State v. Evans

RAKER, Judge. In these two cases Respondents were physically detained by the police on the basis of probable cause to believe that each had participated in an illegal drug transaction. In both instances, the police searched Respondents while they were detained and released them with the intention of later charging them with violation of the controlled dangerous substance laws of this State. We shall hold that both detentions were lawful arrests under Maryland law, that the searches incident to those arrests were consistent with the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and consequently that the Circuit Court for Baltimore City properly denied Respondents’ motions to suppress.

I. These two cases present the identical issue for appeal. The State filed a petition for writ of certiorari in both Respon ⁵⁰⁰ dents’ cases based upon the central question of what constitutes an arrest under Maryland law. Respondents argue that the disputed evidence in their cases should have been suppressed because the police obtained the evidence by conducting searches that were illegal because they were not incident to a lawful arrest. The crucial contention of Evans and Sykes-Bey is that their initial detentions, on June 9, 1994 and February 16, 1994, respectively, did not constitute arrests under Maryland law and therefore the searches conducted were unlawful.

Because of this exact identity of the central issue debated by the parties, we have consolidated Respondents’ two cases for purposes of deciding these appeals. The relevant facts of the two cases are set forth as follows: A. State v. Evans In June of 1994, Officer Kenneth Rowell was involved with other members of the Baltimore City Police Department Violent Crimes Task Force in an undercover operation known as “Operation Mid-East.” The goal of Operation Mid-East was to identify and combat street-level drug transactions. In accordance with that goal, once the police had probable cause to believe a suspect had engaged in an illegal drug transaction, that suspect was not taken to the police station and processed. Instead, the police detained the suspect, ascertained the suspect’s identity and address, performed an outstanding warrant check, conducted a search of the suspect’s person, seized any drugs or currency, and, finally, released the suspect.

The Baltimore City Police employed this procedure to protect the integrity of the ongoing undercover operation, later conducting a “mass sweep”, of arrests of the suspects once the operation had concluded. 1 DEFENSE COUNSEL: [W]hy in the world [would] a person that’s out on the street in Baltimore that has drugs on him, why would you take a person's picture and just let a person waltz off if that were [the] situation? ... ⁵⁰¹ OFFICER ROWELL: Because it’s the make-up of the operation.... The operation is designed to buy drugs, to buy as much drugs as we can within a specific period of time. Then once we've accomplished that, to get the paperwork together for these subjects and come back on a later date and try to arrest them all on one day or as many as we can on one day ... to make an impact in the area[,] to let present, future and past drug dealers know that we’re serious about cleaning up the areas, and we're trying to make an impact in these areas. At 7:45 p.m. on June 9, 1994, Officer Rowell was involved in Operation Mid-East in the vicinity of Monument and Port Streets in Baltimore City.

Officer Rowell had been outfitted with a “Kel Set,” or body wire. Although the record is not clear as to who approached whom, at that time a conversation took place between Officer Rowell and Respondent Dwight Evans. Rowell testified that he asked Evans if he was working and, if so, what Evans had. According to Officer Rowell, Evans responded that he had “dimes of coke.” Rowell requested a dime.

Officer Rowell then accompanied Evans as the pair walked east on Monument Street. At that point, Rowell testified that Evans “reached into his rear end, down inside his pants, removed the cocaine, [and] handed me one.” In exchange, Officer Rowell handed Evans a ten dollar bill. The serial number of the currency had previously been photocopied by the police for the purpose of subsequent identification. After this transaction, the pair separated.

Officer Rowell continued along Monument Street toward Milton Avenue. After Officer Rowell assured himself that no one was in the vicinity, he transmitted a description of Evans to a nearby “identification team” composed of task force members. Approximately five to ten minutes later, the team stopped Evans. Officer Rowell, who had entered his automobile and repeated his description of the suspect, drove by the area where Evans had been detained.

