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MA: Inventory of closed container within closed container valid | Search of pill bottle for weapon unreasonable

By John Wesley Hall, Jr.

“[T]he opening of the closed but unlocked box within the closed but unlocked book bag did not exceed the scope of the inventory policy.” Commonwealth v. Allen, 2009 Mass. App. LEXIS 1532 (December 18, 2009). Search of a pill bottle for weapons in a frisk of the car was unreasonable. Commonwealth v. Cruz-Rivera, 2009 Mass. App. LEXIS 1519 (December 17, 2009): But even if one assumes that the police did properly search the car's interior, they exceeded constitutional limits when Officer Berube opened the small pill bottle he found in the vehicle's center console. While it is true that Officer Berube and Officer Gaudet both had been informed in various ways about the existence of very small weapons, such as single-shot pen-sized guns, knives, or razors, a limited search of an automobile in which the police are about to allow the operator to drive off cannot be justified solely by police knowledge that small weapons exist and conceivably can be stored in small containers...continue to full post

Full post as published by Fourth Amendment on December 22, 2009 (boomark / email).