The legality of inventory searches of an arrestee’s personal belongings without booking
When an individual is lawfully arrested and brought to a police station for booking, the police may conduct an inventory search of that individual’s belongings as part of the booking process even though the person is ultimately released without being booked, and even though his belongings are not searched until some hours after his arrest. The only issue in such a case is whether the officer acted in good faith and in substantial compliance with police department policy.
Two Anchorage, Alaska, police officers, responding to a call at around 2:30 a.m. about gunshots being fired at an apartment, encountered defendant Markanthony Sapalasan and another individual walking away from the apartment. Defendant was observed to be carrying a backpack. He also had a semiautomatic pistol visibly sticking out of his front pants pocket. Defendant was therefore detained and searched. The pistol was determined to be loaded, with one round in the chamber and one round missing from the magazine. Arrested and handcuffed, defendant’s backpack was retrieved. One of the officers—Officer Tae Yoon—requested and received defendant’s permission to search it. Nothing of any significance was found in the backpack, however. Other officers in the meantime found a dead individual in the apartment house with a single gunshot wound. Defendant was therefore transported to the police station where, after being questioned by detectives, was (amazingly) released. While defendant was being interviewed, Officer Yoon (still in possession of defendant’s backpack) returned to the field to finish his shift. When he later returned to the station, Officer Yoon finally got around to conducting a detailed inventory search of defendant’s backpack, done about six hours after defendant’s initial arrest. In this search, the officer found a significant amount of methamphetamine. A search warrant was obtained at around 8:22 a.m. for the purpose of completing the search of the backpack (during which, apparently, nothing else of any evidentiary value was discovered). Defendant was charged in federal court with one count of Possession with the Intent to Distribute Methamphetamine, and one count of Possession of a Firearm in Furtherance of a Drug Trafficking Crime. (Nothing is mentioned in this case decision about whether there was any evidence of defendant’s possible connection to the dead body found at the apartment, so we have to assume that there was not.) Defendant’s motion to suppress the methamphetamine was denied by the trial court. Found guilty of all charges, defendant appealed.