Rowell confirmed that the person detained by the identification team was in fact the same individual from whom he had purchased the cocaine. After the confirmation of Evans’s identity as the suspected drug dealer, a member or members of the technical team ⁵⁰² searched Evans. Because the identification team had difficulty locating any suspected controlled substances, someone again contacted Officer Rowell. Rowell indicated that Evans had taken the cocaine from his “rear area.” Based on this information, the identification team searched Evans again.

The two searches eventually produced $163.00 in United States currency, including the ten dollar bill that Officer Rowell had earlier handed Evans, as well as nine green-topped vials containing cocaine. Evans was given a receipt for the seized money and photographed by the technical team. Police procedure pursuant to Operation Mid-East required that a suspect verify his or her identity before being released. Accordingly, the police called Evans’s father, who came to the area and confirmed his son’s identity.

At that time, the police did not transport Evans to the police station, nor did they formally charge him, nor did they take Evans before a District Court Commissioner. Rather, the officers apparently followed an internal procedure whereby one of them completed a document entitled “Investigated and Released.” 2 Evans was then released. On July 5, 1994, the Grand Jury for Baltimore City indicted Evans on three counts: distribution of cocaine, in violation of Maryland Code (1957, 1996 Repl.Vol., 1998 Supp.) Article 27, § 286; 3 possession of cocaine with an intent to distribute, in violation of § 286; and possession of cocaine, in violation of § 287. Evans filed a motion to suppress all the evidence seized by the police.

The suppression motion, heard in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City by Judge John N. Prevas, ⁵⁰³ was based primarily on the ground that the nine vials of cocaine were not lawfully seized because Evans had not been arrested. The trial court denied the motion: I think that your use and the officer’s use of the word “arrest” is a word of art at this point because basically it was a detention and [Evans] was not free to go until they secured his identification. So, it really was, in fact, an arrest for Fourth Amendment purposes. For Fourth Amendment purposes, it’s not necessary that [Evans] be taken to the District Court Commissioner, given a statement of charges, and sent to a Commissioner for processing ... for bail in order for it to be an arrest.

At trial, Evans was convicted of distribution of cocaine and possession of cocaine with an intent to distribute. Evans was sentenced to a term of incarceration of fourteen years, ten years without the possibility of parole, for distribution of a controlled dangerous substance and to a consecutive term of incarceration of five years for possession with an intent to distribute. Evans noted a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. B. State v. Sykes-Bey Several months before the incident that led to the arrest of Respondent Evans, Officer Rowell was teamed with Officer Denise Wilkes.

The pair assisted other members of the Baltimore City Police Department Violent Crimes Task Force in executing “Operation Midway,” an undercover drug sting set up in much the same manner as that of Operation Mid-East. The remaining members of the police task force were divided into two groups: surveillance officers in a van who would videotape transactions involving Rowell and Wilkes, and an arrest team, or “identification team,” that identified and searched the suspects after the occurrence of a suspected drug transaction. On February 16, 1994, Officers Rowell and Wilkes went to the vicinity of Barclay and 24th Streets in Baltimore City to buy illegal drugs. Wilkes was told by the surveillance team to ⁵⁰⁴ approach a man, later identified as Lorenzo Meeks, who was standing on the corner of Barclay and 24th Streets.

Officer Wilkes asked Meeks if he was “working,” to which Meeks responded, “What you want?” Wilkes replied, “I want some coke.” Meeks declared that his inventory consisted only of readily smokeable rock or crack cocaine, as opposed to powder cocaine. 4 By this point, Respondent Charles Sykes-Bey had joined Meeks and Officer Wilkes. Meeks either stated to or inquired of Sykes-Bey, ‘You got powder.” Officer Wilkes was then asked how much powder cocaine she wanted; Wilkes answered that she wanted “two dimes.” Sykes-Bey retorted, “Oh no, I thought she wanted some weight, I ain’t going to go out and dig in no bag for no dime.” 5 Officer Wilkes, now joined by Officer Rowell, indicated to Sykes-Bey that she couldn’t afford to buy “weight;” hence, she decided instead to purchase two dimes of rock cocaine from Meeks. Apparently dissatisfied by this turn of events in the competitive marketplace, Sykes-Bey commented, “Thanks a lot for nothing.” After the purchase, Officers Wilkes and Rowell walked away from Meeks and Sykes-Bey. Officer Wilkes transmitted a description of both Meeks and Sykes-Bey to the surveillance team, describing the latter as “the guy in the purple with black tennis shoes on and blue hoodie—all he is dealing is weight.” Based on this description, surveillance team Officer ⁵⁰⁵ Thomas Marucci ordered identification team Officer David Brendel to stop and detain Sykes-Bey.

