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Hey guys, it's Anthony Bandiero Here attorney and senior legal instructor for Blue to Gold law enforcement training, bringing a roadside chat. This question comes from an officer in Colorado. And the question is,  can police search a shoplifting suspects purse for evidence without making an arrest? 

And the answer is going to be yes. Definitely, as far as yes, in Colorado, but I believe the answer is yes, everywhere. But let's go through this. Now. Generally speaking, if you have probable cause for somebody, right, and you search them, and you find evidence and you arrest them, Most courts are going to call that a search incident to arrest but Anthony, the search came before the rest that didn't come incident to well, the supreme court requires that the search be contemporaneous, which courts have interpreted to be either right before or right after, you know, generally speaking, however, when you're not going to make an arrest, the PC search is generally authorized under exigency, right? Because when you stop out somebody do you really have you have probable cause that they have evidence they're going to cite and release them or whatever. Do you really have enough time under the circumstances to go get the warrant? Probably not most horses just fight on their agency. And here's the background. So got this batch to $1 General stain that they caught something you know, they saw something stealing makeup and putting in a purse now first of all, we know we got a classy girl, you know, I'm saying if you got a suspect who's stealing makeup from the Dollar General. Ah, that's gonna be a that's a good looking lady right there. Okay, look, she's gonna look like a clown after she puts that makeup on. But I digress at least be a little more bougie. You know, I'm saying like my wife, and you know, get it at least from Walmart. Or if you're really nice, Tarjay. But I can, I will continue. They knew she put in her purse. They called not, you know, police, they gave a great description. He arrives in the area; she left the store, right? They're not going to physically detain her. They arrive soon after they see her in the same area walking away from the store, you know, spot on description of the suspect. So they got the problem cause they got the victim. And in this case, she actually consented to search the purse, which is great. I'm glad that the officer asked for consent because it gets around this whole issue. But the money question is okay, where she says no, what am I going to do? I say search the purse. Now. I have a case from Colorado that's directly on points. The case is people versus Blackman. It's black m o n. The citation is 20 P dot 3d 1215 2000. Okay, people vs blocking. Alright. So this is what the court said. It says arrests fall into two categories. custodial and noncustodial. A custodial arrest is made for the purpose of taking a person to the station house for booking procedures and filing criminal charges. Okay, that's we get that a noncustodial arrest is a temporary detention of a suspect, pending the issuance of a summons for a minor ordinance violation. Right. During a noncustodial rest, an officer may conduct a pat-down search for weapons, as well as a search for instrumentalities or evidence of the specific crime for which the officer had probable cause to arrest, even though it's noncustodial. So there is your case on point, courts will bend over backwards, in my opinion to uphold these searches, even without arrest. They'll call it exigency. They'll call it non-custodial arrest, they'll call it an arrest. Without transportation. They'll just they'll bend over backwards because if they don't allow you to recover this evidence, then law enforcement officers can be very it can be stuck on scene with a minor violation calls are racking up and they know that evidence is in the parks but they can't do anything without a warrant. Right. And another logic could be some officers actually can arrest right even though it wasn't in their presence, it shoplifting may be an exception. Or they have the shopkeeper be the complaining witness and make the citizens rest. But they don't want to do that because that's what they want. You know,
they don't wanna take the people in for COVID. And then of course, we'll say, wait a minute, let me get this straight, you could arrest which will give you the full search incident to arrest. You could do that, but you don't want to. So all you want to do is something less than that which you have the authority do you just want to do a specific targeted search of the person so forth, recover the evidence? Well, if you could do this, then you can do those things underneath that as a lesser intrusion of the person's liberties. And if that makes sense as well. There's your answer. Great question. Keep them coming. Guys. Do me a favor. Come on. Hit the like button. Okay. hits us subscribe. Add a comment below. Let me know if you like it or don't like it. Either one is fine, right or whatever you want to do, something different. Share with your friends and guys. That's all I have for you. Until next time, my friends stay safe and keep up that amazing job. Do not they're protecting your community. Bye-bye.
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