State of Arizona v Donald Gene Dean

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SUPREME COURT OF ARIZONA En Banc STATE OF ARIZONA, v. DONALD GENE DEAN, ) ) Appellant,) ) ) ) ) ) Appellee.) ) ) ) ) Arizona Supreme Court No. CR-02-0427-PR Court of Appeals Division One 1 CA CR 01-0827 Maricopa County Superior Court No. CR-01-002813 O P I N I O N Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County The Honorable Robert A. Budoff, Judge AFFIRMED Opinion of the Court of Appeals, Division One 203 Ariz. 408, 55 P.3d 102 (2002) VACATED TERRY GODDARD, ATTORNEY GENERAL By Randall M. Howe, Chief Counsel, Criminal Appeals Section and Billie A. Rosen, Section Chief Counsel Drug Enforcement and Violent Crimes Section Attorneys for Appellant Phoenix JAMES J. HAAS, MARICOPA COUNTY PUBLIC DEFENDER By Garrett W. Simpson, Deputy Public Defender Attorneys for Appellee Phoenix H U R W I T Z, Justice ¶1 We granted review in this case to address a recurring Fourth Amendment issue whether the search of an automobile is incident to the arrest of a defendant. In this case, the search occurred after the defendant was arrested in a house, some two and one-half hours after he had exited the vehicle. The superior court held that the search violated the Fourth Amendment; the court of appeals reversed. For the reasons below, we hold that the superior court correctly found that the search in this case did not fall within the search incident to arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment s warrant requirement. I. ¶2 On February 7, 2001, Phoenix police officers received a tip that Donald Dean, the subject of two felony drug arrest warrants, was Phoenix. The police set up surveillance of the house and, at about 6:00 residence, residing p.m., at a observed driven by a house on East Cholla Street a Jeep Grand Cherokee leaving person fitting Dean s in the description. Several officers followed the Jeep in a marked patrol car; after a short time, the officers activated their overhead lights. Dean, who was in fact driving the Jeep, did not pull over, but instead returned to the East Cholla residence and parked in the driveway. He jumped out of the Jeep, leaving the keys in the ignition, and ran into the garage of the house. One of the officers then took the keys from the Jeep. ¶3 from The officers on the scene summoned a tactical team the Phoenix Special Assignment Unit. After obtaining permission from the owner of the house, the tactical team went 2 inside. The team eventually found Dean hiding in the attic, arrested him, and took him to a waiting patrol car. ¶4 Dean s arrest occurred approximately two and one-half hours after he fled the Jeep. searched the Jeep and passenger compartment. After Dean was arrested, officers discovered Based on methamphetamine this discovery, in the the police obtained a warrant to search the residence and, in executing that warrant, methamphetamine, discovered marijuana, additional drug Dean was subsequently charged quantities paraphernalia, and of weapons. with possession of equipment or chemicals for the manufacture of dangerous drugs, possession of dangerous drugs for sale, and possession of drug paraphernalia. ¶5 Dean filed a motion in the superior court to suppress all evidence seized from the Jeep, alleging unlawful search and seizure. The The superior court granted the motion to suppress. trial vehicle court was rejected abandoned the and State s that the contentions search administrative inventory of the vehicle contents. court also rejected the State s the simply was that an The superior argument that the warrantless search of the Jeep was incident to Dean s arrest, noting that [t]he arrest took place two and a half the hours later at a different location. ¶6 The pursuant to State timely appealed Arizona Revised Statutes 3 suppression ( A.R.S. ) § order 13-4032(6) (2001). The court of appeals reversed, holding that the Jeep search fell within the incident to arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment s warrant requirement. State v. Ariz. 408, 409 ¶ 1, 55 P.3d 102, 103 (App. 2002). Dean, 203 The court of appeals reasoned that because the police could have searched the vehicle incident to an arrest if Dean had been apprehended either inside the vehicle or directly outside of it, Dean could not evade a search by leaving the vehicle before the officers arrest him. ¶7 Id. at 411 ¶ 10, 55 P.3d at 105. Dean filed a petition for review, and we granted review to address the applicability of the incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement in this situation. We have jurisdiction pursuant to Article 6, Section 5(3) of the Arizona Constitution, Arizona Rule of Criminal Procedure 31.19(c)(3), and A.R.S. §§ 13-4032(6) and -4033(A)(2) (2001). II. ¶8 The Constitution, Process Fourth made Clause of Amendment applicable the to Fourteenth to the the United States through Amendment, States the protects Due against unreasonable searches and seizures, and provides that search warrants Const. shall amend. approved be IV. warrant issued only Searches are per upon probable conducted se without unreasonable cause. a under U.S. judicially the Fourth Amendment subject only to a few specifically established and 4 well-delineated exceptions. 