Officer Brendel stopped Sykes-Bey as instructed, and ascertained his identity, address, and birth date. Officer Brendel then searched Sykes-Bey and seized $134.00 in United States currency. Officer Brendel photographed the suspect and wrote Sykes-Bey a receipt for the seized currency. The officer then released Sykes-Bey.

In the meantime, another officer or officers had detained and searched Meeks and recovered the marked money Officer Wilkes had given Meeks in exchange for the two dimes of cocaine, as well as twenty-four baggies of cocaine. In addition, Officer Robert Maglia had recovered a plastic bag containing eleven vials of cocaine from behind a billboard that Sykes-Bey had located immediately before handing an unidentified object to an unidentified woman. 6 On March 14, 1994, the Grand Jury for Baltimore City returned a three count indictment against Sykes-Bey: attempted distribution of cocaine, in violation of § 286; possession of cocaine with an intent to distribute, in violation of § 286; and possession of cocaine, in violation of § 287. Claiming the currency seized by Officer Brendel was the product of an unlawful search, Sykes-Bey filed a motion to suppress that evidence. The Circuit Court for Baltimore City denied that motion.

As in Evans, Judge Prevas rejected the argument that the search of Sykes-Bey was constitutionally infirm because it did not follow a lawful arrest. Sykes-Bey was tried by a jury. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on any of the three charges and Judge Prevas declared a mistrial. ⁵⁰⁶ Subsequently, Sykes-Bey was charged by criminal information with three additional counts for the incident arising on February 16, 1994: conspiracy to distribute cocaine, conspiracy to possess cocaine with an intent to distribute, and conspiracy to possess cocaine, all in violation of § 290. Sykes-Bey was convicted by a jury on all six counts.

The trial court sentenced Sykes-Bey to an eighteen year term of imprisonment, ten years without the possibility of parole, for possession of cocaine with an intent to distribute and to two concurrent eighteen year terms of incarceration for attempted distribution of cocaine and for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. 7 Sykes-Bey noted a timely appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. C. A divided panel of the Court of Special Appeals reversed Evans’s convictions, holding that the initial detention of Evans on June 9, 1994 was not an arrest, that the full search conducted by the police incident to that detention was therefore unconstitutional, and, consequently, that the trial court erred in denying Evans’s motion to suppress. Evans v. State, 113 Md.App. 347 , 688 A.2d 28 (1997). While acknowledging that Evans’s detention was a seizure for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, the intermediate court rejected the State’s argument that “every actual seizure of the person that is more intrusive than a Terry stop is ipso facto an actual arrest.” Id. at 356 , 688 A.2d at 33 .

The majority concluded instead that a “degree of intrusiveness ‘beyond Terry ’ ... does not necessarily mean that the State has satisfied the arrest requirement when it seeks to justify [a search] on the basis of an arrest.” Id. at 357 , 688 A.2d at 33 (quoting 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 5.1(a), at 10 (3d ed.1996) for support: “Courts do (and, indeed, should). ⁵⁰⁷ take a somewhat different approach when it is the prosecution which is contending that an arrest was made at a particular time, so as to justify a search.... ”). Having set out to determine the required predicate to initiate a warrantless search incident to a lawful arrest, the Court of Special Appeals concluded that the United States Supreme Court insist[s] not only on the fact of a formal arrest as the indispensable predicate for a search incident to lawful arrest but also insist[s] that the arrest be “custodial” in nature and not simply a processing at the scene of the arrest. Id., 688 A.2d at 33 (emphases added). Finally, the majority turned to a review of Maryland law on arrest and stated that “Maryland case law has ... been even more explicit than has the Supreme Court in delineating precisely what is an arrest for purposes of justifying a Fourth Amendment search incident to lawful arrest.” Id. at 359 , 688 A.2d at 34 .

