Jose Pineda v. the People of the State of Colorado

Summary

The court affirmed the judgment denying Pineda’s motion to suppress, but did so on the alternative ground that the heroin was discovered during a valid inventory search. The court held that the vehicle was lawfully taken into custody, the officers followed departmental procedures, and the search was not shown to be a pretext for investigation. The court declined to decide whether the search-incident-to-arrest exception independently justified the search under the then-current vehicle-search rule.