Background
Police officers initiated a traffic stop on a car driven by Jamelle Price because its license plate was expired and did not match the vehicle. A check revealed Price’s driver’s license was revoked, he was a habitual traffic offender (HTO), and his passenger had active arrest warrants. The officers arrested both Price and the passenger. A search of Price’s person incident to the arrest revealed six nine-millimeter bullets in his pocket.
Following the arrests, officers conducted an inventory search of Price’s car before having it impounded, a procedure their department manual mandated for HTO violations. During the search, they found a nine-millimeter gun wedged between the driver’s seat and center console and a .22 caliber gun in a bag in the backseat. They also found a box of nine-millimeter bullets in a backpack that contained the car’s title. The prosecution charged Price with two counts of possession of a weapon by a previous offender (POWPO) and one count of driving after revocation prohibited (DARP).
Before trial, Price moved to suppress the evidence found in his car, arguing the inventory search was improper. The trial court denied the motion, concluding the search was lawful. A jury subsequently found Price guilty on all three charges. Price appealed, challenging the denial of his suppression motion, the jury instructions on the POWPO charges, and the sufficiency of the evidence for his convictions.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of conviction, rejecting all of Price’s arguments. The court first held that the impoundment of Price’s car was a reasonable exercise of the police’s community caretaking function. The decision was justified by the totality of the circumstances: Price and his passenger were arrested, the car was in a private lot but not in a designated space, it was in a high-crime area, and no one else was available to drive it. The court found that the Denver Police Department’s mandatory impound policy for HTOs supported, but was not the sole justification for, the officers’ reasonable decision.
Consequently, the court ruled the subsequent inventory search was also lawful. It found that the officers’ failure to strictly comply with all departmental inventory-documentation policies did not render the search a pretext for a criminal investigation. So long as the search served a valid administrative purpose, minor procedural deviations did not make it unconstitutional. The court also rejected Price’s argument that the jury instructions for the two POWPO counts were flawed. Even though the instructions were based on his prior felony convictions rather than the two guns, the court found no reversible error, noting the jury received a general unanimity instruction and the evidence was sufficient to convict him for possessing both guns.
Finally, the court concluded the evidence was sufficient to support all convictions. For the POWPO charges, Price’s ownership of the car, his control as the driver, the presence of ammunition in his pocket matching one of the guns, and the placement of the guns within his reach constituted “something more” than mere proximity, allowing a jury to infer he knowingly possessed them. For the DARP charge, his DMV record, which showed a revocation from 2009 and fourteen subsequent notifications, was sufficient to prove he knew he was not permitted to drive.
Key Takeaways
- An inventory search of a vehicle is lawful if both the initial decision to impound it and the subsequent search are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment’s community caretaking exception.
- The reasonableness of an impoundment is based on the totality of the circumstances; a mandatory police policy can support the decision, but the choice must still be an objectively reasonable exercise of community caretaking duties.
- Minor deviations from departmental inventory search procedures, such as failing to document every item, do not automatically invalidate the search if it is not a pretext for a criminal investigation.
- A conviction for “knowing possession” of contraband in a vehicle can be sustained by circumstantial evidence, including the defendant’s ownership and control of the car, their proximity to the item, and the presence of related items on their person or among their belongings.
Why It Matters
This opinion provides a clear framework for analyzing the legality of vehicle impoundments and subsequent inventory searches under the Fourth Amendment. It affirms that police actions are judged by a standard of objective reasonableness based on all circumstances, rather than on rigid adherence to departmental policy alone. While policies requiring impoundment (e.g., for habitual traffic offenders) are a factor, the ultimate constitutional test is whether the impoundment serves a legitimate community caretaking function, such as securing a vehicle that would otherwise be left unattended in a high-crime area.
The case also serves as a reminder of the evidentiary threshold for proving “knowing possession” in cases involving shared spaces like a car. The court’s analysis shows that a combination of factors—vehicle ownership, driver status, and linking evidence like ammunition—can create a powerful inference of knowledge that overcomes defenses suggesting the contraband belonged to someone else or was left by a previous owner. This strengthens the hand of prosecutors in constructive possession cases built on circumstantial evidence.