347, 357 suggests (1967) that (internal the Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. citations warrantless search omitted). of Dean s justified by virtue of three of those exceptions : the Jeep was abandoned ; (2) because the The Jeep State can be (1) because search was an administrative inventory of its contents; and (3) because the search was incident to Dean s arrest.1 A. ¶9 The State s extended discussion. first two arguments do not require The superior court specifically found that the Jeep, which was parked in the driveway of Dean s residence, was not abandoned. In reviewing an order involving a motion to suppress, we review the facts in the light most favorable to sustaining the order, and will not disturb the trial court s ruling absent clear and manifest error. State v. Hyde, 186 Ariz. 252, 265, 921 P.2d 655, 668 (1996). See State v. Jones, 203 Ariz. 1, 5 ¶ 8, 49 P.3d 273, 277 (2002) ( Clear and manifest error . . . is really shorthand for abuse of discretion. ). We find no such error here. 1 While Dean argues that the search in this case violates both the Fourth Amendment and Article 2, Section 8 of the Arizona Constitution, he presents no separate arguments based on the state constitutional provision. We therefore address his claim only under the United States Constitution. See State v. Nunez, 167 Ariz. 272, 274 n.2, 806 P.2d 861, 863 n.2 (1991). 5 ¶10 The State s attempt to justify the search inventory of the Jeep fails on similar grounds. as an While police have the power to perform a warrantless administrative search of an impounded vehicle for community caretaking functions, see South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 368 (1976), such a search must be routine, and not investigatory police motive. a pretext Id. at 376. concealing The officer an who conducted the search of the Jeep testified at the suppression hearing that his purpose was to search for evidence. In light of that testimony, the superior court did not err in concluding that the search was not an administrative inventory.2 B. ¶11 We justification therefore for the turn to the warrantless incident to arrest exception. only remaining search here, applicable the search In Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969), the Supreme Court explained both this exception and its justifications. Chimel involved the arrest of a defendant inside his home and the subsequent warrantless search 2 Nor does this case involve the so-called automobile exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Under that exception, searches of vehicles may be allowed absent a warrant if the police have probable cause to do so. See Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42 (1970). The State candidly conceded at oral argument that the record in this case does not establish probable cause for the search of the Jeep, and thus did not argue in this court that the automobile exception applies. 6 of the home. The California Supreme Court upheld the search as incident to a valid arrest. Justice Stewart, the Id. at 755. Supreme Court of In an opinion by the United States reversed. ¶12 Chimel began from the premise that when a search is conducted without a warrant, [t]he scope of [a] search must be strictly tied to and justified by rendered its initiation permissible. the circumstances Id. at 762 (alteration in original) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 (1968)). a search is conducted incident to which a valid arrest, When Justice Stewart explained, two sets of circumstances justify departure from the general warrant requirement: When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer s safety might well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee s person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. And the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like rule. Id. at 763. ¶13 Chimel taught that these twin aims of the search incident to arrest exception officer safety and preservation of evidence provide ample justification for a warrantless 7 search of the arrestee s person and the area within his immediate control construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might destructible evidence. gain Id. possession of a weapon or The search in Chimel was of the defendant s entire house, taking between forty-five minutes and an hour after the arrest. Because the search went far beyond the petitioner s person and the area from within which he might have obtained either a weapon or something that could be used as evidence against constitutional him, the Court justification for held that departing there from the was no general warrant requirement and that the search was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 768. C. ¶14 Under the rule announced in Chimel, determining