Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Patrick Wayman Scullark, Jr., Petitioner v. Iowa

No. 25-___

IN THE

Supreme Court of the United States

PATRICK WAYMAN SCULLARK, JR.,

Petitioner,

v.

STATE OF IOWA,

Respondent.

On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari

to the Iowa Supreme Court

PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI

Matthew J. Rubenstein

JONES DAY

90 South Seventh Street

Suite 4950

Minneapolis, MN 55402

Martha J. Lucey

Joshua R. Irwin

OFFICE OF THE STATE

APPELLATE DEFENDER

6200 Park Avenue

Des Moines, IA 50321

Amanda K. Rice

Counsel of Record

JONES DAY

150 West Jefferson

Avenue

Suite 2100

Detroit, MI 48226

(313) 733-3939

arice@jonesday.com

Henry J. Dickman

JONES DAY

51 Louisiana Avenue,

N.W.

Washington, DC 20001

Counsel for Petitioner

i

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether the Fourth Amendment categorically

permits warrantless searches of bags carried by

arrestees at the time of arrest but inaccessible to them

at the time of search.

ii

RELATED PROCEEDINGS

State v. Scullark, No. 1071-FECR246668, Iowa

District Court for Black Hawk County. Judgment

entered July 20, 2023.

State v. Scullark, No. 23-1218, Iowa Court of Appeals.

Judgment entered Aug. 21, 2024.

State v. Scullark, No. 23-1218, Iowa Supreme Court.

Judgment entered June 20, 2025.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

QUESTION PRESENTED.......................................... i

RELATED PROCEEDINGS ...................................... ii

OPINIONS BELOW ....................................................1

JURISDICTION ..........................................................1

RELEVANT CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION ........1

INTRODUCTION ........................................................2

STATEMENT OF THE CASE ....................................3

A.

Legal Background ..................................3

B.

Factual and Procedural Background ....7

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION ....... 10

I.

THE DECISION BELOW DEEPENS AN

INTRACTABLE SPLIT. ................................... 10

A.

At Least Three Federal Courts of

Appeals and Two State Supreme Courts

Do Not Allow Warrantless Searches of

Bags Incident to Arrest Absent

Concerns About Officer Safety or

Evidence Preservation. ........................ 11

B.

At Least One Federal Court of Appeals

and Five State Supreme Courts Hold

That an Arrestee's Bag Is Always

Searchable Incident to Arrest. ............ 15

II.

THE QUESTION PRESENTED IS IMPORTANT

AND RECURS FREQUENTLY. ........................ 20

III.

THE DECISION BELOW IS INCORRECT. ........ 24

IV.

THIS CASE IS AN IDEAL VEHICLE. ............... 31

CONCLUSION .......................................................... 33

iv

APPENDIX A: OPINION OF THE IOWA SUPREME

COURT (JUNE 20, 2025) .......................................... 1a

APPENDIX B: OPINION OF THE IOWA COURT

OF APPEALS (AUG. 21, 2024) ............................... 33a

APPENDIX C: JUDGMENT AND SENTENCE BY

THE IOWA DISTRICT COURT FOR BLACK HAWK

COUNTY

(JULY 20, 2023)....................................................... 67a

APPENDIX D: OPINION OF THE IOWA DISTRICT

COURT FOR BLACK HAWK COUNTY DENYING

MOTION TO SUPPRESS (APR. 20, 2023) ............ 74a

APPENDIX E: TRANSCRIPT OF MOTION TO

SUPPRESS HEARING IN THE IOWA DISTRICT

COURT FOR BLACK HAWK COUNTY

(MAR. 24, 2023) ...................................................... 82a

v

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Page(s)

CASES

Arizona v. Gant,

556 U.S. 332 (2009) ..................... 3-5, 12, 19, 28, 30

Atwater v. City of Lago Vista,

532 U.S. 318 (2001) .............................................. 30

Bembury v. Kentucky,

144 S. Ct. 1459 (2024) .......................................... 32

Birchfield v. North Dakota,

579 U.S. 438 (2016) .............................................. 29

Brigham City v. Stuart,

547 U.S. 398 (2006) .............................................. 24

Carpenter v. United States,

585 U.S. 296 (2018) .............................................. 25

Chimel v. California,

395 U.S. 752 (1969) ......................... 4, 11, 19-21, 24

Commonwealth v. Bembury,

677 S.W.3d 385 (Ky. 2023)................... 2, 10, 18-20,

29, 32, 33

Commonwealth v. Soto,

245 N.E.3d 241

(Mass. App. Ct. 2024)........................................... 22

Coolidge v. New Hampshire,

403 U.S. 443 (1971) .............................................. 24

vi

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page(s)

Florida v. Riley,

488 U.S. 445 (1989) .............................................. 33

Greene v. State,

585 S.W.3d 800 (Mo. 2019) .................................. 14

Gustafson v. Florida,

414 U.S. 260 (1973) .................................... 6, 16, 25

Hagen v. Utah,

510 U.S. 399 (1994) .............................................. 23

Harris v. State,

238 So.3d 396

(Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2018) ..................................... 22

Jean v. State,

369 So.3d 1235

(Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2023) ..................................... 22

Johnson v. United States,

333 U.S. 10 (1948) ................................................ 24

Katz v. United States,

389 U.S. 347 (1967) .......................................... 3, 21

Kentucky v. King,

563 U.S. 452 (2011) .............................................. 23

Knowles v. Iowa,

525 U.S. 113 (1998) ........................................ 25, 26

vii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page(s)

Lange v. California,

594 U.S. 295 (2021) .............................................. 30

McDonald v. United States,

335 U.S. 451 (1948) ........................................ 20, 24

New York v. Belton,

453 U.S. 454 (1981) .............................................. 28

Nieves v. Bartlett,

587 U.S. 391 (2019) .............................................. 31

People v. Chiagles,

142 N.E. 583 (N.Y. 1923) ..................................... 28

People v. Cregan,

10 N.E.3d 1196 (Ill. 2014) .................. 12, 18, 19, 27

People v. Marshall,

289 P.3d 27 (Colo. 2012) ................................ 17, 23

Perez v. United States,

145 S. Ct. 1469 (2025) ................................... 32, 33

Riley v. California,

573 U.S. 373 (2014) ............... 5, 6, 21, 22, 24-26, 29

State v. Branson,

639 S.W.3d 556 (Mo. Ct. App. 2022) ................... 14

State v. Byrd,

310 P.3d 793 (Wash. 2013) ...................... 12, 17, 19

viii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page(s)

State v. Carrawell,

481 S.W.3d 833 (Mo. 2016) ................ 13, 14, 23, 26

State v. Crager,

113 N.E.3d 657 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018) ................... 19

State v. MacDicken,

319 P.3d 31 (Wash. 2014) .................................... 17

State v. Ortiz,

539 P.3d 262 (N.M. 2023) ........................ 15, 19, 26

State v. Ritchey,

432 P.3d 99 (Kan. App. 2018) .............................. 22

Terry v. Ohio,

392 U.S. 1 (1968) .................................................. 20

Thompson v. Louisiana,

469 U.S. 17 (1984) (per curiam) .......................... 21

Thornton v. United States,

541 U.S. 615 (2004) .............................................. 22

United States v. Brito,

771 F. Supp. 3d 157 (E.D.N.Y. 2025) .................. 22

United States v. Chadwick,

433 U.S. 1 (1977) ............................... 4, 6, 16, 26-29

United States v. Davis,

997 F.3d 191 (4th Cir. 2021) ...................... 9, 12, 16

ix

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page(s)

