What is the test for warrantless searches of purses under the Fourth Amendment?

In ruling on a suppression motion, the trial court (1) finds the historical facts, (2) selects the applicable rule of law, and (3) applies the rule of law to the facts to determine whether the law as applied to the established facts is or is not violated. (People v. Williams (1988) 45 Cal.3d 1268, 1301, 248 Cal.Rptr. 834, 756 P.2d 221.) The appellate court reviews the trial court's resolution of the first inquiry under the deferential substantial-evidence standard. However, the second, which is a pure question of law, is scrutinized under the standard of independent review. The trial court's application of the law to the facts is also subject to independent review. Although this determination is a mixed fact-law question, i.e., the reasonableness of the challenged police conduct, it is predominately one of law. (Ibid.) Here, we must review the trial court's legal conclusion that the police conduct was unreasonable.

"It is settled Fourth Amendment doctrine that a police officer may, incident to a lawful arrest, conduct a contemporaneous warrantless search of the arrestee's person and of the area into which the arrestee might reach to retrieve a weapon or destroy evidence." (United States v. Burnette (9th Cir.1983) 698 F.2d 1038, 1049.) Such searches may be made whether or not [5 Cal.App.4th 331] there is probable cause to believe the arrestee may have a weapon or is about to destroy evidence. (United States v. Chadwick (1977) 433 U.S. 1, 14, 97 S.Ct. 2476, 2485, 53 L.Ed.2d 538.) "The potential dangers lurking in all custodial arrests make warrantless searches of items within the 'immediate control' area reasonable without requiring the arresting officer to calculate the probability that weapons or destructible evidence may be involved. [Citations.] However, warrantless searches of luggage or other property seized at the time of an arrest cannot be justified as incident to that arrest either if the 'search is remote in time or place from the arrest,' [citation], or no exigency exists." (Id. at pp. 14-15, 97 S.Ct. at p. 2485.) Once law enforcement officers have reduced personal property not immediately associated with the person of the arrestee to their exclusive control, and there is no longer any danger the arrestee might gain access to the property to seize a weapon or destroy evidence, a search of that property is no longer an incident of the arrest. (Id at p. 15, 97 S.Ct. at p. 2485.)

Here, the property at issue is defendant's purse. The " 'search incident to arrest' rule has been interpreted to include a woman's purse as a normal extension of the person subject to search as an item 'customarily carried by an arrested person ... [and] within the area of her immediate control.' " (People v. Flores (1979) 100 Cal.App.3d 221, 230, 160 Cal.Rptr. 839.) Further, so long as the purse is in use by the arrestee at the time of her arrest, it does not need to be on her person at that moment

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