However, the Ninth Circuit and courts within the circuit have suggested that it is not fully resolved whether a protective search is valid if the defendant is already arrested. See United States v. Perryman, 716 Fed.Appx. 594, 596 (9th Cir. 2017) (declining to “consider the intersection of Long and Gant” and finding no valid protective search where suspects were handcuffed and there was “no immediate risk that [they] would gain control of the weapons at the time the search was conducted”); United States v. Brunick, 374 Fed.Appx. 714, 716 n.2 (9th Cir. 2010) (declining to apply Long where “both [defendant and driver] were arrested and handcuffed at the time of the search”); United States v. Kulkarni, No. 2:10-CR-00217 KJN, 2 WL 5059704, at *10 n.13 (E.D. Cal. Dec. 3, 2010) (noting the court's “concern regarding whether [the officer's] conduct falls outside of the holding in Long because [the suspects] were handcuffed and located several feet away from the vehicle when [the officer] searched the vehicle”). Cf. Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 335 (2009) (holding the search incident to arrest exception does not apply “after the arrestee has been secured and cannot access the interior of the vehicle” to gain possession of a weapon or destroy evidence)

See, e.g., Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 324-25 (1987) (invalidating police seizure of stolen stereo equipment because criminality was not apparent until police physically manipulated the equipment, moving it to access and record serial numbers). By contrast, case law supporting an association between illegal activity and a pill bottle merely observed generally depends on something more than the presence of a pill bottle alone, and no such facts are present here. See, e.g., United States v. Adams, No. 09-20224, 2010 WL 3070033, at *2 (E.D. Mich. August 4, 2010) (hydrocodone pill bottle far larger than doctors prescribe to patients); United States v. Kulkarni, No. 10-00217, 2010 WL 5059704, at *11 (E.D. Cal. Dec. 3, 2010) (unlabeled prescription pill bottle); Ohio v. Stiffler, No. 21008, 2006 WL 37840, at *3 (Ohio Ct. App. Jan. 6, 2006) (same). Without reaching the question of whether the pill bottle was in plain sight, summary judgment is plainly inappropriate because Defendants have not addressed the obviousness of the pill bottle's criminality.