After declaring that “[a]ll of the Maryland cases agree that an important factor in deciding whether an arrest actually took place is whether the detaining officers intended to arrest the detainee,” id. at 360-61 , 688 A.2d at 35 , the majority held: What is required [for a lawful arrest and search incident thereto] is that there be 1) on the part of the arresting officer an actual subjective intent to arrest the suspect and 2) some communication of that fact to the suspect.... What we hold was lacking in this case, however, was 1) any indication on the part of the officers to arrest [Evans] and 2) any communication of the fact of arrest to [him]. Id. at 361 n. 7, 688 A.2d at 35 n. 7 (emphasis added). The dissent reasoned that the majority had incorrectly defined an arrest to be “not only the taking, seizing and the detention of another, but also the placing of formal charges.” Id. at 369 , 688 A.2d at 39 .

On the contrary, because “[n]o one can seriously contend that [Evans] was not ‘arrested’ by the police when he was stopped and detained and then subjected to two searches ...,” id. at 376 , 688 A.2d at 42 , the dissent believed the analysis of Evans’s appeal ⁵⁰⁸ should be confined to a determination of whether, at the time of the police restriction of Evans’s liberty, the police had the necessary probable cause to permit them to arrest and to make a reasonable search, or whether the search was justified by some other exception to the warrant requirement. Id., 688 A.2d at 42-43 . In an unreported opinion, the Court of Special Appeals also reversed Sykes-Bey’s convictions, explicitly relying upon its decision in Evans and holding that the circuit court erred in denying Sykes-Bey’s motion to suppress. The State petitioned this Court for certiorari in both cases.

We granted certiorari to resolve the identical question presented by the State in its petitions for certiorari: What constitutes an “arrest” for the purpose of applying the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement? 8 II. Before this Court, Evans recognizes that the right of the police to search a suspect incident to a lawful arrest follows automatically from the arrest. See United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 225-26 , 94 S.Ct. 467, 472 , 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973). Although he concedes the police had sufficient probable cause to arrest him at the time of the June 9, 1994 incident, Evans argues that the police did not in fact execute such an arrest pursuant to Maryland law.

From that premise, he argues that the search subsequent to the nonexistent arrest was unconstitutional, that any evidence seized during that search should not have been admitted into evidence against Evans at trial. ⁵⁰⁹ To support his argument that the police seizure on June 9, 1994 was not an arrest, Evans notes that the police never issued him a summons or any other type of charging document. Evans cites several cases previously decided by this Court for the proposition that the right to arrest is not the equivalent of actually executing that arrest. Rather, the record must demonstrate that a lawful arrest was consummated. Evans then reiterates the decisive theme of the decision by the intermediate appellate court in its reported opinion: a lawful arrest under Maryland law requires the subjective intent by the police to actually make an arrest at or near the time the suspect is initially detained.

The officers in this case admitted on cross-examination that they had no intent to arrest Evans at the time of the incident. Furthermore, they testified that Evans was not arrested during his initial detention nor, consequently, was their search of him incident to an arrest. Evans argues, therefore, that the encounter between Evans and the police did not constitute an arrest. 9 Sykes-Bey presents essentially the same argument as Evans. 10 Arguing that he was not arrested by the police on ⁵¹⁰ February 16, 1994, Sykes-Bey notes that over one month elapsed between the search and the subsequent arrest. He argues this delay rendered the search unconstitutional because the search was not contemporaneous with the arrest.

