State v. Schmidt

“[I]n light of the first two of the three principal purposes justifying the court-created inventory exception to the warrant requirement - to protect the owner’s property while in policy custody and to reduce and tend to prevent the assertion of false claims against police - before conducting an inventory of a vehicle in a noncriminal and nonemergency context, where vehicle occupants are present and not under arrest police must ‘give occupants who are present and not under arrest notice that they may retrieve readily removable personal belongings before an inventory is conducted.’” State v. Fulmer, 366 Or 224, 234-35 (2020).

Defendant appealed a conviction for possession of methamphetamine. On appeal, Defendant argued that the trial court erred when it denied a motion to suppress evidence found during an inventory search of a car in which she was a passenger. Defendant asserted that the officer exceeded the inventory search scope when she told him the bag was hers and therefore was a warrant-less search violating her rights. “[I]n light of the first two of the three principal purposes justifying the court-created inventory exception to the warrant requirement—to protect the owner’s property while in police custody and to reduce and tend to prevent the assertion of false claims against police—before conducting an inventory of a vehicle in a noncriminal and nonemergency context, where vehicle occupants are present and not under arrest police must ‘give occupants who are present and not under arrest notice that they may retrieve readily removable personal belongings before an inventory is conducted.’” State v. Fulmer, 366 Or 224, 234-35 (2020). The Court found that Defendant was not notified that she was able to remove her belongings as constitutionally required, regardless of whether she did not initially claim the bag as hers. Thus, the Court held the trial court erred in denying the motion. REVERSED and REMANDED.