United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
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No. 10-2556
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United States of America, *
*
Appellee, *
* Appeal from the United States
v. * District Court for the
* Western District of Missouri.
Christopher Taylor, *
*
Appellant. *
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Submitted: November 17, 2010
Filed: February 18, 2011
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Before WOLLMAN, HANSEN, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
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SHEPHERD, Circuit Judge.
Christopher Taylor pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute a mixture
or substance containing a detectable amount of cocaine in violation of 21 U.S.C.
§ 841(a)(1), reserving the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress by the
district court. He now appeals, and we reverse.
I.
On January 6, 2006, Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) detective Tiffany
Gillespie and her partner responded to a request by a fellow officer to follow a green
1500 Chevrolet truck and initiate a traffic stop if the driver, who officers later
identified as Taylor, committed a traffic violation. Officer Gillespie was informed that
Taylor was suspected of involvement in a narcotics transaction and that the narcotics
were believed to be in his vehicle. Officer Gillespie observed Taylor fail to signal
before changing lanes, and she initiated a traffic stop. When Taylor could not produce
a valid insurance card, she arrested him and took him into custody.
KCPD towing policy dictates that when an individual is arrested for a traffic
violation, the officer should give the individual the option to release the vehicle to
another driver, allow the vehicle to be left at the scene, or drive the vehicle to the
police station. Officer Gillespie did not provide Taylor with these options, however,
because of another KCPD policy requiring the impoundment of a vehicle “when the
vehicle is known or believed to have been used in the commission of a crime and has
evidentiary value.” Based on this policy, Officer Gillespie decided to tow and search
the vehicle.
Regardless of under what portion of the policy an impoundment occurs, KCPD
policy further requires officers to complete a tow-in report when a vehicle is being
towed. The tow-in report must include a “content inventory,” which is a “detailed
inventory and listing of items located inside of the vehicle being towed.” When a
towed vehicle contains “valuable property in large quantities,” officers must
nevertheless generate a detailed inventory, using an additional form if more space is
needed to list the contents of the vehicle. Upon searching Taylor’s vehicle, Officer
Gillespie discovered hundreds of tools, several pieces of equipment, as well as a
plastic bag containing approximately 74 grams of powder cocaine, clothing, toiletries,
and paper. In completing the tow-in report, Officer Gillespie did not itemize or list
the hundreds of tools, but wrote “misc. tools” in the relevant section of the form.
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After Taylor was charged, he moved to suppress the cocaine evidence found in
his vehicle, arguing that the search violated the Fourth Amendment. The Government
contended that the search was valid under the inventory search exception to the Fourth
Amendment warrant requirement. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s
conclusion that the search was valid under the inventory search exception to the
warrant requirement because Officer Gillespie complied with KCPD policy requiring
the towing of a vehicle and an inventory of its contents when officers believe the
vehicle was used in the commission of a crime. The district court additionally found
that the facts did not demonstrate that the inventory was a pretext for an investigatory
search. After the district court denied his motion to suppress, Taylor pled guilty to
possession with intent to distribute a mixture or substance containing a detectable
amount of cocaine, reserving the right to appeal the district court’s denial of his
motion to suppress.
II.
Generally, when reviewing a denial of a motion to suppress, we review the
district court’s factual findings for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo.
United States v. Garner, 181 F.3d 988, 991 (8th Cir. 1999). We also review the
district court’s findings of fact regarding the circumstances of an inventory search for
clear error, United States v. Rowland, 341 F.3d 774, 778 (8th Cir. 2003), including the
question of pretext. Garner, 181 F.3d at 992.
“The Fourth Amendment proscribes all unreasonable searches and seizures, and
it is a cardinal principle 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.’” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 390 (1978) (quoting Katz v. United
States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967)). One such exception allows law enforcement to
inventory the contents of a lawfully impounded vehicle without a warrant or probable
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cause. Rowland, 341 F.3d at 779. The Government bears the burden of showing that
its conduct complied with the inventory search exception to the warrant requirement.
United States v. Marshall, 986 F.2d 1171, 1173 (8th Cir. 1993).
The inventory search exception is necessary for “the protection of the owner’s
property while it remains in police custody; the protection of the police against claims
or disputes over lost or stolen property; and the protection of the police from potential
danger.” South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 369 (1976) (internal citations
omitted). Because the police are engaging in their community caretaking
function—not their criminal investigatory function—in meeting these needs, they do
not need a warrant or probable cause. Marshall, 986 F.2d at 1174. The search of a
vehicle to inventory its contents must nevertheless be reasonable under the totality of
the circumstances, United States v. Hall, 497 F.3d 846, 851 (8th Cir. 2007), and may
not be “a ruse for a general rummaging in order to discover incriminating evidence.”
Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 4 (1990). The reasonableness requirement is met when
an inventory search is conducted according to standardized police procedures, which
generally “remove the inference that the police have used inventory searches as ‘a
purposeful and general means of discovering evidence of a crime.’” Marshall, 986
F.2d at 1174 (quoting Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 376 (1987) (Blackmun, J.,
concurring)).
Here, the police did not comply with KCPD standardized procedures. KCPD
procedures not only require officers to create a detailed, itemized inventory when any
vehicle is towed, they also specifically require officers to create the same inventory
when a vehicle containing a large quantity of valuable items is towed. At the time of
the inventory search, Taylor, a handyman, had two toolboxes that each contained over
a hundred items, including pliers, wrenches, screwdrivers, and drill bits. He also had
two additional toolboxes, several chains, a hydraulic jack, a crate, lug wrenches, a
paint roller, a flashlight, a shingle remover, a band clamp, an electric chainsaw, and
an electric circular saw, among other things. Given the hundreds of valuable tools in
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Taylor’s truck, Officer Gillespie’s description of “misc. tools” does not constitute a
detailed, itemized inventory.
Although the Government contends that it would be “absurd” to expect Officer
Gillespie to accurately identify and itemize the tools in Taylor’s truck, the
constitutionality of an inventory search does not rise and fall on the abilities of a
particular police officer—the inquiry is whether, under the totality of the
circumstances, the inventory search was reasonable. Rowland, 341 F.3d at 779. In
this case, Officer Gillespie did not write down even general descriptions of the
commonplace tools and equipment in Taylor’s truck, such as toolbox, screwdriver,
chainsaw, or flashlight. Nor did she take any other steps in an attempt to create a
detailed inventory, such as seeking assistance in identifying the tools or photographing
them in lieu of identifying them. See Garner, 181 F.3d at 991 (explaining that an
officer used photographs to supplement the written list in recording the contents of the
defendant’s vehicle). These circumstances, combined with the specificity of the
applicable standardized procedure and the quantity of items in the vehicle, make the
officer’s description of “misc. tools” insufficient to remove the inference that the
search was investigatory.1
1
The dissent concludes that Officer Gillespie’s inventory description “misc.
tools” was sufficient, contrasting it with the officers’ description in Rowland, found
to be inadequate, which included only the incriminating items found in the vehicle.
341 F.3d at 780. The question, however, is not whether Officer Gillespie’s
description was sufficient as compared to that in Rowland, but whether the two-word
description “misc. tools” constitutes a “detailed inventory and listing of items located
inside the vehicle being towed,” as required by the KCPD policy at issue in this case.
Undoubtedly it does not. Further, an experienced Kansas City Police Officer such as
Officer Gillespie should be capable of identifying and listing commonplace items,
such as flashlight, toolbox, screwdriver, chainsaw, pliers, and chain, and of
photographing or soliciting assistance in identifying and listing items with which the
officer is not familiar.
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Even if police fail to adhere to standardized procedures, the search is
nevertheless reasonable provided it is not a pretext for an investigatory search. Hall,
497 F.3d at 852; see also Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 812 (1996) (noting
that an officer’s motive may invalidate objectively justifiable behavior in the context
of an inventory search). “[S]omething else” must be present to suggest that the police
were engaging in their criminal investigatory function, not their caretaking function,
in searching the defendant’s vehicle. Rowland, 341 F.3d at 780-81. Here, the
“something else” is found in the officer’s testimony at the suppression hearing.
Officer Gillespie testified that the basis for the traffic stop, the arrest, the towing of
the vehicle, and the inventory search was the officer’s belief that Taylor had narcotics
in his vehicle. She also testified that she would not have arrested Taylor, impounded
his vehicle, or inventoried the contents of the truck if not for her belief that the vehicle
contained evidence of a narcotics crime. This testimony leads us to conclude that the
search was conducted because police believed they would find evidence of narcotics
in Taylor’s truck, and thus the inventory was merely a pretext for an investigatory
search. The district court’s finding to the contrary was clearly erroneous. Because
Officer Gillepsie did not comply with KCPD inventory policy and because her
testimony demonstrates pretext, we hold that the search cannot be upheld under the
inventory search exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.