whether a particular area in which evidence was found was within an arrestee's "immediate control" required an examination of the facts and circumstances surrounding each arrest. case analysis presented a significant burden This case-byto courts and police when the arrest occurred in or near an automobile and police had to decide at the time of the arrest which portions of the automobile were within the arrestee s immediate control. Glasco v. Commonwealth, 513 S.E.2d 137, 143 (Va. 1999) (Lacy, J., concurring). the Supreme In New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981), Court recognized the 8 problem, noting that the courts have found no workable definition of the area within the immediate control of the arrestee when that area arguably includes the interior of an automobile and the arrestee is a recent occupant. Because a Id. at 460 (quoting Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763). single familiar standard is essential to guide police officers, id. at 458 (quoting Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 213-14 (1979)), the Court establish such a workable rule. ¶15 undertook in Belton to Id. at 460. Belton arose from the stop of a speeding vehicle on the New York State Thruway. The police officer stopped the vehicle and, after examining the registration, discovered that none of the four men inside owned the vehicle or was related to its owner. The officer also smelled burnt marijuana and saw an envelope marked Supergold on the floor of the vehicle. He then removed the four individuals from the vehicle, separated them, and searched the vehicle. In the back seat he found a leather jacket belonging to Belton; inside a zipped pocket, the officer discovered cocaine. ¶16 Id. at 455-56. The New York Court of Appeals held that because there was no danger that the arrestee or his confederates could gain access to the zippered pockets of an unaccessible jacket, id. at 456, the search exceeded the scope justified by the twin goals of the Chimel exception and was not validly incident to Belton s arrest. The Supreme 9 Court reversed. Once again writing for the Court, Justice Stewart noted that articles inside the passenger compartment of an automobile are in fact generally, even if not inevitably, within the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m]. Id. at 460 (quoting Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763)). The Court therefore held that when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile and any containers found within the passenger compartment. ¶17 The bright-line Id. rule established in Belton thus relieved police officers from a case-by-case justification as to whether the entire passenger compartment of a vehicle, as opposed to only a portion of the compartment, was within the immediate control of occupant of the vehicle. an arrestee who had been a recent But, although Belton provided clear guidance with respect to this spatial limitation on the incident to arrest exception in the context of a vehicle search, it did not specifically address a number of other questions. While noting that it was undertaking to provide some clarity as to the scope of a search incident to arrest when the defendant was a recent occupant of a vehicle, id. at 460, the Court did not undertake to define recent occupancy, other than to note in the case before it that the search occurred immediately after the 10 arrest and that Belton was a passenger in the car just before he was arrested. that a lawful Id. at 462. custodial And, while stating generally arrest creates a situation which justifies the contemporaneous search without a warrant of the person arrested and of the immediately surrounding area, id. at 461, Justice Stewart did not purport to set forth any rule as to where the arrestee must be located in relation to the vehicle at the time of arrest in order to justify a warrantless search of the passenger compartment. Again, this was likely because the defendant in Belton was in close proximity to the car at the time of arrest. ¶18 See id. at 456. Justice Stewart made plain in Belton, however, that the Court was not retreating from Chimel, but rather simply applying its principles to the particular problem before it. See Belton, 453 U.S. at 460 n.3 ( [Belton] in no way alters the fundamental principles established in the Chimel case regarding the basic scope arrests. ). United of searches incident to lawful custodial Thus, Belton carefully distinguished cases such as States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1 (1977), in which the search of a footlocker occurred an hour after federal agents gained exclusive control of the item and after the defendants were securely in custody, and Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753 (1979), which involved a suitcase in the trunk of a taxicab and thus not within the defendant s 11 immediate control. See Belton, 453 U.S. at 461-62. In each case, Justice Stewart emphasized, there was no arguably valid search incident to