Opinion
Cause No. 2:04-CR-21 PS.
April 26, 2005
ORDER
Detrice Jones is charged with various drug and firearms offenses, and he moves to suppress his warrantless arrest, the drugs seized from his person, and a handgun seized from his car [Doc. 19]. At the suppression hearing held on April 7, 2005, the Court ruled from the bench that there was probable cause to arrest Jones at a gas station in Gary, Indiana on November 27, 2002. Detective Travis Jolly of the Gary Police Department testified that he had used a confidential informant to buy crack from Jones on four occasions — the last of which occurred the day prior to his arrest — and the Court ruled from the bench that this was sufficient probable cause to arrest Jones. After bringing Jones to the police station upon his arrest, the police seized a quantity of crack cocaine from Jones that was secreted in his crotch area. The Court likewise ruled from the bench that this seizure was a lawful search incident to arrest.
One issue remains. Detective Jolly executed the arrest of Jones in his car. Jolly saw Jones walking to his car and waited until he got inside the car to arrest him. Jones claims Jolly purposely waited for Jones to get in his car before executing the arrest so as to allow Jolly, under the automobile exception, to search the car without a warrant which led to the recovery of a handgun in the glove box. Jones contends that this search was impermissible and that the gun should be suppressed. Jones requested time to file supplemental briefing on this issue, and the Court gave both sides one week to file such briefing. The defendant filed a supplemental brief; the government did not.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
Detective Jolly of the Gary Police Department developed a confidential informant ("CI") who could make undercover purchases of crack cocaine from Detrice Jones. The CI had quite a track record. Jolly had used the CI at least twenty times before to buy drugs and many of these efforts led to an arrest and subsequent prosecution. On one day in late October 2002, and three more times in November, 2002, the CI bought crack cocaine from Jones. The deals were set up with recorded phone calls and were surveilled by law enforcement. The last purchase was made from Jones on November 26, 2002. The following day, Detective Jolly obtained a state search warrant for Jones' home located at 1251 Dakota Street, in Gary. Jolly and other officers first went to Jones' home on Dakota street with the plan of arresting him and executing the search warrant. But Jones was not home, so the officers started going to various locations in Gary where Jones was known to hang out.
One of those spots was the Flying J Truck Stop. Sure enough, Jones was there. After spotting Jones' car in the parking lot, Jolly set up surveillance and got a game plan together to take Jones into custody. According to Detective Jolly, he saw Jones leaving the truck stop and walking towards his own car. Jolly had to make a snap decision to either arrest him when he was outside the car or wait until he got inside it. Jolly chose to do the latter. According to Detective Jolly, who the Court found to be utterly credible, his only interest was in safely effectuating the arrest of Jones. The Flying J Truck Stop is a busy gas station and there were several citizens in the area. Jolly testified that he thought it was safer to arrest Jones in his car because Jones would be in an enclosed area and less apt to do any harm to innocent bystanders. Jolly waited until Jones got in his car, and then Jolly and other officers activated their lights and sirens, and approached, guns drawn, and ordered Jones out of the car. As he was doing this, Jolly saw Jones reaching for his glove box. He ordered him to stop and Jones complied. Jones was taken out of the car and handcuffed without further incident. Jolly initiated a search of the car and he quickly saw that the glove box door was open and sitting inside was a loaded 9 mm semi-automatic handgun. The gun was secured by Jolly who then transported Jones to the police station for processing.
Once at the station, Jones was strip searched pursuant to standard Gary Police Department procedures. A total of approximately $1600 in cash was recovered from Jones' pockets including the buy money that was used the night before by the CI to purchase crack from Jones. Jolly had informant information that Jones regularly kept his crack cocaine secreted in his underwear, so at the station the police searched in this area. The search led to the recovery of a quantity of crack cocaine.
DISCUSSION
In New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981), the Supreme Court held that when a police officer makes a lawful arrest of an occupant of a car, the Fourth Amendment allows the officer to search the passenger compartment of that vehicle as incident to the arrest. The rule in Belton is premised on commonsense concerns "regarding officer safety and the destruction of evidence . . ." Thornton v. United States, 124 S.Ct. 2127, 2131 (2004). Thornton expanded on Belton by holding that the arrestee need not actually be in the car for the Belton rule to come into play. Thus, if the suspect is arrested outside his car, the police may still search the interior passenger compartment under Belton. This is because the stress associated with an arrest situation "is no less merely because the arrestee exited his car before the officer initiated contact, nor is an arrestee any less likely to attempt to lunge for a weapon or to destroy evidence if he is outside of, but still in control of, the vehicle." Id. See also United States v. Arnold, 388 F.3d 237, 239 (7th Cir. 2004) (discussing interplay between vehicle searches incident to arrest under Belton and vehicle searches based on reasonable suspicion).
Thornton and Belton control here. Jones was unquestionably lawfully arrested, and the arrest occurred while he was in his car. Jones argues that the police in this situation created the vehicle exception by allowing Jones to get near his car (and then actually get in it) before arresting him. Jones claims that he should have been arrested before he got close to the car, and if this had occurred, the police in the absence of a warrant would have had no justification for searching the car. But as the Court in Thornton pointed out, an arrest is a "fluid" thing requiring a police officer to make snap judgments on when to arrest a subject and how best to do it when issues of public safety are at play. Thornton, 124 S.Ct. at 2131.
In this case, Detective Jolly made a judgment that it would be safer for all concerned to wait to effectuate the arrest of Jones until he got into his car. This judgment was eminently reasonable. According to Jolly, the patrons of the gas station were much safer by arresting Jones in his car, as opposed to approaching Jones in the parking lot. Suppose they approached Jones to arrest him in the parking lot and Jones had a gun on his person and a shoot out ensued. As Jolly testified, this would place innocent bystanders at substantial risk. Jolly therefore made the reasonable decision to wait until Jones was inside his car, before approaching him. While it may be argued that allowing Jones to get inside his car presented other risks — he could have driven away, for example — the judgment made by Detective Jolly was nonetheless a reasonable one. At bottom, this "is a judgment officers should be free to make." Thornton, 124 S.Ct. at 2131. This was a lawful search incident to arrest under Belton, and the motion to suppress the gun recovered from the glove box is denied.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, Defendant Detrice Jones' Motion to Suppress [Doc. 19] is hereby DENIED. All dates in this matter are hereby REAFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED.