Officers Had Probable Cause to Arrest Defendant for Constructive Possession of Drugs

State v. Dickey, Minn.Ct.App., 3/11/2013.  Officers obtained a warrant to search the residence that Ms. Dickey shared with her boyfriend, J.A. for evidence of methamphetamine.  The search warrant application did not mention Ms. Dickey, and the search warrant did not authorize the search of any vehicles.  J.A. was home during the raid.  He was apparently shooting the breeze with the officers while the search was underway.  Among other things, he told them that he and Ms. Dickey shared the bedroom where the cops had just found drug paraphernalia, drying marijuana, and a marijuana grow operation in the closet; and he just happened to mention that Ms. Dickey was driving a Dodge Dakota and should be along momentarily.

With that, an officer decided that Ms. Dickey was in constructive possession of the drugs found in the shared bedroom.  So, he called up another officer and told him to stop the Dakota, which he did, and to arrest Ms. Dickey, which he did.  That officer informed Ms. Dickey that there was a search warrant being executed back at her place and that the drug sniffing dog was on its way to check out the Dakota.  The officer then casually inquired if she had any contraband in the Dakota; she said that she did, that she had some meth in her purse.  The officer seized the vehicle (with the purse still in it), then got a search warrant to peak into the purse.

Ms. Dickey challenged the drugs found in her purse as the result of the warrantless seizure of the Dakota, saying that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest her.  The court of appeals agreed with the district court that the officer had probable cause to conclude that Ms. Dickey was in constructive possession of the drugs back at the house:

A police officer has probable cause to arrest a suspect for constructive possession of a controlled substance when the officer is presented with objective facts that would give rise to an honest and strong suspicion that there is a strong probability that the suspect was exercising or had exercised dominion or control over the controlled substance.

 The court also concluded, as had the district court, that the officers had probable cause to make a warrantless felony arrest of Ms. Dickey, and thus the stop of the Dakota was reasonable.