Search and seizure – Vehicle – Impoundment

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Where a defendant’s motion to suppress a gun found in an impounded vehicle was allowed based on a U.S. District Court judge’s finding that the “sole” motive for the search was investigatory, that finding was clearly erroneous, so the suppression order must be reversed.

“This case concerns the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant and probable cause requirements. In February 2023, police officers arrested Charlie Vick in a parking lot for domestic assault and battery involving a firearm. Shortly after his arrest, the officers learned that the car that he had been driving, which remained in the lot, was uninsured, unregistered, and had invalid license plates. They then waited until Vick’s uncle attempted to drive away the car and stopped him almost immediately after he exited the parking lot. Following the stop, the officers impounded the car and conducted an inventory search before it was towed. The search turned up a gun, leading to Vick’s federal charge for being a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1). The district court concluded that the officers had staged the impounding and that their ‘sole’ motive for the search was investigatory. It thus ruled that the evidence found during the search — the gun — had to be suppressed.

“The government appeals, arguing that the district court should not have considered the subjective motives of the officers, but that, regardless, the court’s ‘sole’ motive finding was clearly erroneous. We agree with the government on this last point and thus reverse the district court’s grant of the motion to suppress. …

“We thus proceed to the district court’s ‘sole motivation’ factual finding, which the government has conceded we should review for clear error in this case. In making this finding, the court was understandably concerned about the officers’ decision to permit an unlicensed individual to drive an unregistered, uninsured car on a highway, with a young child on board, even if only for a short distance. The court viewed this decision as inconsistent with the overarching purpose of the Towing Policy: public safety. The court also noted that the officers violated several other aspects of the Towing Policy. In its view, those actions, collectively, undermined any claim that the officers were motivated by non-investigatory concerns.

“But even applying clear-error review, we must conclude that the record as a whole cannot support the ‘sole motivation’ finding, at least as our precedent has defined ‘sole.’ As we have stressed, a decision to impound is lawful, even if officers have an investigatory motive, so long as they are also acting to fulfill their community caretaking role. … The district court was undoubtedly correct in concluding that the officers had an investigatory motive that morning. But officers are not legally required to be motivated exclusively by a non-investigatory purpose in deciding to impound a vehicle.

“Here, it is undisputed that, at the time the officers decided to impound the Altima, they knew the key facts that made the car subject to impoundment under the community caretaking exception. To recap, those facts were that the Altima was unregistered and uninsured, with invalid plates, and thus posed a safety risk because it could not be legally driven. It is also undisputed that the officers were acting upon those facts. At the hearing, the officers testified that their goal was to ‘mak[e] sure the car was removed safely from the parking lot and didn’t break the law.’ And the district court made no factual finding that the officers’ testimony was not credible on that point. Although the court did emphasize the significance of the officers’ investigatory motives, it offered no basis for concluding that the officers had no subjective motivation to prevent an unlicensed driver from taking an unregistered, uninsured vehicle with invalid plates across state lines. Thus, the record compels a conclusion that the officers were not ‘solely’ motivated by an investigatory purpose. …

“To sum up, the undisputed facts demonstrate that the officers had a valid, non-investigatory basis to impound the Altima. And there is no evidence in the record that the officers were not actually motivated by that community caretaking concern. To the contrary, the officers testified at the evidentiary hearing that their primary aim was to safely secure the inoperable vehicle. Although the record amply supports the district court’s finding that the officers also had a strong, investigatory motive for their actions, our precedent is clear that an investigatory motive does not erase or render legally irrelevant the officers’ community caretaking motives. Thus, we must conclude that the district court’s finding that the officers ‘sole motivation’ was investigatory was clearly erroneous, and the impound decision was therefore lawful. …

“We now turn to the inventory search. …

“… The officers undisputedly had a community caretaking reason for conducting the inventory search: It followed ‘as a matter of course’ from the impound decision (indeed, they were required by the Inventory Policy to undertake the inventory search once they impounded the car). … And, as we have already explained, the officers’ predicate decision to impound the Altima was also supported by a valid community caretaking concern. …

“Thus, although the record amply supports the district court’s finding that the officers appeared to be acting with a strong investigatory purpose, we cannot conclude that investigation of a crime was their sole purpose. … It follows that, like the decision to impound, the officers’ subsequent inventory search of the Altima complied with the Fourth Amendment.”

United States v. Vick (Lawyers Weekly No. 01-164-25) (27 pages) (Rikelman, J.) Appealed from a decision by Guzman, J., in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Donald C. Lockhart, with whom Joshua S. Levy and Leah B. Foley were on brief, for the United States; Richard J. Farrell Jr., with whom Farrell Fernandez, P.C. was on brief, for the defendant-appellee (Docket No. 24-1721) (July 30, 2025).

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