According to Evans and Sykes-Bey, the judgments of the Court of Special Appeals should be affirmed. The State makes the same legal argument in both cases. The State takes issue with the rationale of the Court of Special Appeals in creating three categories of police-citizen encounters which implicate the Fourth Amendment: stops, arrests, and custodial arrests. The State contends that Maryland law and federal constitutional law recognize only two such categories: stops and arrests.

The State asserts that Evans and Sykes-Bey were arrested when detained and searched by the Baltimore City Police. First, the State contends that the police properly detained Evans and Sykes-Bey based on probable cause that each had participated in an illegal drug transaction. Second, the State argues that the police had the requisite intent to prosecute the two detainees, albeit at a later date. Accordingly, Evans and Sykes-Bey were validly arrested while detained and searched by the police, and the searches incident to those arrests survive constitutional scrutiny.

Finally, the State maintains that the Court of Special Appeals created an unworkable framework for determining when a lawful arrest has occurred under Maryland law. The State argues that the intermediate appellate court’s rigid focus on the occurrence of “booking” or formal charging as an inviola ⁵¹¹ ble prerequisite to a lawful arrest is unsupported by Maryland law.

III

The singular question we need resolve in the instant cases actually presents two fundamental and distinct issues. The first is whether the police officers’ encounters with Evans and Sykes-Bey each constituted an arrest under the law of Maryland. The main contention raised by both Respondents—that under Maryland law their detentions by the police in these cases were not valid arrests, and as such, the subsequent searches were constitutionally infirm—can essentially be addressed by resolving this first issue. The second issue arises only if we determine that the police lawfully arrested Respondents at the time of their initial detentions.

If so, we must then decide whether the officers’ searches of Evans and Sykes-Bey were justifiable under the “search incident to arrest” exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment. Related to this, Respondent Sykes-Bey asserts that even if his initial police detention was a valid arrest under Maryland law, United States Supreme Court precedent nevertheless compels the conclusion that the search in his case was invalid under the Fourth Amendment. Our analysis addresses these distinct issues and contentions in turn.

IV

A police officer may make a warrantless arrest for a felony when the officer has probable cause to believe that a felony has been committed and that the arrestee committed it. See Article 27, § 594B(e); Collins v. State, 322 Md. 675, 679 , 589 A.2d 479, 481 (1991) (noting that Article 27, § 594B is declarative of the Maryland common law governing warrant-less arrests). 11 For purposes of our decision, the members of ⁵¹² the “identification teams” of Operations Mid-East and Midway had probable cause to believe that Evans and Sykes-Bey, respectively, had committed a number of possible drug-related felonies. Hence, Respondents’ initial detentions by the police were lawful: Evans concedes the existence of probable cause; as to Sykes-Bey, the trial judge made a finding of probable cause that remains undisturbed on his appeal. See supra note 10.

The threshold issue in these cases, however, is not whether the police had the legal authority to arrest Evans and Sykes-Bey but whether the initial detentions of Respondents constituted arrests under Maryland law. 12 Resolution of this initial issue depends in turn on the determinative question of whether the release of Evans and Sykes-Bey by the Baltimore City Police without the act or intent of immediately charging them with criminal activity was inconsistent with the required elements of an arrest under Maryland law. In Bouldin v. State, 276 Md. 511 , 350 A.2d 130 (1976), we discussed at length the requirements for an arrest under Maryland law. Writing for the Court, Chief Judge ⁵¹³ Murphy set forth the essential elements of an arrest under Maryland law: [A]n arrest is the taking, seizing, or detaining of the person of another (1) by touching or putting hands on him; (2) or by any act that indicates an intention to take him into custody and that subjects him to the actual control and will of the person making the arrest; or (3) by the consent of the person to be arrested. 5 Am.Jur.2d Arrest § 1 (1962). It is said that four elements must ordinarily coalesce to constitute a legal arrest: (1) an intent to arrest; (2) under real or pretended authority; (3) accompanied by a seizure or detention of the person; and (4) which is understood by the person arrested. 6A C.J.S. Arrest § 42 (1975); Creamer, The Law of Arrest, Search and Seizure, ch.3, at 49 (1968).

