 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
COLYER v. STATE6/22/1983
Donald E. Colyer appeals his convictions of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Prior to trial, appellant's motion to suppress evidence seized during the police inventory of appellant's vehicle was denied and that evidence was introduced at trial. At the suppression hearing, Larry Hughes of the Berryville Police Department was the only witness and he testified that he and Officer Lovett responded to a telephone call reporting a truck stuck in the mud at the corner of Baker and Doxey Streets in Berryville. They went to that location and found the appellant behind the wheel of a station wagon trying to extricate it from a mud hole in the street which was under repair. The vehicle was hopelessly stuck and the officers offered to call a wrecker to pull it out and the appellant agreed.
Hughes further testified that he noticed there were no tags on the car and that appellant explained that he had just bought it, had been moving around quite a bit, and had just been buying temporary tags. The officers then obtained the appellant's driver's license and had him wait in his car while they returned to the patrol car to summon a wrecker and to run a routine identification check on the license. The check revealed that there were outstanding warrants for appellant from Madison County and from Rogers, Arkansas.
When the wrecker arrived, the officers advised appellant he was under arrest for those warrants and, since he appeared to be intoxicated, for being drunk on the highway. (Apparently public drunkenness. See Ark. Stat. Ann. 48-943 [Repl. 1977]). Lovett then took appellant in the patrol car to the Carroll County Jail and Hughes directed that the car be towed to the jail parking lot before being taken to the storage yard.
At the lot, pursuant to standard department policy, Hughes and Lovett inventoried the vehicle. Hughes testified
that the purpose of the inventory was to protect the department, the wrecker company, and the defendant by listing any valuables the subject might have in his car so that later there couldn't be a charge that something was missing or in case vandals got into the vehicle and stole the owner's possessions. He also testified that the officers anticipated appellant would be transported to Madison County that night.
In making the inventory, the officers found in the passenger compartment a number of cassettes, beer and whiskey, and three affidavits of citizenship made out in different names with appellant's picture on them, one in the glove compartment and two on the floorboard. Hughes testified that as he crawled on his knees on the back seat to look behind it, the seat gave way and he saw in plain view a paper bag with a plastic bag inside it; he pulled out the plastic bag and it contained thirteen smaller bags of green vegetable material; and the standard field test on this material came back positive for marijuana. A loaded 22 rifle was also found in the folded-up portion of the rear of the wagon where the spare tire is normally kept. Hughes testified that they checked that compartment because they didn't want the owner to come back later and say somebody stole a brand new tire.
Based on this testimony, the trial judge found that the officers' initial intrusion into the vehicle was reasonable and followed a lawful impoundment of the vehicle. Citing Rule 12.6(b) of the Arkansas Rules of Criminal Procedure, South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976), and Lipovich v. State, 265 Ark. 55, 576 S.W.2d 720 (1979), the judge found that the search was not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and denied appellan
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Arkansas DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to DUI Lawyers in your area.
|
|