a lawful custodial arrest. Id. at 462. D. ¶19 Because neither Belton nor any subsequent Supreme Court case has defined just when a defendant is a sufficiently recent occupant of a vehicle so as to allow a search incident to arrest of the vehicle s passenger compartment, state and federal courts have struggled to find a workable definition of the term. statement One in line Belton of cases that its has focused holding was on the limited particular and problematic context before it. U.S. at 460 n.3. Court s to the Belton, 453 Noting that the police officer in Belton had ordered the driver of the vehicle to stop before the arrest occurred, see id. at 455, a number of courts have focused on whether the police had initiated contact with the arrestee while he was still in the vehicle. ¶20 United States v. Hudgins, 52 F.3d 115 (6th Cir. 1995), exemplifies this approach. Hudgins held that as long as the police officer initiates contact with a defendant by actually confronting the defendant or by signaling confrontation with the defendant, while the defendant is still in the automobile, and the defendant automobile s is subsequently passenger arrested, compartment 12 falls a search within the of the scope of Belton and will be upheld as reasonable. Id. at 119. Conversely, if the defendant voluntarily left the automobile and began walking away before the police officer initiated contact, the case does not fit within Belton s bright-line rule, and a case-by-case analysis of the reasonableness of the search under Chimel becomes necessary. ¶21 Under this Id. approach, which views a defendant as a recent occupant of a vehicle for purposes of the Belton rule only when the police initiated contact when the arrestee was still in the vehicle, state and federal courts have found Belton inapplicable when the defendant left the vehicle before such contact, even when the arrest occurred in close proximity to the car. See, e.g., United States v. Strahan, 984 F.2d 155 (6th Cir. 1993); United States v. Fafowara, 865 F.2d 360 (D.C. Cir. 1989); State v. Thomas, 761 So. 2d 1010 (Fla. 2000); People v. Fernegel, 549 N.W.2d 361 (Mich. Ct. App. 1996); Commonwealth v. Santiago, 575 N.E.2d 350 (Mass. 1991). court of appeals recently Division Two of our adopted this approach in State v. Gant, 202 Ariz. 240, 244-45 ¶ 11, 43 P.3d 188, 192-93 (App. 2002), cert. granted, 123 S. Ct. 1784 (2003). ¶22 In Gant, the defendant had arrived in his car at a residence at which police already were present. Recognizing the defendant as someone wanted on an outstanding warrant and whose license was suspended, an officer arrested him after he exited 13 his vehicle. The officer then searched the vehicle, discovering a weapon and cocaine inside the car. ¶23 The superior court held the search lawful as conducted incident to Gant s arrest, but the court of appeals reversed. The court of appeals started from the proposition that the rule announced in Belton was limited situation in which it arose. to the particular factual Id. at 244 ¶ 11, 43 P.3d at 192. Because the police officer in Belton had initiated contact with the defendant while the defendant was still in the automobile, Gant concluded circumstances that Belton applied only under those when the officer initiates contact with the defendant, either by actually confronting the defendant or by signaling confrontation . . . while the defendant is still in the automobile. Id. (quoting Hudgins, 52 F.3d at 119 (alteration in original)). ¶24 In Gant, the police officer had not initiated contact while the defendant was still in the vehicle; the defendant drove the vehicle to the home where the officer already was present, and the confrontation defendant left the car. Applying its ¶25 In dictum, occurred after the Id. at 242-43 ¶ 3, 43 P.3d at 190-91. interpretation invalidated the search. first of Belton, the court of appeals Id. at 246 ¶ 15, 43 P.3d at 194. Gant emphasize[d] that, when police attempt to initiate contact by either confronting or signaling 14 confrontation, a vehicle s occupant cannot avoid Belton s application and create a haven for contraband by simply exiting the vehicle when officers are seen or approach. ¶ 11, 43 P.3d at 192-93. Under such Id. at 244-45 circumstances, Gant suggested, the search is incident to an arrest when the suspect is subsequently arrested. ¶26 Id. at 245 ¶ 11, 43 P.3d at 193. Adopting the Gant dictum, the court of appeals in this case held that the search of the vehicle was incident to Dean s arrest, notwithstanding that the arrest occurred long after he left the vehicle and when he was inside the house, because he fled the vehicle when the police approached after initiating contact: Dean cannot evade the search of the Jeep and the discovery of contraband in his vehicle by parking the Jeep and running into a house as soon as he is confronted by a police officer. The search, therefore, was incident to his arrest . . . . Dean, 203 Ariz. at 412 ¶ 12, 55 P.3d at 106. The court of appeals reasoned that had Dean not fled the car at the approach of the police, he would have been arrested in or near the car, and any subsequent search of the vehicle would then have been plainly incident to the arrest. 