(Dispensing Iron Since 2001.)
Afana was parked in a car, watching the movie with his lady friend on one of those portable DVD players. One officer came up that’s what they were doing, and told them that they should move along. He then ran their names, discovered that the lady friend had a warrant, and pulled the car over to arrest her. The warrant: misdemeanor trespass.
The officer then proceeded to search the car. In a fit of irony, in a black bag titled My Chemical Romance (a band), the officer discovered meth.
As you well know from her recent life cases, an officer is only allowed to search the immediate vicinity of the vehicle occupant incident to arrest. Under Arizona v. Gant, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S. Ct. 1710, 173 L. Ed. 2d 485 (2009) [ed. note - this is the first time I have seen L. Ed. 2d correctly cited in a long time. If you read your bluebook, you would know that Ed. does not fall into the same category as Wn. or 3d, meaning you have to give it a space between the L. and the Ed. Yes, I realize this makes me a bluebook nerd.], “[p]olice May search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offensive arrest.”
The lady friend was in custody at the time of the search, thus she was not within reaching distance. Further, the crime of trespass occurring in a different time and place doesn’t really warrant a search for evidence of the offense.
