United States v. Adrick Ruckes

Adrick Ruckes (“Ruekes”) was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and possessing cocaine base with the in tent to distribute following a search of his automobile. He moved to suppress the evidence discovered during that search: a 9mm handgun and over six grams of crack cocaine. After an evidentiary hearing, Judge Franklin D. Burgess of the Western District of Washington denied his motion.

Ruckes entered a conditional guilty plea and filed this timely appeal. He maintains that Washington State Trooper Kenyon Wiley’s search was not valid incident to his arrest because he was not arrested until after contraband was located within the vehicle. Following the district court’s analysis, the government proffers two alternative theories for upholding the conviction. First, it argues that the search was proper because, under New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 , 101 S.Ct. 2860 , 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), when officers have probable cause to effect a full custodial arrest of a vehicle’s recent occupant, a search of the passenger compartment of the vehicle is warranted. Second, to the extent the search was not incident to Ruekes’s arrest, the firearm and cocaine would have been…