Lamont Wilford v. State of Indiana, 2016 Ind. LEXIS 142

Wilford was stopped for equipment defects; officer learned his license was suspended, arrested him, and placed him in a cruiser.
The vehicle was registered to Wilford’s sister; she was not present and the car had visible damage (rear end, tail light, cracked windshield).
Officer Raisovich ordered the vehicle towed, stating it was unsafe and noting "with our procedures in that situation, we towed the vehicle." No written policy or inventory sheet was introduced.
Police searched/inventoried the car before tow and discovered an unlicensed handgun; Wilford was charged and convicted for carrying a handgun without a license and driving while suspended.
The Court of Appeals affirmed; the Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer to review whether the warrantless impound and inventory were reasonable under Fair and the state and federal constitutions.

Issue	State's Argument	Wilford's Argument	Held
Whether the warrantless impound was a reasonable exercise of the community-caretaking function	Officer testimony that the car was unsafe and his statement that impoundment followed "our procedures" sufficed to show reasonableness	Impoundment was pretextual and unreasonable because there was no evidence of established departmental procedure; officer’s testimony was too generalized	Impoundment was unreasonable: State failed to prove an established departmental routine or regulation as required by Fair; inventory search therefore invalid
Whether officer testimony alone can prove an "established departmental routine or regulation" absent a written policy	Officer testimony can suffice to prove an established routine if it specifies the department’s standardized procedure and shows the officer followed it	Generalized or conclusory testimony is inadequate; Fair requires particulars of the policy	Officer testimony may suffice in principle, but here the testimony was conclusory and lacked particulars, so it failed to meet the burden
Whether evidence discovered in an invalid inventory is admissible	Evidence found during a valid inventory is admissible; here State contended inventory valid if impound valid	Evidence is "poisoned fruit" if impoundment/inventory were unreasonable	Handgun was inadmissible; conviction reversed due to unreasonable impoundment and invalid inventory

Fair v. State, 627 N.E.2d 427 (Ind. 1993) (established two-prong test for discretionary impoundments: community threat and departmental routine)
Taylor v. State, 842 N.E.2d 327 (Ind. 2006) (applies Fair; emphasizes totality-of-circumstances and State’s burden to prove reasonableness)
Brown v. State, 653 N.E.2d 77 (Ind. 1995) (recognizes automobiles as protected "effects" under search-and-seizure provisions)
Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367 (U.S. 1987) (inventory searches must follow standard criteria and not be pretext for investigation)
Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1 (U.S. 1990) (inventory searches must not be used as a ruse to conduct general rummaging)