State v. Banks-Harvey

A law enforcement agency’s policy that an arrestee’s personal effects must accompany the arrestee to jail, on its own, cannot justify the warrantless retrieval of an arrestee’s personal effects from a location that is protected under the Fourth Amendment. Further, a search of personal effects obtained as a result of following such a policy is not a valid inventory search.The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals, which upheld the trial court’s denial of Defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence found during the search of her purse, and vacated Defendant’s convictions for felony possession of drugs and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia and drug-abuse instruments. The court held (1) the removal of Defendant’s purse from a car in which Defendant was a passenger and the subsequent search of the purse was unlawful; and (2) the exclusionary rule applied to require the suppression of the evidence obtained during the unconstitutional search. View "State v. Banks-Harvey" on Justia Law