United States v. Eatherton,

519 F.2d 603 (1st Cir. 1975) .......................... 15, 16

United States v. Edwards,

415 U.S. 800 (1974) .............................. 6, 25, 26, 27

United States v. Jones,

565 U.S. 400 (2012) .............................................. 30

United States v. Knapp,

917 F.3d 1161 (10th Cir. 2019) ..................9-12, 15,

16, 19, 23, 25, 26

United States v. Kowalczyk,

2012 WL 3201975

(D. Or. Aug. 3, 2012) ............................................ 22

United States v. Matthews,

532 F. App’x 211 (3d Cir. 2013) ..................... 13, 16

United States v. Perez,

113 F.4th 137 (1st Cir. 2024) (en banc) .... 2, 10, 16,

22, 33

United States v. Perez,

89 F.4th 247 (1st Cir. 2023) ..................... 10, 16, 33

United States v. Robinson,

414 U.S. 218 (1973) .......................... 3, 5, 17, 25, 28

United States v. Shakir,

616 F.3d 315 (3d Cir. 2010) ........................... 13, 16

x

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page(s)

United States v. Stanek,

536 F. Supp. 3d 725 (D. Haw. 2021).................... 22

United States v. Valdez,

685 F. Supp. 3d 1110 (D.N.M. 2023) ................... 22

United States v. Vining,

675 F. Supp. 3d 778

(E.D. Mich. 2023) ................................................. 22

United States v. Watson,

423 U.S. 411 (1976) .............................................. 30

United States v. Williams,

2020 WL 4341722

(N.D. Ala. June 10, 2020) .................................... 22

Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton,

515 U.S. 646 (1995) .............................................. 24

Virginia v. Moore,

553 U.S. 164 (2008) .............................................. 23

Warner v. State,

2024 WL 1793112

(Tex. App. Apr. 25, 2024) ..................................... 22

Wyoming v. Houghton,

526 U.S. 295 (1999) .............................................. 28

CONSTITUTUIONAL AND STATUTORY AUTHORITIES

U.S. Const., amend. IV ...... 1-4, 8, 20, 21, 23, 24, 29-32

xi

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

(continued)

Page(s)

28 U.S.C. § 1257 .......................................................... 1

OTHER AUTHORITIES

T. Davies, Recovering the Original

Fourth Amendment, 98 Mich. L. Rev.

547 (1999) ....................................................... 30, 31

2 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown (1736) ....................... 30

Ind. R. App. Proc. 65 ................................................. 19

3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure

(5th ed. 2012)........................................................ 22

W. Logan, An Exception Swallows a

Rule: Police Authority to Search

Incident to Arrest,

19 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 381 (2001) ...................... 30

U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Uniform Crime

Report, Crime in the United States,

2019 ...................................................................... 21

1

OPINIONS BELOW

The opinion of the Iowa Supreme Court (Pet.App.

1a-32a) is reported at 23 N.W.3d 49. The opinion of

the Iowa Court of Appeals (Pet.App. 33a-66a) is

reported at 12 N.W.3d 370 (Table), and is available at

2024 WL 3886203. The judgment of the trial court

imposing Petitioner’s conviction and sentence

(Pet.App. 67a-73a) is not reported. The order of the

trial court denying Petitioner’s motion to suppress

(Pet.App. 74a-81a) is not reported.

JURISDICTION

The Iowa Supreme Court entered final judgment on

June 20, 2025, upholding Petitioner’s criminal

conviction and sentence. This Court has jurisdiction

under 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a).

RELEVANT CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons,

houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable

searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no

Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,

supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly

describing the place to be searched, and the persons

or things to be seized.

2

INTRODUCTION

Americans regularly tote bags of every stripe—from

purses, backpacks, and briefcases to suitcases and

fanny packs. When police make an arrest, they need

to know whether the Fourth Amendment lets them

look inside those bags without a warrant. That

question arises all the time. But it has no settled

answer, as at least 11 federal circuit and state high

courts have reached conflicting results.

Some,

including the Iowa Supreme Court below, treat an

arrestee’s bag as part “of the person”—and thus

categorically searchable incident to arrest. Others

permit warrantless bag searches only when necessary

to protect officer safety or preserve evidence—

concerns that are rarely present once an arrestee is

secured and cannot access the bag.

The lower courts have repeatedly acknowledged

this division of authority. See, e.g., Commonwealth v.

Bembury, 677 S.W.3d 385, 397 (Ky. 2023) (“[T]here is

little uniformity to speak of in the manner in which

our nation’s courts have addressed this issue.”). Some

have even asked for this Court’s guidance. As an

opinion joined by every active member of the First

Circuit recently put it: “A Fourth Amendment issue

as basic as this one … seems especially poorly suited

to circuit-by-circuit and state-by-state resolution.”

United States v. Perez, 113 F.4th 137, 139 (1st Cir.

2024) (statement of Barron, C.J., respecting the denial

of rehearing en banc). The judges of the First Circuit

thus “urge[d]” this Court to take up the issue and

“bring about a measure of uniformity to an area of law

that has long been lacking it.” Id. at 139-40.

This case is an ideal vehicle for the Court to do

exactly that.

Petitioner Patrick Scullark was

3

convicted of a felony based on evidence found in a

fanny pack that he was carrying at the time of his

arrest, but that he was indisputably unable to access

at the time it was searched. There was thus no threat

to officer safety or risk of evidence destruction that

might have justified a warrantless search. So if bag

searches are categorically lawful incident to arrest,

Mr. Scullark’s conviction stands. But if a case-specific

threat to officer safety or evidence preservation is

required, his conviction falls—as there is no

alternative ground for upholding the search. The

Court should grant certiorari and provide muchneeded guidance on this important and recurring

question.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

A. Legal Background

“[S]earches conducted outside the judicial process,

without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per

se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—

subject only to a few specifically established and welldelineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States, 389

U.S. 347, 357 (1967) (footnote omitted). “Among the

exceptions to the warrant requirement is a search

incident to a lawful arrest.” Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S.

332, 338 (2009).

The search-incident-to-arrest

doctrine “has historically been formulated into two

distinct propositions,” which “have been treated quite

differently.” United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218,

224 (1973). “The first is that a search may be made of

the person of the arrestee by virtue of the lawful

arrest. The second is that a search may be made of

the area within the control of the arrestee.” Id.

(emphases added).

4

1. Start with the latter proposition. This Court’s

seminal decision in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752

(1969), holds that warrantless searches of the area

within the control of the arrestee are lawful only when

justified by the need to “remove any weapons that the

[arrestee] might seek to use in order to resist arrest or

effect his escape,” or to “prevent [the] concealment or

destruction” of evidence. Id. at 763. Because the

search in that case exceeded “the area from within

which [the defendant] might have obtained either a

weapon or something that could have been used as

evidence against him,” the Court held that it had

violated the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 768.

In United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1 (1977),

abrogated on other grounds by California v. Acevedo,

500 U.S. 565 (1991), the Court applied Chimel to hold

that the search-incident-to-arrest exception did not

extend to a 200-pound footlocker that was in the

defendants’ possession at the time of their arrest. 433

U.S. at 3-5, 15-16. At the time the footlocker was

searched, the Court reasoned, it was inside a federal

building where “there was no risk that whatever was

contained [inside] would be removed by the

defendants or their associates.” Id. at 4-5. Once

“there is no longer any danger that the arrestee might

gain access to the property to seize a weapon or

destroy evidence,” the Court held, “a search of that

property is no longer an incident of the arrest.” Id. at

15.

In Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009), the Court

applied Chimel to vehicle searches. In doing so, the

Court reaffirmed that the search-incident-to-arrest

exception “derives from interests in officer safety and

evidence preservation that are typically implicated in

5

arrest situations.” Id. at 338. And it held that those

interests cannot be squared with a categorical rule

adopted by some courts that “allow[ed] a vehicle

search incident to the arrest of a recent occupant even

if there [was] no possibility the arrestee could gain

access to the vehicle at the time of the search.” Id. at

341-42.

“[T]he Chimel rationale,” the Court

concluded, “authorizes police to search a vehicle

incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only when the

arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of

the passenger compartment at the time of the search.”

Id. at 343.

Most recently, in Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373

(2014), the Court held that the search-incident-toarrest exception does not justify the search of digital

data on an arrestee’s cell phone. Id. at 401. Such a

search does not clear Chimel’s bar, the Court

reasoned, because it is not necessary to protect officer

safety or preserve evidence. Id. at 387-91.

2. Searches of the person, by contrast, are governed

by Robinson. In that case, officers searched a

crumpled cigarette pack found in the breast pocket of

the defendant’s coat. 414 U.S. at 222-23. The

Robinson Court distinguished Chimel and held that

the officers’ search of Robinson’s person had been

lawful under the search-incident-to-arrest exception.

Id. at 224-26, 236. Unlike a search of the surrounding

area, Robinson held, a search of the person does not

depend for its legality on “the probability in a

particular arrest situation that weapons or evidence

would in fact be found upon the person of the suspect.”

Id. at 235. Under Robinson, so long as the arrest is

lawful, a search of the person “requires no additional

justification” or “case-by-case adjudication.” Id.

6

Although Robinson is more than 50 years old, the

Court has applied its rule for searches “of the person”

in only two other cases. In one, a companion case to

Robinson decided the same day, the Court upheld

another search of a cigarette pack found in an

arrestee’s coat pocket. Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U.S.

260, 262, 264 (1973) (citing Robinson). A year later,

the Court upheld a warrantless search of clothing that

an arrestee was wearing at the time of his arrest.

United States v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800, 808-09

(1974). Although the defendant was jailed and could

not have accessed the clothing at the time of the

search, the Court reasoned that a search “may legally

be conducted later when the accused arrives at the

place of detention” if it “could be made on the spot at

the time of arrest.” Id. at 803; see also Chadwick, 433

U.S. at 16 n.10 (characterizing Robinson and

Edwards as involving “searches of the person”).

3. The Court has offered little guidance for

distinguishing between Chimel-style searches of the

area and Robinson-style searches of the person. See

Riley, 573 U.S. at 392 (observing the dearth of cases

involving “a search of the contents of an item found on

an arrestee’s person”). In Chadwick, however, the

Court made clear that the search of the defendants’

footlocker was not a “search[] of the person” governed

by Robinson’s categorical rule. 433 U.S. at 16 n.10.

Rather, Chadwick held, “luggage or other personal

property not immediately associated with the person”

may be searched only if Chimel’s concerns—a “danger

that the arrestee might gain access to the property to

seize a weapon or destroy evidence”—exist in a

particular case. Id. at 15.

7

B. Factual and Procedural Background

1. Petitioner Patrick Scullark was sitting on the

tailgate of a truck outside his home when a police

officer arrived to investigate a domestic-abuse call.

Pet.App. 75a, 89a. Mr. Scullark had a fanny pack

around his waist. Id. 76a. According to the officer, Mr.

Scullark appeared “agitated” and retreated into the

house. Id. 75a.

The officer followed Mr. Scullark inside, where he

informed Mr. Scullark that he was under arrest. Id.

75a-76a. Mr. Scullark began to cry, and he handed

both the fanny pack and his cell phone to Tammi

Kisner. Id. 76a. As the officer was handcuffing Mr.

Scullark, Ms. Kisner began to walk with the fanny

pack and phone into another room. Id. When the

officer told her to remain in the room with both items,

Ms. Kisner complied and put the fanny pack down. Id.

The officer picked up the fanny pack and took it with

him as he escorted the handcuffed Mr. Scullark out of

the house. Id. 76a-77a. The officer admitted at the

suppression hearing that once Mr. Scullark was

handcuffed, he could not have accessed the fanny

pack. Id. 95a.

The officer then led Mr. Scullark to a police car,

patted him down, and put him in the back of the car.

Id. 77a. Meanwhile, another officer who had arrived

on the scene searched the fanny pack and found cash

and methamphetamine. Id.

2. Based on that evidence, the State charged Mr.

Scullark with possession of methamphetamine with

intent to deliver and failure to affix a drug tax stamp.

Id. 4a. Mr. Scullark moved to suppress the evidence,

arguing that the search of his fanny pack had violated

8

the Fourth Amendment, as well as the Iowa

Constitution. Id. 77a. The trial court held a hearing

and denied the motion, concluding that the search of

the fanny pack had been lawful because “[i]t was

within [Mr. Scullark’s] grab area when he was told he

was under arrest” and the search occurred “within

minutes” of when he was secured. Id. 79a. Mr.

Scullark then entered a conditional guilty plea on both

counts, preserving his right to appeal the denial of the

motion to suppress. Id. 4a, 67a-68a. He was

sentenced to concurrent 25-year and 5-year sentences,

subject to applicable reductions. Id. 68a-69a.

3. On appeal, Mr. Scullark challenged “the

warrantless search of his fanny pack under the federal

and state constitutions.” Id. 40a. The Iowa Court of

Appeals reversed the trial court’s denial of his

suppression motion in a split decision. Id. 34a. The

majority applied Chimel and held that, “[b]ecause

Scullark had no realistic ability to access the fanny

pack after he was handcuffed and escorted to the

patrol car, the search did not meet the incident-toarrest exception to the warrant requirement” of the

U.S. Constitution. Id.; see also id. 43a-45a, 47a-51a

(holding that caselaw interpreting the Iowa

Constitution compelled the same result). Judge

Buller dissented. In his view, Robinson was “the

dispositive United States Supreme Court precedent.”

Id. 53a. Although he recognized that “there is some

authority that supports the majority’s position,” he

identified an “equal or greater number of state and

federal appellate courts that have expressly come out

the other way.” Id. 56a; see also id. 56a-58a (collecting

cases).

9

4. The Iowa Supreme Court vacated the court-ofappeals decision in another divided opinion,

reinstating the trial court’s order denying the motion

to suppress. Id. 2a. The majority framed the issue as

“whether the search of the fanny pack at issue here

was a Robinson-type search of Scullark’s person or a

Chimel/Gant-type search of the area within his

immediate control.” Id. 8a. “[B]ecause the fanny pack

was attached to his person at the time of the arrest,”

the court concluded, “this [was] a search of the person,

governed by Robinson.” Id. 13a-14a; see also id. 19a

(“The fanny pack was an extension of [Scullark’s]

person, much like his pockets, the search of which

requires no additional justification beyond lawful

arrest.”). The court separately “reach[ed] the same

conclusion under the Iowa Constitution.” Id. 16a.

Justice McDermott dissented. The fanny pack, he

recognized, was not “part of [Scullark’s] ‘person’” at

the time of the search and “was no longer within an

area that Scullark could readily access.” Id. 26a.

Accordingly, “neither of the rationales supporting the

search-incident-to-arrest exception—officer safety

and evidence preservation—could justify the search of

the fanny pack.” Id. In ruling otherwise, he pointed

out, the majority had split with the Fourth and Tenth

Circuits. Id. 28a-30a (citing United States v. Davis,

997 F.3d 191 (4th Cir. 2021), and United States v.

Knapp, 917 F.3d 1161 (10th Cir. 2019), and explaining

that those cases would not “have come out the way

that they did” under the majority’s reasoning).