Id. at 515-16, 350 A.2d at 133 . Immediately following this passage, the Court added: We have defined an arrest in general terms as the detention of a known or suspected offender for the purpose of prosecuting him for a crime. McChan v. State, 238 Md. 149 , 207 A.2d 632 (1965); Cornish v. State, 215 Md. 64 , 137 A.2d 170 (1957). Id. at 516, 350 A.2d at 133 (emphasis added). 13 Notwithstanding this gratuitous language in Bouldin and its incantation in a number of Maryland cases since, see, e.g., Barnhard v. State, 325 Md. 602, 611 , 602 A.2d 701, 705-06 (1992); Little v. State, 300 Md. 485, 509-10 , 479 A.2d 903, 915 (1984); Jones v. State, ⁵¹⁴ 111 Md.App. 456 , 467 n. 3, 681 A.2d 1190 , 1196 n. 3 (1996); Kennedy v. State, 44 Md.App. 662, 667 , 410 A.2d 1097, 1100 (1980), this Court has never held that a valid arrest in Maryland requires of the arresting officer an intent to prosecute the arrestee for the crime believed to have been committed.

Despite Bouldin’s reference, in dicta, to an intent to prosecute within the Maryland common law definition of arrest, neither that case nor any other case decided by this Court has rested upon the determination that an intent to prosecute is a prerequisite to a valid arrest. Put simply, whether the officer intends that a detention lead to a prosecution has no bearing on whether an arrest has occurred. 14 There is no question in these cases that Evans and Sykes-Bey were seized by the police prior to the search which uncovered the evidence that Respondents sought to suppress. Respondents argue, however, and the Court of Special Appeals agreed, that there was required. on the part of the officers an intent to prosecute, which intent did not exist because the police did not intend to formally charge either Evans or Sykes-Bey until a date much later than the initial detention and search incident thereto. Neither Evans nor Sykes-Bey argues that the police wholly lacked the intent to prosecute; their argument is solely that the intent to prosecute had to be manifested contemporaneously with the initial seizure. ⁵¹⁵ We hold that for a lawful arrest in Maryland for the commission of a felony, a police officer must have probable cause to believe the suspect has committed a felony and must either physically restrain the suspect or otherwise subject the suspect to his or her custody and control.

We reject Respondents’ argument that failure of the police to initiate the formal criminal charging process at or near the time of the initial detention precludes a valid arrest under Maryland law. This State’s law of arrest extends no talismanic significance to the act or intention of initiating the formal booking process. On the contrary, formally charging a suspect is not a sine qua non to a lawful arrest in Maryland. In accordance with the undercover investigation procedures in these cases, the police members of the “identification teams,” acting upon probable cause, both physically restrained Evans and Sykes-Bey and subjected each of them to their police custody and control.

In the case of Evans, the police stopped him as a suspect and required him to produce identification. When he was unable to produce satisfactory identification, the police held Evans for a significant length of time until his father could adequately identify him. During that time period, the police searched and photographed Evans, while also filling out an identification form. Respondent Sykes-Bey was treated in similar fashion by the Baltimore City Police.

It is thus beyond question that the initial detentions of Respondents rose to the level of either a physical restraint or a subjugation to police custody and control. We therefore conclude that the initial detentions of Respondents by the police constituted arrests. Even if they were not formally arrested until much later, Evans and Sykes-Bey were nonetheless arrested on June 9, 1994 and February 16, 1994, respectively. 15 See United States v. Hernandez, 825 F.2d 846 , ⁵¹⁶ 852 (5th Cir.1987) (“A custodial arrest based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the fourth amendment whether the arrest is de facto or formal.” (citing Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 67 , 88 S.Ct. 1889, 1905 , 20 L.Ed.2d 917 (1968))). V. A. In the present cases, the State justifies the seizure of evidence from Evans and Sykes-Bey as a permissible search incident to a lawful arrest.

