor supplied probable cause to search the car for further contraband or evidence. The automobile exception therefore independently made the search lawful.

Because both the search-incident-to-arrest doctrine and the automobile exception justified the search, the court did not consider whether the handgun also would inevitably have been found during an inventory search after impoundment.