Police love to tow a suspect’s car because it gives them an opportunity to “inventory” the vehicle’s contents prior to impoundment.
The ostensible purpose of the inventory is to document whatever items are in the car prior to the tow and to protect officers from accusations of theft or property destruction.
In realty, the pre-tow inventory is often just a legal excuse to search someone’s vehicle without a warrant.
So what are the rules for vehicle impoundment and the accompanying search?
Under state and federal law,
an inventory search is lawful only if, first, the seizure (or impoundment) of the vehicle was reasonable, and, second, the search of the vehicle that follows its seizure was conducted in accord with standard police written procedures. See Commonwealth v. Oliveira, 474 Mass. 10, 13 (2016). (Citations and quotations omitted.
According to the Supreme Judicial Court, there are four legitimate reasons to impound a vehicle:
- to protect the vehicle and its contents from theft or vandalism
- to protect the public from dangerous items that might be in the vehicle;
- to protect public safety where the vehicle, as parked, creates a dangerous condition;
- or where the vehicle is parked on private property without the permission of the property owner as a result of a police stop, to spare the owner the burden of having to cause the vehicle to be towed
The SJC has cautioned police against using tow inventories for investigative ends:
Where the police’s true purpose for searching the vehicle is investigative, the seizure of the vehicle may not be justified as a precursor to an inventory search, and must instead be justified as an investigative search…[An] inventory search may not be allowed to become a cover or pretext for an investigative search. Id. at 14. (Citations and quotations omitted.)
If police unlawfully impound a car and discover incriminating evidence during their inventory, a motion to suppress can be filed seeking to exclude the evidence from trial under the 14th Amendment to Massachusetts Declaration of Rights and the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.