Search incident to arrest; Arizona v Gant; United States v Robinson; New York v Belton; Ineffective assistance of counsel, Failure to move to suppress evidence as the fruit of an unlawful seizure

The court concluded that the trial court did not err by admitting the meth evidence and that defendant did not meet his burden of proving that defense counsel was ineffective. He argued that the evidence “was obtained through an unlawful, warrantless search.” There was no dispute that the arrest “on an outstanding warrant was lawful.” Thus, Officer P “had the authority to search defendant incident to his arrest.” Further, the court noted that “having located the tin container and defendant’s wallet during the lawful search, Officer [P] was permitted to inspect and open both items.” The court further found that the fact “he secured defendant in the patrol car before inspecting the items is inconsequential.” It held that “it was reasonable to very briefly delay the search in order to first secure defendant.” The court noted that “immediately opening the containers risked defendant attempting to escape, lunging for the containers, or destroying evidence that the officer had not yet seized. Accordingly, it was reasonable to very briefly delay the search in order to first secure defendant.” He argued “that Gant limits the authority of officers to open containers found on an arrestee after he has been secured and the traditional justifications for a search incident to arrest are no longer present.” However, as the Supreme Court did in Robinson, the court recognized “that there is a distinction between searches incident to arrest of an area within an arrestee’s immediate area of control, like a vehicle, and the search of items found on a person. The Court’s primary concern in Gant was that the incident-to-arrest exception had been stretched based on an overly broad reading of [Belton] to give police limitless discretion to conduct unreasonable exploratory searches of a vehicle.” The court noted that, “unlike the search of a vehicle, the search of a person is inherently limited.” It was unpersuaded “that Gant limited the search of items found on defendant’s person incident to his lawful arrest.” Affirmed.