106. Id. at 412 ¶¶ 11-12, 55 P.3d at Because both the time between Dean s exit of the vehicle and arrest, and his distance from the vehicle at the time of the arrest resulted from Dean s attempt to evade police, the court 15 of appeals held that he could not evade the warrantless search of the Jeep. Id. at 412 ¶ 12, 55 P.3d at 106. E. ¶27 The analytic approach taken by the court of appeals in this case and Belton rule in Gant, under which the applicability of the turns entirely on whether the police initiated contact with the arrestee while he was still in the vehicle, is not supported by the rationale of either Belton or Chimel. search incident to arrest exception explicated in Chimel was The Belton and designed to protect officer safety and avoid the destruction of evidence. A suspect arrested next to a vehicle presents the same threat potential for destruction to of officer evidence safety whether and or the not same he alerted prior to arrest of the police s interest in him. was Yet, under the approach Gant adopted from Hudgins and its progeny, the be police would able to search the entire passenger compartment of the automobile only if they initiate contact with a passenger while the suspect is in t he vehicle; in all other cases, the Chimel immediate control test would apply. It makes no sense to have two different rules applicable to arrests occurring in what is for all relevant intents and purposes the same situation. ¶28 Moreover, the singular focus on whether the police initiated contact before the defendant departed the vehicle runs 16 counter to one of the purposes underlying Belton. The Supreme Court sought in that case to create a workable definition of the area within the immediate control of a recent occupant of a vehicle, both to provide a familiar standard to police officers and to avoid case-by-case litigation as to whether the entire passenger compartment, or only a portion thereof, was within the scope of a search incident to arrest. 453 U.S. at 458-60. But, by defining See Belton, recent occupancy entirely in terms of whether the defendant was formally made aware of the police presence before leaving the vehicle, Gant and the opinion below would return the courts to the very sort of inquiry that Belton abjured in every case in which contact was not so initiated before the arrest.3 ¶29 For initiation of these reasons, contact by a the number of police courts have irrelevant to found the determination whether an arrestee was a recent occupant of a vehicle under Belton. See, e.g., United States v. Thorton, 325 3 Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032 (1983), suggests in dictum that the Supreme Court did not mean to limit Belton to cases in which the police initiated contact while the defendant was in the vehicle. That case involved a defendant who met police officers at the scene of an accident, where his vehicle had swerved off the road into a ditch. In that case, in upholding a search of the vehicle under the principles set forth in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), the Court also specifically noted that if the officers had arrested the defendant for various traffic violations, they could have searched the passenger compartment of the car under Belton. Long, 463 U.S. at 1035 n.1. 17 F.3d 189, 194-95 (4th Cir. 2003); United States v. Sholala, 124 F.3d 803, 817 (7th Cir. 1997); Glasco, 513 S.E.2d at 141-42; see also Gant, 202 Ariz. at 244 n.3, 43 P.3d at 192 n.3 (recognizing a split in authority and collecting cases initiating contact construction of Belton). rejecting the We agree with the general analytical approach taken in these decisions. Belton made clear that its holding in no way alters the fundamental principles established in the Chimel case. 460 n.3. Belton, 453 U.S. at Thus, the appropriate inquiry focuses on the critical factors of when and where the custodial arrest took place. [A] search can be incident to an arrest only if it is substantially contemporaneous with the arrest and is confined to the immediate vicinity of the arrest. Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 486 (1964). ¶30 The correct rule, Supreme Court of Virginia in we believe, Glasco. was stated by the In upholding a vehicle search as incident to a lawful arrest, the Virginia court stated that a defendant is a recent occupant of a vehicle within the limits of the Belton rule when he is arrested in close proximity to the vehicle immediately after the [defendant] exits the automobile. Glasco, 513 S.E.2d at 142. While concepts such a close proximity and immediately after are of course subject to factual analysis, they directly correspond to the rationales behind the search incident to arrest exception, which 18 is designed to protect officer safety and preserve evidence. the same time, the Glasco test is faithful to the At general