10

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION

I.

THE

DECISION

BELOW

INTRACTABLE SPLIT.

DEEPENS

AN

As many courts have recognized, “lower courts have

adopted disparate approaches” to warrantless

searches of bags incident to arrest. Perez, 113 F.4th at

138-39 (statement of Barron, C.J., respecting the

denial of rehearing en banc); see also, e.g., United

States v. Perez, 89 F.4th 247, 261 (1st Cir. 2023)

(noting that “several other circuits have chosen not to

follow one of our prior rulings”); Bembury, 677 S.W.3d

at 397 (“[T]here is little uniformity to speak of in the

manner in which our nation’s courts have addressed

this issue.”); Knapp, 917 F.3d at 1166 n.3 (expressly

declining to follow the Illinois and Washington

Supreme Courts’ rule); Pet.App. 30a (McDermott, J.,

dissenting) (“Had the cases discussed above relied on

[the majority’s reasoning], none would have come out

the way that they did.”); id. 15a (majority op.)

(“Although other courts have extended Gant outside

of the vehicle context, … we find more persuasive

those federal cases that have not ….” (citing cases));

id. 56a (Buller, J., dissenting) (“While there is some

authority that supports the majority’s position, the

majority opinion curiously omits from discussion the

equal or greater number of state and federal appellate

courts that have expressly come out the other

way ….”).

11

A. At Least Three Federal Courts of Appeals

and Two State Supreme Courts Do Not

Allow Warrantless Searches of Bags

Incident to Arrest Absent Concerns

About Officer Safety or Evidence

Preservation.

The Third, Fourth, and Tenth Circuits, as well as

the Missouri and New Mexico Supreme Courts, hold

that Chimel governs searches of bags in the

arrestee’s possession. In those jurisdictions, such

bags may be searched incident to arrest only if there

is a threat to officer safety or a risk of evidence

destruction at the time of the search.

1. The Tenth Circuit, for example, holds that

“visible containers” are “governed by Chimel”—and

thus subject to warrantless search only when casespecific risks are present. United States v. Knapp,

917 F.3d 1161, 1167 (10th Cir. 2019) (Kelly, J.). In

that case, officers searched a purse that the

defendant had with her at the time of her arrest but

that was out of her handcuffed reach when searched.

Id. at 1164. In assessing the legality of that search,

the Tenth Circuit first considered the “critical

distinction” of “whether the search of her purse was

one of her person for the purposes of Robinson,” or

one of “the area from within which she might have

gained possession of a weapon or destructible

evidence” under Chimel. Id. at 1165-66 (brackets

omitted). Acknowledging that “the Supreme Court

has not clearly demarcated where the person ends

and the ‘grab area’ begins,” the court concluded that

a search of “a carried purse does not qualify as ‘of the

person.’” Id. at 1166. Unlike pockets and clothing,

the court explained, purses are “easily capable of

12

separation from [the arrested] person,” so “arresting

officers ha[ve] no authority to search [their] contents

pursuant to Robinson.” Id. at 1168. The Tenth

Circuit thus “decline[d] to follow those courts

construing the arrestee’s ‘person’ to include any

containers in the arrestee’s ‘actual’ or ‘physical’

possession at the time of arrest.” Id. at 1166 n.3

(citing People v. Cregan, 10 N.E.3d 1196 (Ill. 2014),

and State v. Byrd, 310 P.3d 793 (Wash. 2013)). And

it ultimately held the search of the defendant’s purse

unlawful under Chimel because “it was

unreasonable to believe [she] could have gained

possession of a weapon or destructible evidence

within her purse at the time of the search.” Id. at

1168.

2. The Fourth Circuit likewise rejects a

categorical rule allowing warrantless searches of

bags that a defendant is carrying at the time of

arrest. In United States v. Davis, 997 F.3d 191 (4th

Cir. 2021) (Wynn, J.), officers chased a defendant

carrying a backpack until he got stuck in a swamp.

Id. at 194. When officers ordered him to come out,

the defendant dropped his backpack, laid down on

his stomach, and was handcuffed. Id. After he was

restrained, officers unzipped the backpack and

found cocaine inside. Id. The Fourth Circuit held

that the search was unlawful. Applying Chimel’s

rule, as reaffirmed in Gant, the court reasoned that

“police officers can conduct warrantless searches of

non-vehicular containers incident to a lawful arrest

‘only when the arrestee is unsecured and within

reaching distance of the [container] at the time of the

search.’” Id. at 197 (brackets in original) (quoting

Gant, 556 U.S. at 343).

13

3. The Third Circuit also holds that a bag “search

is permissible incident to a suspect’s arrest when,

under all the circumstances, there remains a

reasonable possibility that the arrestee could access

a weapon or destructible evidence” inside. United

States v. Shakir, 616 F.3d 315, 321 (3d Cir. 2010)

(Hardiman, J.). This rule, the court explained in

Shakir, follows from Gant, which requires courts to

focus “on a suspect’s ability (or inability) to access

weapons or destroy evidence at the time a search

incident to arrest is conducted.” Id. at 318. The

court ultimately concluded that the defendant’s gym

bag was within his reach at the time of the search,

so it upheld the warrantless search under Gant. Id.

at 321.

Three years later, in United States v. Matthews,

532 F. App’x 211 (3d Cir. 2013), the Third Circuit

applied the same rule and reached the opposite

result. The arrestee in that case “was handcuffed in

the back of a locked police car” at the time of the

search, so the Third Circuit held that the

warrantless search of the backpack could not be

justified as incident to arrest. Id. at 218. 1

4. The Missouri Supreme Court takes the same

approach. In State v. Carrawell, 481 S.W.3d 833

1 Matthews ultimately upheld the search on a different

ground. Because the arrest in that case was “made in a public

place,” circumstances “require[d] that the arrested person be

transported from the scene.” Id. at 224. The court thus held that

officers could search luggage “which must accompany him to the

police station, prior to transporting it.” Id. That rationale could

not apply here, as Mr. Scullark was arrested at home and tried

to leave the fanny pack there. See Pet.App. 26a (McDermott, J.,

dissenting).

14

(Mo. 2016), officers arrested a defendant who was

holding a plastic bag. Id. at 836. “After securing

[the defendant] in [a] police car,” an officer looked

into the bag and found heroin. Id. Citing Chimel,

the Missouri Supreme Court concluded that the

state court of appeals had relied on a

“misunderstanding of law” in holding that “an

arrestee’s personal effects (e.g., a purse or backpack)

may be searched even when they are not within the

immediate control of the arrestee because such a

search qualifies as a search of the person.” Id. at

838-39. Instead, the Missouri Supreme Court

explained, the rule categorically permitting

warrantless “search[es] of the person” “applies only

to items that are so intertwined with the arrestee’s

person that they cannot be separated from the

person at the time of arrest.” Id. at 840. And “the

plastic bag in this case,” like “purses and other

similar personal effects,” “was easily separable from

the arrestee’s person.” Id. at 840-41. Because the

bag was not “within [the defendant’s] immediate

control” when it was searched, the court held that

“there was not a valid search incident to arrest.” Id.

at 845. 2

2 In a subsequent case, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the

search of a “cigarette pack discovered during a search of [the

defendant’s] person,” noting that “[a]ny contrary statements in

Carrawell should no longer … be followed.” Greene v. State, 585

S.W.3d 800, 808 (Mo. 2019). But Greene does not alter

Carrawell’s holding that searches of bags are not searches of the

defendant’s person—and thus must be justified by a threat to

officer safety or a risk of evidence destruction. See State v.

Branson, 639 S.W.3d 556, 559 (Mo. Ct. App. 2022) (post-Greene

application of Carrawell holding that a search of a backpack was

15

5. The New Mexico Supreme Court took the

same tack in State v. Ortiz, 539 P.3d 262 (N.M. 2023).

That case involved a defendant who was wearing a

purse when she was arrested in an alley behind her

house. Id. at 265. Explicitly adopting the Tenth

Circuit’s analysis from Knapp, the court rejected the

argument that the search of the purse was a search

of the defendant’s person, explaining that unlike

“pockets,” the purse “could be removed from

Defendant and kept safely away from her.” Id. at

267 (citing Knapp, 917 F.3d at 1167). Because there

was no “evidence that the purse was within the

Defendant’s immediate control such that [she]

presented a danger of gaining possession of a

weapon or … destroy[ing] evidence,” the search was

unlawful. Id. at 268-69.

B. At Least One Federal Court of Appeals

and Five State Supreme Courts Hold

That an Arrestee’s Bag Is Always

Searchable Incident to Arrest.

On the other side of the ledger, several courts hold

that the search of a bag in the defendant’s possession

at the time of arrest is per se lawful, regardless of

whether officer-safety or evidence-spoliation

concerns are implicated.

1. The First Circuit, in a decision issued shortly

after Robinson, upheld the warrantless search of a

briefcase while the defendant was handcuffed and

secured in the back of the patrol car. United States

v. Eatherton, 519 F.2d 603, 609 (1st Cir. 1975). In

unlawful because the defendant lacked access to it at the time of

the search).

16

the First Circuit’s view, “gossamer distinctions”

would be required to distinguish the search of the

briefcase from the cigarette-pack searches in

Robinson and Gustafson. Id. at 610.

The First Circuit recently declined an opportunity

to overturn Eatherton. See Perez, 89 F.4th 247. In

Perez, the defendant was carrying a backpack while

attempting to flee from police; officers searched the

bag after he was handcuffed and seated on the

pavement. Id. at 249. The defendant acknowledged

that

the

search

of

his

backpack

was

indistinguishable from the search of the briefcase in

Eatherton, but he argued that Eatherton had been

fatally undermined by Chadwick and Gant. Id. at

260. The court rejected that argument, reading

those cases as “sa[ying] nothing about whether the

rule of Robinson … governs a container that an

arrestee is carrying at the time of the arrest.” Id. at

256. Judge Montecalvo dissented, explaining that,

“[a]s our sister circuits have concluded, Chadwick

and … Gant … have unquestionably altered our

understanding of the search-incident-to arrest

doctrine.” Id. at 265-67 (Montecalvo, J., dissenting)

(citing Shakir, Matthews, Davis, and Knapp).

The First Circuit denied rehearing en banc. 113

F.4th at 137-38. But in doing so, the full court

acknowledged that “lower courts have adopted

disparate approaches” to warrantless bag searches

and “urge[d] the Supreme Court … to consider

Robinson’s applicability” in those contexts. Id. at

138-40 (statement of Barron, C.J., respecting the

denial of rehearing en banc).

2. The Colorado Supreme Court likewise holds

that warrantless searches of bags carried by

17

defendants at the time of arrest are categorically

permitted. In People v. Marshall, 289 P.3d 27 (Colo.

2012), officers arrested a defendant carrying a

backpack. Id. at 28. After handcuffing him and

placing him in the back of a squad car, they searched

the backpack and found marijuana, prescription

drugs, and a digital scale. Id. The Colorado

Supreme Court concluded that Gant applies only to

vehicle searches, id. at 30, and held that the

backpack search was lawful as a “search of a person,

and articles on or near that person, after a lawful

arrest,” id. at 31 (citing Robinson, 414 U.S. at 235).

3. The Washington Supreme Court takes the same

approach. In State v. Byrd, 310 P.3d 793, the court

considered the search of a defendant’s purse, which

was on her lap at the time of arrest but searched

after she was secured in the patrol car. Id. at 795.

The court held that “an article is ‘immediately

associated’ with the arrestee’s person and can be

searched under Robinson, if the arrestee has actual

possession of it at the time of a lawful custodial

arrest.” Id. at 798. 3 One year later, the Washington

Supreme Court applied Byrd to hold that the search

of a laptop bag and rolling duffel bag possessed by

the defendant at the time of arrest—but “a car’s

length away” from the defendant at the time of

search—was a search “of the person” and thus per se

lawful. State v. MacDicken, 319 P.3d 31, 33-34

(Wash. 2014).

3 Although the defendant was arrested in a car, the court

explained that the “distinction does not turn on whether a person

is arrested in a car, on the street, or at home, but on the

relationship of the article to the arrestee.” Id.

18

4. The Illinois Supreme Court has followed suit.

In People v. Cregan, 10 N.E.3d 1196, officers

arrested a defendant who was carrying a laundry

bag over his shoulder and wheeling a luggage bag

through a train station. Id. at 1198. Officers

handcuffed him, searched his bags, and found

cocaine hidden inside. Id. at 1199. A majority of the

court concluded that “the search of defendant’s

luggage was permissible incident to his arrest under

Robinson.” Id. at 1209. “[I]f the arrestee is, at the

time of his arrest, in actual physical possession of a

bag,” the court held, “it is immediately associated

with the arrestee and is searchable, whether it is a

bag of groceries being carried or wheeled in a

‘grannie cart,’ a duffle bag slung over one shoulder,

or a nylon bag being pulled behind him on wheels.”

Id. at 1207.

5. The Kentucky Supreme Court also applies

Robinson to warrantless bag searches.

In

Commonwealth v. Bembury, 677 S.W.3d 385, officers

arrested a man holding a backpack after witnessing

him conduct a drug transaction. Id. at 388. To

resolve the lawfulness of the subsequent search of

the defendant’s backpack, the court explained, it had

to decide whether that “backpack was an item of

‘personal property … immediately associated with

[his] person,’ or whether it was [instead inside] ‘the

area within his immediate control.’” Id. at 396

(internal citation omitted). After observing that

there is “little uniformity” among lower courts on

this issue, id. at 397, the court opted to follow the

Washington and Illinois Supreme Courts (among

others), id. at 397-402, and expressly rejected the

Tenth Circuit’s approach, id. at 404. It held that “a

19

container capable of carrying items, such as a

backpack, can be considered part of an arrestee’s

‘person’ for the purposes of a search incident to

lawful arrest.” Id. at 406.

6. Finally, in the decision below, the Iowa Supreme

Court held that the search of an item “attached to

[the defendant’s] person at the time of the arrest …

is a search of the person governed by Robinson—

rather than a search of the area within his

immediate control, governed by Chimel [or] Gant.”

Pet.App. 13a-14a. According to the majority, Mr.

Scullark’s “fanny pack was an extension of his

person, much like his pockets,” id. 19a—an analogy

that courts on the other side of the split have

expressly rejected, see, e.g., Knapp, 917 F.3d at 116667 (distinguishing between “clothing or pockets” and

“[c]ontainers held in an arrestee’s hand and not

concealed on her body or within her clothing”); Ortiz,

539 P.3d at 267 (distinguishing between “pockets

and a purse”). So it could be searched even absent a

threat to officer safety or a risk of evidence

destruction. Pet.App. 19a-20a. In reaching this

conclusion, the court expressly relied on Byrd,

Cregan, and Bembury. Pet.App. 14a, 16a-17a. It

also recognized a federal circuit split and sided with

the First Circuit over the Third, Fourth, and Tenth.

