State v. Krause

State v. Washington established that even if the defendant is removed from the area in which an officer believes that evidence is located, then a warrantless search incident to arrest to discover evidence of the crime of arrest is justified if the driver had control of the car immediately before the arrest and the search followed closely, making the search of the car incident to the driver’s arrest reasonable in time and scope.

Defendant appealed a judgment of conviction for unlawful possession of methamphetamine and assigned error to the trial court’s denial of her suppression motion. This Court finds that even if the defendant is removed from the area in which an officer believes that evidence is located, then a warrantless search incident to arrest to discover evidence of the crime of arrest is justified. State v. Washington, 265 Or App 532, 536 (2014). Additionally, officers can open a closed container for the purpose of finding evidence of the crime of arrest if such evidence reasonably could be concealed in that container. Id. Further, the driver must have controlled the car immediately before the arrest and the search must have followed closely on the heels of that arrest, making the search of the car incident to the driver’s arrest reasonable in time and scope. Id. Since the search occurred immediately after the arrest, and Defendant exited the vehicle only shortly before that occurred, the search was reasonable in time, scope, and intensity. Affirmed.