Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

The Supreme Court of South Dakota ruled a violation of the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a police search when they conducted a routine inventory search of an automobile lawfully impounded by police for violations of municipal parking violations.

After incurring two overtime parking citations in the same morning, a car was towed by police and impounded.   At the impound lot, a police officer observed a watch and some other personal property inside the car and ordered the car unlocked to perform an inventory of its contents.  Using a “standard” form to list the property found, a police officer performed an inventory of the contents of the car according to police procedures.  Inside the unlocked glove compartment, police found some marijuana in a plastic bag.  All property, including the marijuana, was sent to the police department for safekeeping.

Respondent Opperman was later arrested and charged with possession of marijuana.  His motion to suppress was denied, and he was convicted by a jury.    He was sentenced to 14 days in jail and a fine of $100.  That conviction was reversed by the Supreme Court of South Dakota in a ruling that found an illegal search and seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment.  That ruling was appealed to the United States Constitution and was decided in South Dakota v. Opperman.

The Supreme Court of the United States has recognized for years the distinction between the search of a building versus the search of an automobile.  According to the Court’s decision in Carroll v. United States in 1925, the “inherent mobility of automobiles creates circumstances of exigency that, as a practical necessity, rigorous enforcement of the warrant requirement is impossible.”  The Court stated the expectation of privacy was less in an automobile than in a home because its function is transportation and “seldom serves as one’s residence or as the repository of one’s personal effects…”

The Court found state courts have “overwhelmingly” concluded that, even if an inventory is characterized as a search, the intrusion is constitutionally permissible.  The Court noted that the majority of Appeals Courts have approved inventory procedures as reasonable police intrusions, citing decisions from the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth circuits.

The Court cited its prior decision in Cady v. Dumbrowski, which had approved a warrantless search of an automobile which had been towed to a private garage even though no probable cause existed to believe the vehicle contained fruits of a crime.  In Dumbrowski, “the sole justification for the warrantless incursion was that it was incident to the caretaking function of the local police to protect the community ‘s safety.”

The Court distinguished its holding in Preston v. United States in 1964, in which the Court had invalidated a car search after a vagrancy arrest, saying Preston stood for the proposition that “the search challenged there could not be justified as one incident to an arrest.”  The Court said Preston did not raise the issue of the constitutionally of a protective inventory of a car lawfully within police custody.  Preston was not, therefore, at odds with the Court’s decision in Opperman, the Court ruled.

Cause and effect are often too casually connected as connections claimed between them are less then sure in nature.  Given this cautionary proviso, the enactment of one recent law does seem to have achieved its intended success.   Graduated driver’s licenses appear to have lowered fatal accidents in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma enacted the law in 1999, and since that time fatality crashes involving 16 and 17-year-old drivers has dropped from 75 in the year 2000 to 39 in the year 2008.  Accidents generally were also down in that period.  The accidents in question involved a 16 or 17-year-old as at least one of drivers in the accident.

Preliminary data for the year 2009 indicate the number of such accidents was 38, which would be an even greater drop.
The total number of crashes (not just fatal crashes) involving 16- and 17-year-olds dropped from 11,837 in the year 2000 to 7,597 in the year 2008.  The latest highway report shows that from the year 2000 to the year 2008, 16- and 17-year-olds made up 3 percent of the licensed drivers in the state of Oklahoma, but drivers from that age group were involved in 7.1 percent of the accidents and in 4.7 percent of the fatal crashes.

The graduated driver’s license allows 16-year-olds who have had a learner’s permit for six months to obtain an intermediate driver’s license, provided they have logged at least 40 hours behind the wheel, have no traffic convictions, and have passed the driving skills examination of the driver’s test.

The intermediate license allows the 16-year-old to drive except during the hours between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 o’clock a.m. or at any time when accompanied by a licensed driver who is at least 21 years old.

Things other than age contribute to accidents and need to be addressed.  As criminal defense lawyers know, these issues include avoiding distractions, obeying the speed limits, and wearing seat belts.

Noteworthy from the nine-year study in the years 2000 to 2008 is the statistic that of the 169 teen drivers killed, 58.6 percent were not wearing seat belts.   In those last two years of the study, 2007 and 2008, more than 2 percent of total crashes involved drinking and driving.  In that same two-year period, the primary contributing factor from more than half the crashes was driving at what the reporters determined to be an “unsafe speed, ” with “failure to yield” and “inattention” also significant contributing factors.