See id. 15a. 4

4 The Indiana Court of Appeals has also held that an arrestee’s

backpack is “immediately associated with” the person and

therefore is categorically searchable incident to arrest. State v.

Crager, 113 N.E.3d 657, 664 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018). That holding

is binding on all trial courts in the state. Ind. R. App. Proc.

65(d)(1).

20

*

*

*

The Kentucky Supreme Court has summed up the

disarray well:

As the U.S. Supreme Court has not yet directly

opined on this issue, lower federal and state

courts have been left to our own devices in

determining how to draw the line between what

constitutes a “Robinson search” of an arrestee’s

person and a “Chimel search” of the area within

an arrestee’s immediate control when a portable

container capable of carrying items—purses,

backpacks, suitcases, briefcases, gym bags,

computer bags, fanny packs, etc.—[is] concerned.

Unsurprisingly, there is little uniformity to speak

of in the manner in which our nation’s courts

have addressed this issue.

Bembury, 677 S.W.3d at 397. That split is widely

acknowledged. See supra at 9 (collecting cases noting

the split). And it is deeply entrenched. Only this

Court can restore uniformity.

II. THE QUESTION PRESENTED IS IMPORTANT AND

RECURS FREQUENTLY.

The question this petition presents about officers’

authority to conduct warrantless bag searches

implicates core Fourth Amendment values. It also

arises frequently.

Disuniformity on such an

important and recurring question should not stand.

1. The Fourth Amendment grants an “inestimable

right of personal security,” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1,

8-9 (1968), and “marks the right of privacy as one of

the unique values of our civilization,” McDonald v.

United States, 335 U.S. 451, 453 (1948). As Chimel

explained, the Amendment “was in large part a

21

reaction to the general warrants and warrantless

searches that had so alienated the colonists and had

helped speed the movement for independence.” 395

U.S. at 761. “In the scheme of the Amendment,

therefore, the requirement that ‘no Warrants shall

issue, but upon probable cause,’ plays a crucial part.”

Id.

Consistent with the centrality of the Fourth

Amendment’s warrant requirement, “a long line” of

this Court’s cases has “stressed” that “‘searches

conducted outside the judicial process, without prior

approval by judge or magistrate, are per se

unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject

only to a few specifically established and well

delineated exceptions.’” Thompson v. Louisiana, 469

U.S. 17, 19-20 (1984) (per curiam) (quoting Katz, 389

U.S. at 357). Limiting warrantless searches to those

carefully defined contexts protects the privacy

interests the Fourth Amendment was designed to

secure. By contrast, the Iowa Supreme Court’s

position reflects the kind of broad, privacythreatening authority to search against which the

Amendment’s warrant requirement was designed to

guard.

2. The frequency with which this issue arises

confirms its importance. Arrests, after all, are

remarkably common. According to an FBI estimate,

more than 10 million occurred in 2019 alone—a figure

roughly equivalent to one arrest every three or four

seconds. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Uniform Crime Report,

Crime in the United States, 2019, at 2,

https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-theu.s.-2019/topic-pages/persons-arrested.pdf.

That

helps explain why this Court observed in Riley that it

22

is “something of a misnomer” to refer to searches

incident to arrest as an “exception”: “[W]arrantless

searches incident to arrest occur with far greater

frequency than searches conducted pursuant to a

warrant.” 573 U.S. at 382 (citing 3 W. LaFave, Search

and Seizure § 5.2(b), p. 132 & n.15 (5th ed. 2012)).

It requires little imagination to appreciate that

many arrestees carry “wallets, purses, briefcases,

backpacks, or other commonly carried containers” at

the time of their arrest, and that those containers are

often inaccessible to arrestees at the time they are

searched. Perez, 113 F.4th at 139 (statement of

Barron, C.J., respecting the denial of rehearing en

banc) (characterizing this scenario as “mundane”).

The depth of the split described above proves the

point—to say nothing of the numerous other lowercourt decisions assessing the constitutionality of

warrantless bag searches. 5

5 See, e.g., United States v. Brito, 771 F. Supp. 3d 157, 175

(E.D.N.Y. 2025); Commonwealth v. Soto, 245 N.E.3d 241, 245-47

(Mass. App. Ct. 2024); Warner v. State, 2024 WL 1793112, at *2

(Tex. App. Apr. 25, 2024); United States v. Valdez, 685 F. Supp.

3d 1110, 1213-14 (D.N.M. 2023); United States v. Vining, 675 F.

Supp. 3d 778, 795-97 (E.D. Mich. 2023); Jean v. State, 369 So.3d

1235, 1240-41 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2023); United States v. Stanek,

536 F. Supp. 3d 725, 737-40 (D. Haw. 2021); United States v.

Williams, 2020 WL 4341722, at *9-11 (N.D. Ala. June 10, 2020);

Harris v. State, 238 So.3d 396, 400-02 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2018)

(Lagoa, J.); State v. Ritchey, 432 P.3d 99, 103-05 (Kan. App.

2018); United States v. Kowalczyk, 2012 WL 3201975, at *17-18

(D. Or. Aug. 3, 2012); cf. also Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S.

615, 628 (2004) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment)

(“Reported cases involving this precise factual scenario—a

motorist handcuffed and secured in the back of a squad car when

the search takes place—are legion.”).

23

3. The “Fourth Amendment’s meaning” should not

“vary from place to place,” particularly on such an

important and recurring question. Virginia v. Moore,

553 U.S. 164, 172 (2008) (citation omitted). But it

does, and will, until this Court steps in. If Mr.

Scullark, for example, had been prosecuted across the

Iowa-Missouri state line, the evidence recovered from

the search of his fanny pack would have been

suppressed. See Carrawell, 481 S.W.3d at 840-41.

And in Colorado, the constitutionality of a bag search

incident to arrest will hinge on the court in which a

defendant is prosecuted: A defendant like Mr.

Scullark could suppress the evidence found in his bag

if he were prosecuted in federal court, see Knapp, 917

F.3d at 1167, but not if he were prosecuted in state

court, see Marshall, 289 P.3d at 28. That means that

a federal prosecutor in Colorado facing the inevitable

suppression of unconstitutionally obtained evidence

could simply hand the case off to the DA’s office, and

thereby snuff out the defendant’s Fourth Amendment

protection. That state of affairs is intolerable. Cf.

Hagen v. Utah, 510 U.S. 399, 409 (1994) (granting

certiorari “to resolve the direct conflict between these

decisions of the Tenth Circuit and the Utah Supreme

Court”).

And not just for defendants. This Court has often

recognized that law enforcement needs “clear

guidance” about the scope of their authority, given

that they “are often forced to make split-second

judgments—in circumstances that are tense,

uncertain, and rapidly evolving.” Kentucky v. King,

563 U.S. 452, 466-67 (2011) (internal quotation marks

omitted). Until the confusion about bag searches

among lower courts is resolved, police will lack the

24

clarity they need to effectively and lawfully perform

one of their most basic functions.

III. THE DECISION BELOW IS INCORRECT.

The Iowa Supreme Court held that the search of Mr.

Scullark’s fanny pack was a categorically lawful

search of the person under Robinson—and thus

deemed it constitutional even absent any threat to

officer safety or evidence preservation. Pet.App. 21a.

That reasoning is inconsistent with this Court’s

precedents, the privacy concerns at the heart of the

Fourth Amendment, and the Amendment’s historical

understanding.

