Search and Seizure — warrantless searches — search incident to arrest

Listen to this article

Wisconsin Court of Appeals

Criminal

Search and Seizure — warrantless searches — search incident to arrest

A warrantless search of a bed in a room adjacent to the hallway where the defendant was arrested did not violate the Fourth Amendment.

“In this case, Sanders was apprehended after fleeing the police in the hallway of an apartment under circumstances that suggested that he just hid evidence of the crime the police were pursuing him for—possession of a firearm—under bedcoverings in a bedroom from which he emerged as the police entered. Acting on an informant’s tip that Sanders was armed, the police had approached Sanders, who was standing outside a residence with another man. When the police identified themselves and ordered the men to put their hands in the air, Sanders ran into the residence. As he did so, the police saw him adjust something at his waistband which, based on the officers’ training and experience, suggested that Sanders was carrying a weapon. After pursuing Sanders into the house, the police encountered him near the door of a bedroom and noticed that the bedcoverings were rumpled in a manner that suggested to the officers, again based on their experience, that an object may have been recently hidden there.”

“Under these circumstances, the rumpled bedcovers on the nearby bed suggested that the gun reported in the tip was likely hidden there. The police did not conduct a general search of the house or the room where they located Sanders; instead, they searched only the bed because they reasonably inferred from the rumpled bedding that Sanders had just stashed a weapon. Given the circumscribed nature of the scope of the police search and the timeframe—just seconds after entering the house and seeing Sanders and the disturbed bedding—this search was reasonable as incident to Sanders’ arrest.”

Affirmed.

Recommended for publication in the official reports.

2011AP2384-CR State v. Sanders

Dist. I, Milwaukee County, McMahon, Dallet, JJ., Curley, J.

Attorneys: For Appellant: Boyle, Gerald P., Milwaukee; For Respondent: Loebel, Karen A., Milwaukee; Larson, Sara Lynn, Madison