Appeals Court upholds Raleigh police’s search of bound suspect’s bags

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Raleigh police did not violate a suspect’s constitutional rights when charging him with gun and drug offenses based on searches of two bags he had been wearing before his arrest.

The decision Tuesday reversed a trial judge’s 2024 decision in the case against Milton Christopher Allen. Authorities now can move forward with charges stemming from the bags’ contents.

“Allen filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained from his bags, arguing that the warrantless search did not qualify as a lawful ‘search incident to arrest’ because he had already been secured at the time of the search and therefore could not have accessed the bags to create a safety risk to the officers,” Judge Paul Niemeyer wrote for a unanimous three-judge 4th Circuit panel. “The government argued otherwise. It also argued that the items in Allen’s body bags would, in any event, have inevitably been discovered pursuant to established policies for inventory searches. The district court, however, granted Allen’s motion to suppress.”

“Because we conclude that, under established policies for inventory searches, the evidence would inevitably have been lawfully discovered, we reverse the district court’s order,” Niemeyer added.

The case stemmed from Raleigh police’s October 2023 investigation of a stolen vehicle. After police had detained two people and were in the process of searching a car, Allen “interfered with the investigation,” according to the 4th Circuit ruling. He spent 10-20 minutes riding his bicycle “in and out of the crime scene” and “causing the officers to become distracted and concerned that Allen might ambush them while riding in and out and around the area.”

After Allen ignored repeated orders to back away from the area, an officer pulled him from his bike. During a scuffle, Allen bit one officer and damaged a police vehicle while kicking at it.

While searching Allen, officers removed two cross-body bags he was wearing and set them two to three away from him. He continued to resist arrest.

“While Allen continued to squirm, officers searched the nearby bags and uncovered two loaded pistols, 11.1 grams of cocaine, 11.2 grams of marijuana, 68 fentanyl dosage units, several unknown substances, a digital scale, several cell phones, and $1,956.16 in cash,” Niemeyer wrote. “The officer’s written report of the arrest explained that the search of Allen was conducted ‘incident to arrest per our policy and state law as well as our policy for inventory search.’”

The contents of the cross-body bags led police to charge Allen with possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a firearm while trafficking drugs, and possession with intent to distribute “fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine base.”

Allen’s lawyers relied on the 4th Circuit’s 2021 decision in United States v. Davis to try to suppress the evidence recovered from the bags. “In Davis, we held that a warrantless search incident to arrest of a backpack that
Davis was carrying while on foot violated his Fourth Amendment rights because Davis had been secured with handcuffs at the time of the search,” Niemeyer explained.

US District Judge Terrence Boyle ruled in Allen’s favor in November 2024.

“The district court granted Allen’s motion to suppress, ruling that the search of the bags incident to Allen’s arrest was impermissible under Davis, as, at the time of the search, Allen had been secured with both handcuffs and ankle restraints and was surrounded by officers,” Niemeyer wrote. “The court also rejected the government’s inevitable discovery argument, finding that the government failed to demonstrate, by a preponderance of the evidence, that searches under the inventory search policies had sufficient particularity such that law enforcement would have legally uncovered the items in the cross-body bags.”

“As a general matter, the government may not use evidence at trial that was obtained by a search in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” Niemeyer explained. “The exclusion of such evidence is a sanction intended to deter unlawful police conduct and to encourage searches and seizures that comply with the Fourth Amendment. Evidence illegally obtained, however, may nonetheless be used if it ‘would have “ultimately or inevitably” [been] discovered … by “lawful means.”’”

“Inventory searches are ‘a well-defined exception to the warrant requirement’ and serve a variety of legitimate government interests, including safeguarding an owner’s property; preventing claims of lost, stolen, or vandalized property; and protecting the safety of law enforcement officers,” the appellate opinion continued. “And when an inventory search is conducted with standardized criteria that limit officer discretion, those legitimate government interests ‘outweigh the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests.’”

Both the Raleigh Police Department and Wake County Detention Center had inventory search policies in place, “each of which required officers to search Allen’s bags and each of which limited the officers’ discretion, thereby preventing arbitrary rummaging for evidence,” Niemeyer wrote.

“The evidence with respect to each policy explicitly showed that the policies applied to every arrestee and to all property possessed by the arrestee, without exception,” he explained. “Surely, this meant that Allen’s bags were required to be searched and would have been searched for inventory purposes and that their contents would inevitably have been lawfully discovered.”

“Thus, regardless of whether the Raleigh police officers’ search of Allen’s bags was a valid or invalid ‘search incident to arrest’ under our decision in Davis, the evidence showed that the contents of the bag would inevitably have been lawfully discovered pursuant to the applicable inventory search policy that required the search of Allen’s bags during his intake processing at the Wake County Detention Center,” Niemeyer concluded.

Chief Judge Albert Diaz and Judge Toby Heytens joined Niemeyer’s decision.

“Appeals Court upholds Raleigh police’s search of bound suspect’s bags” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.