State v. Taylor, 250 Or. App. 90

Defendant was arrested on domestic assault suspicions; arrested, handcuffed, and pockets searched for weapons.
A cigarette box was seized from defendant and handed to another officer who opened it and found methamphetamine, which defendant admitted.
Defendant moved to suppress the evidence from the warrantless cigarette-box search as violation of Article I, section 9 of the Oregon Constitution.
The State argued the search was permissible as a valid search incident to arrest or, alternatively, that the evidence would have been inevitably discovered under a jail inventory policy.
The trial court rejected the inevitable-discovery theory but held the jail inventory policy would have authorized the search of the cigarette box; court nonetheless concluded the policy is unconstitutional and suppressed the evidence; on appeal, the state and defendant dispute the policy’s scope under Atkinson; the court reverses and remands, holding the policy unconstitutional under Article I, section 9.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Is the jail inventory policy constitutionally valid to authorize opening closed containers for contraband searches?	State: policy requires searching property for weapons/drugs/contraband with no discretion to avoid containers.	Guards against broad discretion and overbreadth; policy allows opening all closed containers.	Policy invalid; cannot authorize such searches.
Does the inevitable-discovery doctrine salvage the evidence given an unconstitutional inventory policy?	State: applicable if proper procedures would have inevitably discovered the evidence.	Policy unconstitutional; not proper and predictable under Atkinson.	Inevitable-discovery fail; evidence suppressed.

State v. Atkinson, 298 Or 1 (1984) (inventory must be non-discretionary and properly limited; cannot open all containers routinely)
State v. Guerrero, 214 Or App 14 (2007) (inventory policy may allow opening certain valuables but not all containers)
State v. Miller, 300 Or 203 (1985) (inevitable discovery framework for admissibility)
State v. Hall, 339 Or 7 (2005) (inevitable discovery requires proper and predictable procedures)
State v. Willhite, 110 Or App 567 (1992) (policy too broad if officers can look anywhere in property during inventory)
State v. Lippert, 317 Or 397 (1993) (advances on closed containers; certain inventories must announce contents)