Mathias, J.
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Inventory searches performed in conformity with standard police procedures are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, but the State must present more than the conclusory testimony of a police officer that the search was conducted as a routine inventory. [Citation omitted.] An evidentiary basis must exist for evaluating whether an inventory search was performed in conformity with standard police procedures, and the circumstances surrounding the search must indicate that the search was conducted pursuant to established procedures. [Citation omitted.]
However, failure to follow established police policy does not necessarily establish that the inventory was a pretext. [Citations omitted.] “[T]o defeat a charge of pretext the State must establish the existence of sufficient regulations and that the search at issue was conducted in conformity with them.” Fair [v. State], 627 N.E.2d [427,] 435 [(Ind. 1993)].
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In this case, IMPD’s General Order 7.3 on Towing and Impounding Vehicles was admitted into evidence, and the document specifically describes the steps an IMPD officer is required to take when impounding a vehicle. The order directs IMPD officers to perform an inventory search prior to impounding a vehicle and make a detailed listing of all items found during the search. [Record citations omitted throughout.]
Officer Huddleston searched the interior of the truck, the bed of the truck, the glove box, and containers inside the truck. However, he did not complete any paperwork related to the traffic stop or subsequent investigation. Instead, he told Officer Lantzer what he found, and Officer Lantzer described those items in the probable cause affidavit. After the search, an evidence technician took photographs of the truck’s interior.
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The circumstances in this case present more than a minor deviation from IMPD’s General Order 7.3 on Towing and Impounding Vehicles.2 Officer Lantzer was familiar with IMPD’s policy for inventorying the contents of an impounded vehicle and in accordance with that policy, he asked Officer Huddleston to perform an inventory search. Yet, the officers failed to complete an accurate inventory of the truck’s contents, and Officer Lantzer listed only certain items found in the truck in the probable cause affidavit. It is apparent that after the Officer Huddleston found the contraband in the “decorative box,” he ceased inventorying the remaining contents of the truck.
[Footnote 2: Whitley urges our court to adopt a bright-line rule that an inventory search is improper if any deviation from standard police policy exists. However, our courts have not adopted this approach, and we are not compelled to do so in this case. It is worth reiterating that “[b]y performing inventories at the scene and by failing to follow the written policies of their departments, officers risk suppression of any evidence recovered during such inventories.” Jackson v. State, 890 N.E.2d 11, 19 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008). Moreover, IMPD’s continued failure to abide by its own policy for impounding and inventorying the contents of vehicles erodes the public’s confidence in our law enforcement officers and in rule of law, in general.]
However, our supreme court has stated that “so that as long as the impoundment is pursuant to the community caretaking function and is not a mere subterfuge for investigation, the coexistence of investigatory and caretaking motives is permissible.” Fair, 627 N.E.2d at 436 n.7. See also Moore v. State, 637 N.E.2d 816, 820 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004) (holding that the fact that an officer’s suspicion arose during the course of an inventory search did not render the search pretexual), trans. denied.
Officer Lantzer’s decision to impound the truck was unquestionably reasonable [because defendant had no valid driver’s license or registration for the truck, which was displaying a license plate registered to a different vehicle]. No evidence suggests that when Officer Huddleston began the search at Officer Lantzer’s request that he was looking for evidence of a crime. [Citation omitted.] The State is also fortunate that the photographs taken of the interior of the truck by the evidence technician provided a photographic record of its contents. For all of these reasons, we conclude that Officers Huddleston’s and Lantzer’s failure to list all items found in the truck in the officer’s personal notebook as required by IMPD policy, did not, in itself, render the search pretextual, and therefore, the search was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
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Officer Lantzer’s decision to impound the truck was indisputably proper, and therefore, pursuant to IMPD policy, the officers were required to perform an inventory search. The search was also minimally intrusive under these circumstances. For these reasons, and the reasons the inventory search was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, Officer Lantzer’s decision to impound and conduct an inventory search of the truck Whitley was driving was reasonable under Article 1, Section 11. [Citations omitted.] Once again, however, as with our Fourth Amendment analysis, we remind all law enforcement officials that substantial compliance with administrative policies is called for if they desire searches to withstand review by the courts and, more importantly, if they expect citizens to have confidence in law enforcement officials and in rule of law, in general.
Conclusion
The search of the truck was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 11. We therefore affirm the trial court’s denial of Whitley’s motion to suppress.
Affirmed.
Vaidik, C.J., and Barnes, J., concur.