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255 Ind. 681

266 N.E.2d 212

Farrie v. State

Indiana Supreme Court

Decided February 10, 1971

Indiana Supreme Court · decided 1971-02-10

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[a] search incident to a valid arrest is lawful regardless of what it reveals.”

quoted by 4 later decisions, including State of Indiana v. Justin Crager, 157 Ind. App. 319 - Crane v. State

Relies on Taglavore v. United States · Cotton v. United States · Baskerville v. United States

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1971-02-10

How this case has been cited

Cited by 28 later decisions — most recently October 2018 · most notably Fair v. State (1977), State v. Cheatam (2003)

1 federal appellate · 27 state decisions

10019711980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Arterburn, C.J.

¶1On November 22, 1967, defendant was arrested for possession of narcotics. Defendant surrendered certain valuable articles of personal property for safekeeping purposes to the police intake officer, Albert J. Bragalone, among which was a certain wristwatch later identified and admitted as State’s Exhibit Number 1. After the wristwatch was accepted for safekeeping, Officer Bragalone turned it over to Captain Edwards of the Detective Bureau of the Fort Wayne Police Department. Appellant was charged with second degree burglary and found guilty as charged.

¶2*682Appellant urges on this appeal that he was compelled to give possession of his valuables to the Fort Wayne Police Department, which was merely a bailment for the safekeeping of defendant’s valuables during his incarceration. Appellant argues that the warrantless seizure of the watch was not incidental to the arrest on the charge of Second Degree Burglary. As the fruits of an alleged illegal seizure, defendant claims it should not have been admitted into evidence over his objection.

¶3We find that regardless of whether or not a bailment situation existed, there was no illegal seizure of defendant’s watch. When Officer Bragalone gave the watch to Captain Edwards there was merely a transfer of the watch within the Fort Wayne Police Department.

¶4Our decision in this case is compatible with similar cases in our neighboring states of Ohio and Illinois and in certain Federal district courts. In People v. Hambrick (1968), 98 Ill. App. 2d 481, 240 N. E. 2d 696, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Second Division, held that marijuana found during the ordinary course of inventorying the defendant’s effects for safekeeping should have been admitted into evidence. Becently, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that it is not unreasonable to search a person in a routine station-house search, without a warrant, before he is locked in a cell or room. This would normally require an inventorying and safekeeping of such personal effects. The fruits of such a search were held admissible into evidence. State v. Dempsey (1970), 22 Ohio St. 2d 219, 259 N. E. 2d 745.

¶5In Baskerville v. United States (10th Cir. 1955), 227 F. 2d 454, the court held that a lawful search occurred where the defendant was arrested, taken into custody, and then searched by jail officers who placed his personal property in an envelope. About two weeks later incriminating evidence was found in said envelope by a United States Secret Service agent. The court held it was properly admitted into evidence. Similarly, in Cotton v. United States (9th Cir. 1967), 371 F. 2d 385, 393, *683the court stated, concerning evidence found upon searching the defendant at the jail after his arrest:

“If a lawful search or examination produces evidence of other crimes than that for which the prisoner was arrested, that is not something to which he can object. See Taglavore v. United States, 9 Cir., 1961, 291 F. 2d 262, 265. Indeed, as we there said, it is proper for the police to look for just such evidence, so long as the arrest is not a mere pretext for doing so, as it was found to be in that case. . . . And if the papers were validly available to the state police, there is no reason that the F.B.I. could not make use of them in their investigation and prosecution.”

¶6A search incidental to a valid arrest is lawful regardless of what it reveals. In the case at bar defendant does not challenge the validity of the arrest. A search is no less valid when conducted by a jailer when an accused is booked and is to be confined in a cell in the jail or stationhouse.

¶7We thus find that the search was not unreasonable and that therefore the evidence was properly admitted.

¶8Judgment affirmed.

Givan and Prentice, JJ., concur; Hunter, J., concurs in result ; DeBruler, J., dissents with opinion.
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