United States v. Cook, 808 F.3d 1195

DEA agents surveilled a planned MDMA sale; they observed Cook carry a backpack into and later leave a co-conspirator’s house; co-defendant Edmonds was arrested at the buy and identified Cook as a supplier in a post-arrest call.
Agents recovered two firearms at the co-conspirator’s house. After Edmonds made a monitored call to Cook confirming the sale, Cook returned wearing the same backpack and was arrested on the front porch.
While Cook was face down and handcuffed, Officer Knight conducted a 20–30 second cursory search of the backpack at the scene for weapons; finding none, officers moved Cook and the pack to a nearby parking lot.
At the parking lot a more thorough search uncovered MDMA, LSD, marijuana, two phones, and a laptop; the MDMA matched the sample from Edmonds.
Cook moved to suppress the backpack evidence; the district court denied suppression and declined to hold an evidentiary hearing. Cook was convicted; he appealed, challenging the warrantless searches, the denial of an evidentiary hearing, and admission of a non-testifying co-conspirator’s identification.

Issue	Cook's Argument	Government's Argument	Held
Whether the initial on-scene 20–30 second search of the backpack violated the Fourth Amendment	The search was unlawful because Cook was handcuffed and face-down, so the pack was not within his reach; no safety or evidence-destruction risk	The search was incident to lawful arrest: it was immediate, cursory, the pack was next to Cook, officers had safety concerns (weapons found at house, crowd, possible accomplices)	Search upheld as reasonable incident to arrest (spatially and temporally incident; brief and immediate)
Whether the district court abused discretion by denying an evidentiary hearing on suppression	Cook later claimed the initial search never occurred and alleged the search was fabricated; thus factual disputes required a hearing	The district court had asked Cook to identify disputed facts; Cook did not request a hearing or proffer alternate testimony before trial; trial testimony allowed the court to assess credibility	No abuse of discretion; court reasonably relied on trial testimony and prior briefing to resolve factual dispute
Whether admission of Edmonds’s out-of-court identification violated the Confrontation Clause	Admission of Edmonds’s identification of Cook (Edmonds did not testify) violated Sixth Amendment	Even if admission erred, there was overwhelming independent evidence tying Cook to the drug supply role	Any Confrontation Clause error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt

Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009) (limits searches incident to arrest to areas within arrestee's immediate control)
Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969) (search incident to arrest limited to person and area within immediate control for officer safety and evidence preservation)
United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973) (search incident to arrest may be a prompt, ad hoc officer judgment)
United States v. Burnette, 698 F.2d 1038 (9th Cir. 1983) (items seized while police retained legitimate uninterrupted possession after initial valid search may be admissible)
United States v. McLaughlin, 170 F.3d 889 (9th Cir. 1999) (no fixed temporal limit for search incident to arrest, but must be spatially and temporally incident)
United States v. Camou, 773 F.3d 932 (9th Cir. 2014) (search must be spatially and temporally incident to arrest)
United States v. Monclavo-Cruz, 662 F.2d 1285 (9th Cir. 1981) (search an hour after arrest at station house not valid incident to arrest)
United States v. Shakir, 616 F.3d 315 (3d Cir. 2010) (upholding search of bag dropped at suspect’s feet while handcuffed where crowd and possible accomplices raised safety concerns)