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Dansby v. Commonwealth11/24/2004
st be presumed to present a risk of danger to the arresting officer"). The stress is no less merely because the arrestee exited his car before the officer initiated contact, nor is an arrestee less likely to attempt to lunge for a weapon or to destroy evidence if he is outside of, but still in control of, the vehicle. In either case, the officer faces a highly volatile situation. It would make little sense to apply two different rules to what is, at bottom, the same situation.
To be sure, not all contraband in the passenger compartment is likely to be readily accessible to a "recent occupant." It is unlikely in this case that petitioner could have reached under the driver's seat for his gun once he was outside of his automobile. But the firearm and the passenger compartment in general were no more inaccessible than were the contraband and the passenger compartment in Belton. The need for a clear rule, readily understood by police officers and not depending on differing estimates of what items were or were not within reach of an arrestee at any particular moment, justifies the sort of generalization which Belton enunciated. [Footnote omitted]. Once an officer determines that there is probable cause to make an arrest, it is reasonable to allow officers to ensure their safety and to preserve evidence by searching the entire passenger compartment.
Rather than clarifying the constitutional limits of a Belton search, petitioner's "contact initiation" rule would obfuscate them. Under petitioner's proposed rule, an officer approaching a suspect who has just alighted from his vehicle would have to determine whether he actually confronted or signaled confrontation with the suspect while he remained in the car, or whether the suspect exited his vehicle unaware of, and for reasons unrelated to, the officer's presence. This determination would be inherently subjective and highly fact specific, and would require precisely the sort of ad hoc determinations on the part of officers in the field and reviewing courts that Belton sought to avoid. Id. at 459-460, 101 S.Ct. 2860. Experience has shown that such a rule is impracticable, and we refuse to adopt it. So long as an arrestee is the sort of "recent occupant" of a vehicle such as petitioner was here, officers may search that vehicle incident to the arrest. (Emphasis added). [Footnote omitted].
We believe the reasoning set forth in Clark is flawed and has not been followed in any reported case since it was rendered. However, the reasoning set forth in Belton and Chimel has formed the basis for numerous cases that have been routinely followed. The recent cases of Wood and Thornton as set out above clearly reaffirm the principle that a search of an automobile incident to a lawful arrest is valid. For the foregoing reasons, the final judgment and sentence of imprisonment entered by the Fayette Circuit Court in this matter is affirmed.
McANULTY, JUDGE, CONCURS.
DYCHE, JUDGE, CONCURS IN RESULT ONLY.
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