notions that the Fourth Amendment disfavors warrantless searches and that any exceptions to that general rule are narrowly limited in light of their underlying justifications. ¶31 In determining contemporaneous with an whether a arrest search of a was substantially recent occupant of a vehicle, the courts have reached a wide variety of results under a broad a rray of factual circumstances. States v. Arango, 879 F.2d 1501, Compare, e.g., United 1504-07 (7th Cir. 1989) (upholding a search of a defendant s car as incident to an arrest made of the defendant after he walked nine blocks away from the vehicle), with United States v. Vasey, 834 F.2d 782, 787-88 (9th occurring Cir. thirty 1987) to (invalidating forty-five a minutes search after of the a vehicle defendant s arrest); see also United States v. Strahan, 984 F.2d 155, 159 (6th Cir. 1993) (holding that an arrestee was not a recent occupant of a vehicle); People vehicle v. when Saverda, arrested thirty 907 596, P.2d feet 599 from (Col. the 1995) (holding an arrestee to be a recent occupant, despite a fiveminute lapse in time between the arrestee exiting the vehicle and the subsequent search); Gauldin v. State, 683 S.W.2d 411, 414 (Tex. Crim. App. 1984) (holding that defendant who had parked truck and was sitting inside a restaurant when confronted 19 by police was not a recent occupant of a truck); State v. Vanderhorst, 419 So. 2d 762, 764 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1982) (finding defendant no longer a recent occupant where he had left his car, walked three miles home, requested a ride back to the car, and was attempting to rescue the car when police arrived). But we have been able to discover no case, and the State has cited none, in which a search of the passenger compartment of a vehicle was upheld under Belton when the driver was arrested as long after he left the vehicle and as far from vehicle as was the defendant here. ¶32 Under any reasoned analysis, Dean simply was not a recent occupant of the Jeep for Belton purposes when he was arrested. He had not occupied the vehicle for some two and one- half hours, and his arrest occurred not in close proximity to the car, but instead inside the house. Under the circumstances of this case, neither of the justifications for a warrantless search of the vehicle protection of the arresting officers and preservation of evidence is present. ¶33 While the bright-line rule announced in Belton relieves the police of demonstrating that a particular portion of the passenger compartment is within the immediate control of an arrestee, it does not purport to dispense with all such analysis as to whether the police may search the vehicle at all. Here, given the physical distance 20 of the arrestee from the vehicle at the time of arrest and the long lapse of time between the arrest and Dean s exit from the vehicle, the search simply cannot be characterized as incident to the arrest and excepted from the general requirement that a warrant be obtained. ¶34 We therefore hold that occurs long after the defendant from the vehicle, Amendment applies. the when, as here, the arrest had left the vehicle and far warrant requirement of the Fourth Because, as Chimel and Belton teach, the Constitution requires a warrant except under those exigencies that allow otherwise, the issue is not whether the defendant has evaded a search by departing the vehicle, but rather whether the totality of the facts still presents the kind of situation that justifies dispensing with the warrant requirement.4 In this case, the facts do not support such a result. IV. ¶35 For warrantless the search foregoing of Dean s reasons, Jeep 4 we cannot conclude be that justified the as a Whether the defendant fled the vehicle is no more relevant to the Belton analysis than a defendant s flight from a home would be relevant to the determination of whether a search of that home after the defendant was arrested miles away was incident to that arrest. Indeed, by its very nature, flight from the vehicle tends to minimize the dual concerns that underlie the search incident to arrest exception police safety and protection of evidence. Flight may, of course, be relevant to establish other exceptions to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement, such as whether the defendant has abandoned the vehicle, whether an administrative inventory of the vehicle is necessary, or whether sufficient probable cause exists to justify a warrantless search under the automobile exception. 21 search incident to arrest. Accordingly, we vacate the o pinion of the court of appeals and reinstate the order of the superior court suppressing the evidence seized in this search. is remanded to the superior court for further This case proceedings consistent with this opinion. Andrew D. Hurwitz, Justice CONCURRING: _ Charles E. Jones, Chief Justice ______ Ruth V. McGregor, Vice Chief Justice _ Rebecca White Berch, Justice _ Michael D. Ryan, Justice 22

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