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Castleberry v. State5/3/2000
cordingly affirm Judge Card's conclusion that Officer Hill did not conduct an overly intrusive inventory search but that the cocaine was in plain view when Officer Hill removed the containers from Castleberry's pocket.
We accordingly conclude that Judge Card did not err in denying Castleberry's motion to suppress. We affirm Castleberry's conviction for misconduct involving a controlled substance in the fourth degree.
AFFIRMED.
MANNHEIMER, Judge, concurring.
I agree that Castleberry's conviction should be affirmed. I am writing separately because I wish to stress a point that might be lost in a casual reading of the majority opinion.
At the suppression hearing in this case, an officer from the Anchorage jail described the jail's normal procedures for searching newly-arrived arrestees. According to the officer's testimony, all newly-arrived arrestees - even those who may be able to post bail and secure their release - are thoroughly searched for weapons and contraband. After this search, the arrestees who may be able to post bail are placed in a holding area where they have access to a telephone. These arrestees are given approximately two hours to secure their release; if they have not succeeded by the end of this time, they are transferred to the general jail population.
These procedures are essentially the same ones declared illegal twenty years ago in Zehrung v. State. As the supreme court described in Zehrung, the Anchorage jail in 1977 subjected all prisoners to a search and seizure of their property. If the prisoner later "made bail" (i.e., secured their release), their property was returned to them. The supreme court declared that this type of search violated the constitution:
We recognize that decision necessitates invalidating a standard procedure at the jail. The current practice at the jail is to conduct an inventory search of all arrestees, whether or not a particular arrestee is capable of posting bail at the time he or she arrives at the jail. Nevertheless, we hold that warrantless jailhouse inventory [of an arrestee's belongings] is without justification when an arrestee is not going to be incarcerated, and it is therefore constitutionally impermissible. Zehrung, 569 P.2d at 193.
The supreme court recognized that jail officials are entitled to search all arrestees for weapons - although the scope of this search is normally limited to a search that would reveal typical weapons. But the supreme court expressly rejected the argument that a thorough search of every arrestee is justified by the State's interest in "prevent the entry of money, contraband[,] and weapons into the jail". The court held that these interests justify a thorough search only if an arrestee is unable to make bail and thus must be placed in the general jail population.
The testimony presented in Castleberry's case indicates that the Anchorage jail is still routinely subjecting all newly-arrived arrestees to a search for "contraband". Since "contraband" presumably includes items of minuscule size and weight, one can reasonably infer that jail officials are searching these arrestees quite thoroughly. And, because Zehrung expressly rejected the argument that jail officials should be allowed to search all newly-arrived arrestees for contraband, one can also reasonably infer that the Anchorage jail is routinely violating Zehrung.
Despite the fact that the jail's routine search for contraband violates Zehrung, the error was harmless in Castleberry's case. The magistrate ordered the jail to hold Castleberry until he was sober. The evidence presented at the suppression hearing supports Judge Card's f
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