State v. Paananen, 5 N.M. 674

Loss-prevention detained defendant after observing him place two flashlights under his jacket and exit the store; store personnel removed items from his pockets and retrieved his backpack.
Albuquerque officers arrived, handcuffed defendant, patted him down, questioned him, and Officer Hsu opened the backpack in the hallway and found hypodermic needles and items from Office Depot.
About 15 minutes after cuffing, Officer Knight returned the backpack, began putting items into it, opened a cigarette pack, and discovered what appeared to be heroin.
Defendant was indicted for possession of a controlled substance, paraphernalia, and two counts of shoplifting; he moved to suppress physical evidence and statements.
The State argued the searches were incident to arrest or, alternatively, the evidence was subject to inevitable discovery (relying on Barragan). The district court suppressed the physical evidence and statements; on appeal the State challenged the district court’s rejection of a search-incident theory and its application of inevitable discovery.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether search was justified as incident to lawful arrest	Officers had probable cause and arrested defendant before searching backpack and cigarette pack, so search was incident to arrest	Arrest was unlawful under N.M. Const. art. II, § 10 (no exigency/warrant); search not incident to lawful arrest	Arrest occurred when handcuffs were applied, but arrest lacked exigent circumstances required by New Mexico Constitution; search not justified as incident to lawful arrest
Whether inevitable discovery applies	Evidence would have been discovered by an inventory search at detention center, so suppression unnecessary	Any inventory would have depended on an unlawful arrest, so discovery was not independent	Inevitable discovery did not apply because the inventory route depended on the unlawful arrest; suppression affirmed

United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411 (federal rule permitting warrantless arrest on probable cause)
Campos v. State, 870 P.2d 117 (N.M. 1994) (warrantless public felony arrest under N.M. Constitution requires probable cause plus exigent circumstances)
State v. Rowell, 188 P.3d 95 (N.M. 2008) (warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable; arrest-search exception described)
State v. Barragan, 34 P.3d 1157 (N.M. Ct. App. 2001) (framework for inevitable-discovery via inventory search)
State v. Wagoner, 24 P.3d 306 (N.M. Ct. App. 2001) (inevitable-discovery requires lawful means independent of illegal action)
Muehler v. Mena, 544 U.S. 93 (handcuffing/detention may be reasonable when incident to authorized search)
Boone v. State, 731 P.2d 366 (N.M. 1986) (when arrest occurs is a factual finding for trial court)