inventory search and impoundment improper where no evidence that appellant consented to impoundment and was fully available to provide otherwise for disposition of his automobile
How later courts described this case
- inventory search and impoundment improper where no evidence that appellant consented to impoundment and was fully available to provide otherwise for disposition of his automobile
- because automobile itself did not manifest law violation, only valid basis for impoundment would be if driver, arrested for operating vehicle with suspended license, could not make other lawful arrangement for its disposition
- “Where probable cause exists to search an automobile when it is stopped on a highway, police may remove the vehicle to a more secure location, 31 such as a police station, before conducting such a search and they need not first obtain a search warrant.”
- no probable cause where “one who was found operating a motor vehicle while his license was suspended made ‘furtive movements’ and ... a brown paper bag partially protruded from beneath the seat”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by McMillan v. United States, 1987 D.C. App. LEXIS 379 (1987)
Appellant’s citation to Arrington, supra note 2, 382 A.2d at 17-18, is inapposite.
The opinion
GALLAGHER, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
As we know in Fourth Amendment cases minor circumstances often alter results. It is agreed that the officer could have placed his hand under the car seat to search when he first entered the car to drive it to the precinct. It does not strike me as unreasonable that, instead, he placed his hand under the seat in the same car 14 blocks and, from all that appears, a few minutes later when he arrived in front of the precinct. As an earthy proposition, I view the search here as being reasonably contemporaneous.