Police should know better than to routinely "inventory" cars being towed, court rules

[Wendell]

"The inventory search cannot be justified on the basis of officer safety or any suspicion that the appellant was involved in criminal conduct," the Appeal Court said. In throwing out a drug conviction, the court found a car search by Ontario Provincial Police Const. Robert Sinclair violated the rights of the accused, Alexander Harflett. Const. Sinclair, with the Ontario Provincial Police highway enforcement team, was at a service centre on Highway 401 when he spotted a vehicle with Quebec plates. As a demonstration for a colleague, the officer ran a search on the places and found Harflett's driver's licence had been suspended for unpaid fines. The officer pulled him over down the highway, where Harflett, of Oshawa, Ont., produced a valid Quebec licence. Sinclair arrested him for using another licence while his Ontario one was suspended. He also called a tow truck to move the car from the highway to a nearby hotel to allow Harflett to pay his fines and get his licence back. Sinclair then took what he called an "inventory" of the vehicle — something he testified he always did — an approach that didn't sit well with the Appeal Court. During the search, Sinclair discovered marijuana in the trunk. He arrested Harflett for possessing the drug for trafficking purposes. In March 2014, Ontario court Judge Catherine Kehoe found his actions reasonable, decided any violation of the accused's rights was technical or minor, admitted the drug evidence, and convicted him. In throwing out the case, the Appeal Court found Sinclair had no authority for the search. "The impact of an unjustified search is magnified where there is a total absence of justification for it," the court said. "He resisted the notion that what he did was a 'search;' this was plainly a search," the Appeal Court said. "Sinclair had no public safety concerns, since he was going to release the car to the appellant." The court also noted two other cases where Sinclair had been found to have abused his search powers leading to the exclusion of evidence. "...as an instructor of other police officers, he ought to be fully conversant with his legal authority — but the evidence shows either that he was not or that he was prepared to search regardless."
http://thechronicleherald.ca/canada/...rs-court-rules

[Trooper224]

Standard procedure down here, Canadians............................

[BehindBlueI's]

"Sinclair had no public safety concerns, since he was going to release the car to the appellant."

Yeah...inventorying a car you're releasing? That's probably no bueno even in the states. Inventory searches are for when the car is being impounded, not just being moved.

[voodoo_man]

Harris v. U.S.

I inventory (read not search) every vehicle I impound.

[TC215]

And South Dakota v. Opperman, U.S v. Mendez, Florida v. Wells, U.S. v. Matthews, U.S. v. Jackson, U.S. v. Cartwright, U.S. v. Glover, etc.

Inventory searches holding up always go back to the department's written policy.

[Kevin Spencer]

"Sinclair had no public safety concerns, since he was going to release the car to the appellant."

This seems to be the concern of the appeals court. Since the police were not taking the car into custody, the court did not see a legitimate state interest in the inventory. The inventory is designed to protect the vehicle's owner from a loss of property, as well as serve as a check against false claims of loss made by an arrested person. Since the vehicle was simply being moved to another location for the violator, and not being impounded, I can understand the court's reasoning.

I'm assuming in this case the process of allowing the violator "to pay his fines and get his licence back" did not result in a physical arrest and detention beyond the move to the hotel. If it did, I would argue that the search should stand, and probably that the officer should have impounded the car instead of simply removing it to a parking lot. If the violator was released with his vehicle at the hotel, and admonished not to drive until he got is driving privileges in order, then I would tend to agree with the court that there is no reason for the search of the vehicle's trunk.

[Chuck Haggard]

This thread title is rather poorly worded.

[vcdgrips]

I concur with Chuck.

Police should know better than to routinely "inventory" cars being towed, CANANDIAN court rules

The key word was clearly missing.

[JustOneGun]

This thread title is rather poorly worded.

If you don't inventory when needed it also can be bad. It's all fun and games until the tow company calls back to advise there is a body in the trunk of a towed car. True story here in southern Arizona from years ago. I hate it when that happens.

Luckily here in the states it's pretty clear cut. Either you are inventorying or you are searching. They are not the same.

[vcdgrips]

VDM,

I think you are needlessly parsing words. Even the case you cite, used the term "search". "The sole question for our consideration is whether the officer discovered the registration card by means of an illegal search. We hold that he did not. The admissibility of evidence found as a result of a search under the police regulation is not presented by this case. " See Harris v. US, 390 U.S. 234, 236 (1968).

I would note that a more recent case quoting Harris also use the term "search" in the same context. see e.g. United States v. Maple, 348 F.3d 260, 262 (D.C. Cir. 2003) (Harris involved an inventory search of an impounded car...)

Indeed, I would go as far as to say that "inventory search" is the proper term of art. See e.g. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 812, 116 S. Ct. 1769, 1773, 135 L. Ed. 2d 89 (1996)
"An inventory search is the search of property lawfully seized and detained, in order to ensure that it is harmless, to secure valuable items (such as might be kept in a towed car), and to protect against false claims of loss or damage. See also South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 369, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 3097, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976).

Finally, I would note that the term "inventory search' was most recently cited by SCOTUS in Riley v. CA, 134 Sct 2473 ( 2014) and in the 8th Circuit ( my home circuit) in U.S. v. Ball, 804 F3d, 1238 (8th Cir. 2015). In short, I would respectfully submit, pursuant to the authority cited in my posting and above, you perform an inventory search prior to imponding a vehicle.


YMMV greatly.