1. As its text makes clear, “the ultimate touchstone

of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness,’”

Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006), and

“reasonableness generally requires the obtaining of a

judicial warrant,” Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton,

515 U.S. 646, 653 (1995). The warrant requirement is

“‘an important working part of our machinery of

government,’ not merely ‘an inconvenience to be

somehow weighed against the claims of police

efficiency.’” Riley, 573 U.S. at 401 (quoting Coolidge

v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 481 (1971)). It

“ensures that the inferences to support a search are

‘drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead

of being judged by the officer engaged in the often

competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.’” Id. at

382 (quoting Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14

(1948)); see also Chimel, 395 U.S. at 761 (recognizing

that the Framers “deemed” “[t]he right of

privacy … too precious to entrust to the discretion of

those whose job is the detection of crime and the arrest

of criminals” (quoting McDonald, 335 U.S. at 455-56)).

25

“Thus, in the absence of a warrant, a search is

reasonable only if it falls within a specific exception to

the warrant requirement.” Carpenter v. United

States, 585 U.S. 296, 316-17 (2018) (internal quotation

marks and brackets omitted).

The search-incident-to-arrest doctrine is a wellestablished exception to the warrant requirement. As

this Court has recognized since Chimel, the doctrine

is “‘based upon the need to disarm and to discover

evidence.’” Riley, 573 U.S. at 386 (quoting Robinson,

414 U.S. at 235). Consistent with that framework,

Robinson articulated a “‘bright-line rule’” for searches

of the person “based on the concern for officer safety

and destruction or loss of evidence” that is inherent in

that context—and so does “not depend … upon the

existence of either concern” in any particular case.

Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 118 (1998).

2. This Court has rightly hesitated to expand the

circumstances that bright-line rule covers, applying it

only to searches of an arrestee’s clothing and physical

containers found therein. See Robinson, 414 U.S. at

222-23 (search of cigarette pack found in breast pocket

of defendant’s coat); Gustafson, 414 U.S. at 262, 266

(same); Edwards, 415 U.S. at 808-09 (search of

defendant’s clothing). “Because of an arrestee’s ability

to always access weapons concealed in her clothing or

pockets, an officer must necessarily search those

areas because it would be impractical (not to mention

demeaning) to separate the arrestee from her

clothing.” Knapp, 917 F.3d at 1166.

By contrast, where an arrestee can be “easily

dispossessed” of an item, the inherent officer-safety

and evidence-preservation concerns that animate the

Robinson rule evaporate. Id. at 1167; see also

26

Knowles, 525 U.S. at 119 (“declin[ing]” to “extend

[Robinson’s] ‘bright-line rule’ to a situation where the

concern for officer safety is not present to the same

extent and the concern for destruction or loss of

evidence is not present at all”); Riley, 573 U.S. at 40506 (Alito, J., concurring in the judgment) (once an

arrestee’s possessions “are taken away,” “there is no

risk that the arrestee will destroy them” or that “the

arresting officers” will be “endanger[ed]”). Thus, in

Chadwick, the Court held that “luggage or other

personal property not immediately associated with

the person of the arrestee” is not controlled by

Robinson. Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 15-16 & n.10. Such

luggage, the Court explained, can be “reduced … to

[law enforcement’s] exclusive control”—at which point

“there is no longer any danger that the arrestee might

gain access to the property to seize a weapon or

destroy evidence.” Id. at 15.

The justification for a bright-line rule is similarly

absent with respect to other bags possessed by an

arrestee. Defendants can almost always be “easily

dispossessed” of their bags, see Knapp, 917 F.3d at

1167, so there are no inherent officer-safety or

evidence-preservation concerns that might justify a

categorical entitlement to search, Knowles, 525 U.S.

at 119; see also Ortiz, 539 P.3d at 267 (rejecting

argument that “searching Defendant’s purse is the

same thing as searching a person’s pockets,

particularly where, as here, the purse could be and

was removed from Defendant’s person” (internal

quotation marks and brackets omitted)); Carrawell,

481 S.W.3d at 840 (“Unlike the clothing in Edwards,

the plastic bag … was easily separable from the

arrestee’s person.”). In this case, for instance, Mr.

27

Scullark was not wearing the fanny pack at the time

of the search. And the officer admitted that Mr.

Scullark could not have accessed it. See Pet.App. 95a.

If handheld bags—i.e., fanny packs, purses, and

backpacks—are covered by Robinson’s bright-line rule

(as the decision below held) but “luggage” is not (per

Chadwick), then the dividing line will be hopelessly

arbitrary. Cf. Cregan, 10 N.E.3d at 1206 (observing

that many tests “would leave law enforcement

officers, prosecutors, and judges wondering whether it

is the size, shape, materials, function, or some other

attribute of an object, its proximity to the defendant,

or some combination of these factors that determines

whether it is ‘immediately associated’ with the

defendant’s person”). How, for instance, would an

officer determine whether a particular suitcase is

more like a handheld bag or the footlocker in

Chadwick? By weight (can it be carried)? By size

(does it fit in a carry-on compartment)? By portability

(does it have wheels or straps)? Cf. Chadwick, 433

U.S. at 20-21 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) (noting the

line-drawing problems in distinguishing “the

footlocker in the present case” from “such items as

purses or briefcases”). Even if courts were to conclude

that suitcases are categorically more like footlockers,

would the same be true of duffel bags? Or backpacks?

It is bad enough to ask courts to engage in those linedrawing exercises. It is untenable to ask officers, who

must make quick judgments in the field, to do the

same. The only workable line is the one this Court

has already drawn in Robinson and Edwards:

Clothing is categorically searchable incident to arrest;

bags, however, can be warrantlessly searched only if

28

there is a threat to officer safety or evidence integrity,

or if some other exception applies.

Gant confirms all this. There, the Court rejected a

broad reading of New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454

(1981), that “authorize[d] police officers to search not

just the passenger compartment [in a vehicle] but

every purse, briefcase, or other container within that

space.” Gant, 556 U.S. at 345 (emphasis added). That

reading of Belton, the Court recognized, was

“untether[ed] … from the justifications underlying

the Chimel exception,” which “authorize[] police to

search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest

only when the arrestee is unsecured and within

reaching distance of the passenger compartment at

the time of the search.” Id. at 343-44. If a reachingdistance requirement applies to bag searches in the

vehicle context—where there is a reduced expectation

of privacy and heightened law enforcement needs,

Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295, 303-04 (1999)—

it surely applies a fortiori in a defendant’s own home.

See Gant, 556 U.S. at 345 (“[W]e have recognized that

a motorist’s privacy interest in his vehicle is less

substantial than in his home.”).

3. Robinson’s categorical rule for searches of the

person is also justified by “reduced expectations of

privacy caused by the arrest.” Chadwick, 433 U.S. at

16 n.10. The very act of arrest requires that “the

law … subject[] the body of the accused to its physical

dominion,” which is a substantial invasion of the

arrestee’s privacy. Robinson, 414 U.S. at 232 (quoting

People v. Chiagles, 142 N.E. 583, 584 (N.Y. 1923)

(Cardozo, J.)).

Thus, “a patdown of Robinson’s

clothing and an inspection of the cigarette pack found

in his pocket constituted only minor additional

29

intrusions compared to the substantial government

authority exercised in taking Robinson into custody.”

Riley, 573 U.S. at 392; see also Birchfield v. North

Dakota, 579 U.S. 438, 461, 463 (2016) (permitting

breath tests, but not blood tests, incident to arrest

because, unlike blood tests, “breath tests do not

implicate significant privacy concerns” beyond those

“inherent in any arrest” (internal quotation marks

and brackets omitted)).

