Police officers arrested the defendant (a convicted felon prohibited from possessing a firearm) under 922(g)) on outstanding warrants. The defendant had a backpack at the time of arrest. The officer waited to search the backpack until after defendant was handcuffed and in the back of the patrol car. A firearm was found in the backpack. After indictment for being a felon in possession of a firearm, the defendant sought to have the firearm excluded as a result of an unlawful search. The court held that the search of the backpack was not justified as a search incident to arrest, but that the firearm would have been “inevitably discovered” during an inventory of the backpack at the station and therefore did not exclude the evidence.
- Post published:May 8, 2019