The Government argues that the inventory should be upheld because, as the
district court concluded, Officer Gillespie was required to impound the vehicle under
KCPD standard policy because she “believed” Taylor’s vehicle had been used in the
commission of a crime. The Government’s argument that the inventory was valid
because the impoundment was valid conflates two separate issues. The validity of an
impoundment is not dispositive of the validity of an inventory search. See Marshall,
986 F.2d at 1174 (holding that even though an inventory search was invalid the
vehicle was properly impounded). Moreover, we have rejected the argument that an
impoundment is constitutional solely because KCPD policy allows towing based on
a “belief” that a vehicle contains evidence of a crime. United States v. Sims, 424 F.3d
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691, 693 (8th Cir. 2005). Finally, the Government does not argue, and the district
court did not hold, that probable cause supported the search of the vehicle. Instead,
the Government relies on the inventory search exception to justify the warrantless
search of Taylor’s vehicle, and a “police department may not avoid the constitutional
requirement of probable cause simply by adopting a standard policy to impound
vehicles based only on a ‘belief’ that the vehicle was involved in the commission of
a crime and has evidentiary value.” Id.
III.
The Government has not met its burden to show that its conduct complied with
the inventory search exception to the warrant requirement, and it has asserted no other
exception to justify the warrantless search of Taylor’s truck. Accordingly, we reverse
the district court’s denial of Taylor’s motion to suppress and remand for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
As I read the record, Taylor raised no challenge to the lawfulness of the stop
and impoundment of his vehicle. As noted by the district court, “The impoundment
issue is no longer challenged, in the briefing of objections, which concentrate on the
inventory question.” D. Ct. Order at 1.
Thus, we are left with the question whether the inventory search substantially
complied with the city’s inventory policy. True enough, we can say, as did the district
court of the search in Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 369 (1987), that the
inventory of Taylor’s vehicle was performed in a “somewhat slipshod manner.” That
said, I would hold that Officer Gillespie’s “misc. tool” description was sufficient to
satisfy the requirements of the inventory search exception to the warrant requirement,
whether or not it would have been sufficient to shield the city from liability had
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Taylor brought a claim for missing tools. “Misc. tools” may be the most bare-bones
description one could settle upon, but it stands in contrast to the total lack of
description of the clothing, food items, boxes, and other items that existed in United
States v. Rowland, 341 F.3d 774 (8th Cir. 2003), where the court was willing to
assume that a literal listing of each and every article in the vehicle was not required.
I find no reason to question the truthfulness of Officer Gillespie’s statement that “I’m
not familiar with that much of tools” and that she did not believe that she could
accurately identify each one, nor the reasonableness of that explanation. There is no
evidence that she was attempting to end-run or evade the policy’s requirement of a
detailed inventory, a ploy that might well have constituted a career-ending decision
had any of the tools turned out to be missing, or that she was acting in bad faith in
conducting the inventory. See Bertine, 479 U.S. at 372.
In Rowland, it was the officers’ discretionary decision to choose which items
to record, coupled with their investigatory motive, that constituted the “something
else” that suggested that the police had raised the after-the-fact inventory banner that
we cautioned against in United States v. Marshall, 986 F.2d 1171 (8th Cir. 1993).
There, we held that it was the lack of any evidence of the existence of standardized
inventory procedures to guide the scope of the investigating officers, coupled with the
substantial evidence of an investigatory motive on the part of the police, that rendered
the search of the vehicle unreasonable. Id. at 1175. We emphasized that our holding
was not to be read as disturbing our decisions that recognize that the inventory search
of a lawfully impounded vehicle is not invalidated merely because the officers suspect
that the vehicle’s owner is involved in illegal activity. Id. at 1175-76. In rejecting the
proposition that the subjective motivation of the searching officer is relevant in ruling
on a Fourth Amendment claim, the Supreme Court has pointed out that
we have held in the context of programmatic searches conducted without
individualized suspicion—such as checkpoints to combat drunk driving
or drug trafficking—that “an inquiry into programmatic purpose” is
sometimes appropriate. Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 46, 121
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S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333(2000) (emphasis added); see also Florida v.
Wells, 495 U.S. 1, 4, 110 S.Ct. 1632, 109 L.Ed.2d 1 (1990) (an inventory
search must be regulated by “standardized criteria” or “established
routine” so as not to “be a ruse for a general rummaging in order to
discover incriminating evidence”). But this inquiry is directed at
ensuring that the purpose behind the program is not “ultimately
indistinguishable from the general interest in crime control.” Edmond,
531 U.S. at 44, 121 S.Ct. 447. It has nothing to do with discerning what
is in the mind of the individual officer conducting the search.
Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 405 (2006).
I would hold that Officer Gillespie’s good faith generic description of the
contents of Taylor’s van dispels any suggestion that it was an after-the-fact attempt
to insulate the inventory search from a constitutional challenge. Accordingly, I would
affirm the order denying the motion to suppress.
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