State of Utah v. Staten

State of Utah v. Staten, Case No. 981101-CA, Filed October 8, 1998. MEMORANDUM DECISION (Not For Official Publication)   IN THE UTAH COURT OF APPEALS

----ooOoo----   State of Utah, Plaintiff and Appellee, 

v. 

Chad Staten, Defendant and Appellant. 


Case No. 981101-CA


F I L E D (October 8, 1998)   -----  

Fourth District, Provo Department

The Honorable Lynn W. Davis

Attorneys: Margaret P. Lindsay and Randall K. Spencer, Provo, for Appellant

Jan Graham and Barnard N. Madsen, Salt Lake City, for Appellee -----  

Before Judges Wilkins, Billings, and Jackson.

WILKINS, Associate Presiding Judge:

Appellant Chad H. Staten (defendant) entered a conditional plea of guilty to possession of a controlled substance in a drug free zone with intent to distribute, in violation of Utah Code Ann. 58-37-8(1)(a)(iv) (1996), and to possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, in violation of Utah Code Ann. 76-10-503 (1)(a) (1996). Defendant reserved the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. On appeal, defendant asserts that (1) no exigency justified a warrantless search of his day planner(1) which yielded methamphetamines; and (2) the warrantless search of his day planner was not a proper search incident to a lawful arrest. We affirm.

We review the trial court's legal conclusions for correctness according no deference. See State v. Patefield, 927 P.2d 655, 657 (Utah Ct. App. 1996).
 
  WARRANTLESS SEARCH

It is well-settled that an arresting officer may, without a warrant, lawfully search the area surrounding the person he or she is arresting if (1) the arrest was lawful; (2) the search is of the area within the arrestee's immediate control; and (3) the search is conducted contemporaneously to the arrest. See State v. Giron, 943 P.2d 1114, 1117-18 (Utah Ct. App. 1997) (citations omitted).

Defendant does not contest that the arrest was lawful. Moreover, the court determined that the search of the day planner, yielding scales and baggies of methamphetamine, was constitutionally reasonable as a search incident to a lawful arrest. The trial court determined that the planner was within the defendant's "immediate control" because the defendant was within "easy access" of the planner -- four feet, and the possible destruction of the evidence by hotel maids necessitated immediate action. The trial court correctly relied upon the "totality of circumstances" test of State v. Austin which held that attendant circumstances and not just proximity of the evidence to the defendant determine whether an area searched was within the arrestee's immediate control. See State v. Austin, 584 P.2d 853, 856-57 (Utah 1978) (recognizing inherent differences an arrest in hotel creates due to possible destruction of evidence by hotel maids).

Although no specific finding was made as to the time elapsed between defendant's arrest and what defendant calls the "second search", even accepting defendant's representation at oral argument that nearly twenty minutes passed, we still hold the search to have been contemporaneous under the circumstances of this case. The arrest, search, and eventual removal of both the defendant and the seized items results from one continuous flow of events, beginning with the arrest, and leading to the search of the planner.

Because we hold the warrantless search valid as a search incident to a lawful arrest, we need not reach defendant's exigent circumstances argument.

Affirmed.
 
 

______________________________

Michael J. Wilkins,

Associate Presiding Judge -----

WE CONCUR:
 
 

______________________________

Judith M. Billings, Judge
 
 

______________________________

Norman H. Jackson, Judge

1. Although defendant argued inclusion of the ice scraper in his oral argument, no specific reference to this or other items beyond the planner is found in his brief. Nonetheless, the same analysis applied to the planner applies to the scraper, given the trial court's finding that the scraper was seized incident to a lawful arrest and within defendant's control.