The search of a bag, however, is not just a “minor

additional intrusion[].” Riley, 573 U.S. at 392; see

Chadwick, 433 U.S. at 16 n.10 (explaining that the

defendants’ “privacy interest in the contents of the

footlocker was not eliminated simply because they

were under arrest”). To the contrary:

People carry all kinds of personal items in their

[bags] of which they do not intend the public to

have knowledge and to which they do not intend

the public to have access. These items could

include things as personal as journals containing

a person’s innermost convictions, medications

indicating one’s physical health history or even

mental health diagnoses, hygiene products, or

checkbooks and other financial records evincing

one’s political, religious, and other personal

affiliations.

Bembury, 677 S.W.3d at 411-12 (Keller, J., dissenting).

The Iowa Supreme Court’s rule gives officers carte

blanche to search these private spaces and uncover

this kind of intimate, personal information without a

warrant—even absent any safety or evidentiary risks.

That is precisely the kind of privacy intrusion against

which the Fourth Amendment was designed to guard.

30

See Gant, 556 U.S. at 345 (recognizing that the Fourth

Amendment’s “central concern” is to guard against

officers having “unbridled discretion to rummage at

will among a person’s private effects”).

4. The decision below is also inconsistent with the

Fourth Amendment’s historical context. As this Court

has explained, the Fourth Amendment “must provide

at a minimum the degree of protection it afforded

when it was adopted.” Lange v. California, 594 U.S.

295, 309 (2021) (quoting United States v. Jones, 565

U.S. 400, 411 (2012)). And the decision below

greenlights a search power that is significantly more

expansive than anything the Founders would have

recognized.

While warrantless searches incident to arrest

existed at common law, that power was limited in

practice because warrantless arrests were cabined to

narrow circumstances. See W. Logan, An Exception

Swallows a Rule: Police Authority to Search Incident

to Arrest, 19 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 381, 386 (2001)

(explaining that, at the Founding, “authorities had

relatively little occasion to arrest persons in the

absence of a warrant, and as a result had only limited

recourse to conduct searches incident to arrest”); T.

Davies, Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment,

98 Mich. L. Rev. 547, 628-31 (1999) (describing the

limited circumstances in which warrantless arrests

were permitted); 2 M. Hale, Pleas of the Crown 90-92

(1736) (same). Today, officers’ authority to arrest

without warrants is much broader. Probable cause is

all that is required—even for the most trivial of

offenses. See Davies, supra, at 632-33; United States

v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 418-21 (1976); Atwater v. City

of Lago Vista, 532 U.S. 318, 323 (2001) (“misdemeanor

31

seatbelt violation[s] punishable only by a fine”);

Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U.S. 391, 412 (2019) (Gorsuch,

J., concurring in part and dissenting in part)

(“[C]riminal laws have grown so exuberantly and

come to cover so much previously innocent conduct

that almost anyone can be arrested for something.”).

Because the arrest power has ballooned so

dramatically, so too have “opportunities for officers to

make warrantless searches incident to arrest, making

that power far more significant than it had been at the

framing.” Davies, supra, at 638. The Iowa Supreme

Court’s blanket permission slip for officers to search

any bag in an arrestee’s possession pushes the

envelope even further, to a point that the Framing

generation would not have recognized.

IV. THIS CASE IS AN IDEAL VEHICLE.

This case presents an unusually good opportunity

for this Court to finally resolve the constitutionality of

warrantless bag searches incident to arrest. The

Question Presented was preserved and passed on at

all stages; the relevant facts are undisputed; and,

unlike in prior petitions presenting this question, the

answer is dispositive of Mr. Scullark’s case.

1. Mr. Scullark has challenged the search of his

fanny pack at every turn, and three different courts

have ruled on that challenge. He first raised his

Fourth Amendment argument in a suppression

motion. Pet.App. 74a. When the trial court rejected

that argument, Mr. Scullark entered a conditional

guilty plea reserving his right to challenge the

suppression ruling.

Id. 4a, 67a-68a. He then

challenged that ruling before the Iowa Court of

Appeals and Iowa Supreme Court. Both courts

32

expressly passed on

argument. Id. 2a, 34a.

his

Fourth

Amendment

2. The undisputed facts of this case also tee up the

Question Presented perfectly. There is no dispute that

Mr. Scullark was wearing the fanny pack at the time

he was arrested. Pet.App. 2a (majority op.); id. 35a

(McDermott, J., dissenting); id. 90a (officer

testimony). And there is no dispute that he could not

have accessed the bag at the time of the search. Id.

95a (“Q. Okay. So he couldn’t have gotten [the fanny

pack] if he wanted to? A. Correct.”). As a result, the

search was valid only if it was a Robinson-type search

of Mr. Scullark’s person, rather than a Chimel-type

search of the area within his immediate control.

3. The absence of any alternative grounds for

affirmance readily distinguishes petitions that have

pressed this question in the past. The Iowa Supreme

Court’s resolution of Mr. Scullark’s constitutional

argument was dispositive of its decision to uphold the

trial court’s suppression order. Id. 21a-22a. And the

court neither accepted nor reserved any alternative

ground for admitting the evidence in question.

Accordingly, reversal of the decision below would

result in its suppression, id. 32a (McDermott, J.,

dissenting), which, in turn, would require vacatur of

Mr. Scullark’s conditional guilty plea.

By contrast, other recent petitions raising this issue

have arisen from cases with clear alternative grounds

for evidentiary admission. See, e.g., Bembury v.

Kentucky, 144 S. Ct. 1459 (2024) (No. 23-802); Perez v.

United States, 145 S. Ct. 1469 (2025) (No. 24-577). In

Bembury, for instance, the defendant “was pulling

illegal items out of his backpack in a public place and

in the plain view of the officers” before the backpack

33

was searched. 677 S.W.3d at 406. Thus, the search

may have been independently justified under the

plain-view doctrine, as a concurring justice would

have held. Id. at 407-08 (Nickell, J., concurring)

(citing Florida v. Riley, 488 U.S. 445, 449 (1989)

(plurality op.)). And in Perez, the government argued

that the good-faith exception applied because the

search had been conducted in “reliance on” circuit

precedent. 89 F.4th at 249. That may explain why the

full First Circuit noted that rehearing was not

warranted “at least in the context of this specific case.”

113 F.4th at 138 (statement of Barron, C.J., respecting

the denial of rehearing en banc). Here, unlike in those

cases, the State has never argued for application of

the plain-view doctrine or the good-faith exception,

nor did the decisions below address those issues.

In opposing certiorari in Perez, the United States

suggested that this Court should “await a case in

which a decision in the defendant’s favor could

realistically affect his conviction.” Brief in Opposition

at 17, Perez, 145 S. Ct. 1469 (No. 24-577). This is that

case.

CONCLUSION

The petition for a writ of certiorari should be

granted.

34

September 18, 2025

Respectfully submitted,

Matthew J. Rubenstein

JONES DAY

90 South Seventh Street

Suite 4950

Minneapolis, MN 55402

Amanda K. Rice

Counsel of Record

JONES DAY

150 West Jefferson

Avenue

Suite 2100

Detroit, MI 48226

(313) 733-3939

arice@jonesday.com

Martha J. Lucey

Joshua R. Irwin

OFFICE OF THE STATE

APPELLATE DEFENDER

6200 Park Avenue

Des Moines, IA 50321

Henry J. Dickman

JONES DAY

51 Louisiana Avenue,

N.W.

Washington, DC 20001

Counsel for Petitioner