Deputies’ Disregard of Inventory Search Policy Upsets Conviction

A California man who conditionally pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm won his bid to suppress evidence seized during a purported inventory search of his vehicle after the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, agreed on Thursday that the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights.

The deputies’ deviations from administrative procedures that govern inventory searches indicated they acted solely for investigative purposes, a deeply divided Ninth Circuit said.

Inventory searches of impounded vehicles, where the process is “aimed at securing or protecting the car and its contents,” are a well recognized exception to the Fourth Amendment’s ...