21 N.Y.3d 721 (2013)
A warrantless search incident to arrest must be justified by exigent circumstances, such as officer safety, and the mere potential for a weapon in a bag is insufficient justification when the suspect is secured and the connection to a violent crime is attenuated.
Summary
Torres was arrested for trespass in a building where a burglary had been reported. Incident to the arrest, police searched her handbag and found a loaded gun. The New York Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision to admit the gun as evidence. The Court held that the search was not justified as incident to a lawful arrest because no exigent circumstances existed. The court reasoned that the connection to the burglary was weak, and the defendant was secured at the time of the search, negating any immediate threat to officer safety.
Facts
Police responded to a report of a burglary in progress on the fifth floor of a residential building. Upon entering the lobby, they saw Torres and a male companion exiting a stairwell. The building superintendent gestured towards them. When questioned, Torres gave inconsistent explanations for her presence in the building. The police arrested Torres for trespassing. While handcuffing her, they noticed a weighted handbag on her shoulder, which she held tightly. They opened the handbag and found a loaded handgun.
Procedural History
The trial court denied Torres’s motion to suppress the firearm, arguing the search was lawful as incident to arrest. The Appellate Division affirmed. The New York Court of Appeals reversed, granting the motion to suppress the evidence.
Issue(s)
Whether the warrantless search of Torres’s handbag was justified as a search incident to a lawful arrest, given the circumstances.
Holding
No, because the search was not justified by exigent circumstances. The connection between Torres and the reported burglary was tenuous, and Torres was already secured when the search occurred.
Court’s Reasoning
The Court of Appeals reasoned that a search incident to arrest must be contemporaneous with the arrest and justified by concerns for officer safety or the preservation of evidence. Here, the Court found no such justification. While acknowledging that police need not testify explicitly about their safety concerns, the Court emphasized the need for objective reasonableness. The Court found that “nothing connected defendant or her companion to the burglary,” and that the defendant’s mere presence in a building where a burglary was reported, coupled with inconsistent explanations, was insufficient to establish probable cause to believe the defendant was armed and dangerous. The Court distinguished this case from cases where there was a clear connection between the crime for which the defendant was arrested and the potential for weapons, stating, “the facts that defendant was arrested for trespass, that several officers were on the scene, and that defendant offered no resistance weigh heavily against a finding of exigent circumstances.” A dissenting opinion argued that the superintendent’s gestures toward Torres, combined with her suspicious behavior and the heavy handbag, created a reasonable inference of danger justifying the search. The dissent emphasized that the lower courts’ factual findings should be upheld unless no reasonable inference could support the conclusion that the search was lawful, quoting, “Warrants are generally required to search a person’s home or his person unless ‘the exigencies of the situation’ make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that the warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”