Rush, C.J.
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Here, police impounded Defendant’s car from a parking lot because he was arrested for driving while suspended, the registered owner (his sister) was not present, and the car’s windshield and bumper were damaged. Police then began to inventory the car and found a handgun inside, resulting in Defendant being charged with, and ultimately convicted of, carrying a handgun without a license.
Although such discretionary impounds may be permissible as part of law enforcement’s community-caretaking function, they require proof of, among other things, an established departmental procedure that authorized the impoundment. Fair v. State, 627 N.E.2d 427, 433 (Ind. 1993). Here, the State presented only the officer’s bare assertion that such a policy existed and that his actions were consistent with the policy—but just as in Fair, there was no evidence of the particulars of that policy. We therefore hold that the State failed to prove an established departmental procedure as Fair requires, and thus failed to prove that the impoundment was reasonable. Consequently, the search that followed was unreasonable and the handgun obtained pursuant to the invalid search was inadmissible. We accordingly reverse Defendant’s handgun conviction.
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In view of [discretionary impounds’] potential for pretext, Fair set forth a strict two-prong standard for proving that the decision to impound a person’s vehicle without a warrant was reasonable:
(1) Consistent with objective standards of sound policing, an officer must believe the vehicle poses a threat of harm to the community or is itself imperiled; and
(2) The officer’s decision to impound adhered to established departmental routine or regulation.
Id. at 433. … Here, we focus solely on Fair’s second prong, which we find dispositive: whether the State proved that Officer Raisovich’s decision to impound Wilford’s car was consistent with an established IMPD policy or practice.
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… Fair did not expressly state what evidence—written policies or officer testimony—would prove established policy. The State contends Officer Raisovich’s testimony alone satisfied its burden of proving that impoundment was pursuant to established departmental procedure and therefore reasonable. While the State is correct that we do not require evidence of written procedures, we do require more than conclusory testimony from officers. …
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Officer testimony provides adequate evidence of departmental impound policy if it outlines the department’s standard impound procedure and specifically describes how the decision to impound adhered to departmental policy or procedure—as opposed to “an officer’s generalized assertion” as Fair held insufficient. Here, Officer Raisovich’s testimony provided several reasons why he decided to tow Wilford’s car, but he failed to specify how his decision conformed to an established departmental impound policy:
Q. Tell me why this vehicle was being inventoried?
A. Uh, because it was being towed because of the unsafe condition of it and the fact that uh, that Mr., uh, uh, Wilford was being arrested and he was not the owner of the vehicle.
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Q. Tell me, yeah, tell me again?
A. The condition of the vehicle. I don’t believe it was safe to operate on the street because there was uh, you know, danger from the rear window breaks and like I said being in a rear end collision uh, the totality of the thing, he didn’t own the vehicle uh, he was being placed under arrest. So uh, with our procedures in that situation, we towed the vehicle.
Simply put, that passing reference to “our procedures in that situation” fails to “provide[] the particulars of the policy” as Fair requires. 627 N.E.2d at 436. … In sum, absent more detail, Officer Raisovich’s testimony provided inadequate evidence of established departmental routine or regulation, making impoundment unreasonable under Fair’s second prong and rendering the handgun found during the subsequent inventory search inadmissible “poisoned fruit.”
Our conclusion that this impoundment was unreasonable applies under the Indiana Constitution as well.…
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We reiterate our holding in Fair—impoundment under the community-caretaking function is reasonable only pursuant to established police routine or regulations, and generalized assertions about such a policy are inadequate to make that showing. Since the State failed to prove an established police routine or regulation supporting impoundment under these circumstances, the impoundment and subsequent inventory were unreasonable. We therefore reverse Wilford’s conviction for carrying a handgun without a license.
Dickson, Rucker, David, Massa, JJ., concur.