The United States Supreme Court has long recognized the authority of the police to search an arrestee incident to a lawful arrest. United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 225-26 , 94 S.Ct. 467, 472 , 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973). The search incident to arrest doctrine is one of the established exceptions to the general principle that the search of a person by a state agent without a warrant is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, and therefore invalid. See Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 185 , 110 S.Ct. 2793, 2799-2800 , 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990).

As Judge Cardozo observed, writing for the Court of Appeals of New York: If immunity [to a warrantless search] is to be conceived of as a rule, there is one exception that has been established as firmly as the rule itself. The government may search the person of the accused when legally arrested to discover and seize the fruit or evidences of crime. People v. Chiagles, 237 N.Y. 193 , 142 N.E. 583, 583 (N.Y.1923) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). ⁵¹⁷ In Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 , 89 S.Ct. 2034 , 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), the Supreme Court synthesized the prior case law of that Court and held: When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape---- In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee’s person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. Id. at 762-63 , 89 S.Ct. at 2040 .

The Court’s decision in Chimel left open the significant question of whether an arresting officer must have an objectively reasonable suspicion that an arrestee possesses either a weapon or evidence of a crime to sustain an unqualified search incident to an arrest. 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 5.2(a), at 65 (3d ed.1996). That question was resolved by the Court in Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 , 94 S.Ct. 467 . In Robinson , the Supreme Court rejected the argument that the Fourth Amendment requires a case-by-case determination of whether it was reasonable for the police to suspect that an arrestee possessed a weapon or evidence of a crime at the time of the search incident to an arrest. Id. at 235 , 94 S.Ct. at 477 .

The Court announced a bright-line rule, concluding: The authority to search the person incident to a lawful custodial arrest, while based upon the need to disarm and to discover evidence, does not depend on what a court may later decide was the probability in a particular arrest situation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found upon the person of the suspect. A custodial arrest of a suspect based upon probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search incident to arrest requires no additional justification. It is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and we hold that in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amend- ⁵¹⁸ merit, but is also a “reasonable” search under that Amendment. Id., 94 S.Ct. at 477 (emphases added).

See Ricks v. State, 322 Md. 183, 192 , 586 A.2d 740, 744 (1991) (“Computation of the probability of harm to the arresting officer is not a relevant inquiry____”). It might thus be stated that the sole prerequisite for application of the “search incident to lawful arrest” exception is the existence of a lawful arrest. The Supreme Court itself has articulated no greater a standard: “The fact of a lawful arrest, standing alone, authorizes a search.” Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31, 35 , 99 S.Ct. 2627, 2631 , 61 L.Ed.2d 343 (1979) (citing Robinson, 414 U.S. at 235 , 94 S.Ct. at 477 ). The question then becomes how the lawfulness of an arrest is to be determined.

It is well-established that when a warrantless arrest is made by a law enforcement official, acting pursuant to local or state authority, the validity of that arrest is determined by state law, absent any federal statute to the contrary. Stanley v. State, 230 Md. 188, 191 , 186 A.2d 478, 480 (1962) (citing United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581, 589 , 68 S.Ct. 222, 226 , 92 L.Ed. 210 (1948).) See DeFillippo, 443 U.S. at 36 , 99 S.Ct. at 2631 ; Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 305 , 78 S.Ct. 1190, 1193-94 , 2 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1958); Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 15 , and n. 5, 68 S.Ct. 367, 370 , and n. 5, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948); United States v. Mejias, 552 F.2d 435, 444 (2nd Cir.1977); Amores v. State, 816 S.W.2d 407, 413 (Tex.Crim.App.1991) (en banc). Consistent with the authority of a police officer to make a warrantless arrest for the commission of a felony based upon probable cause, Maryland law has long recognized the right of a police officer to make a full search of an arrestee incident to that arrest. Gross v. State, 235 Md. 429, 440 , 201 A.2d 808, 814 (1964); Edwardsen v. State, 231 Md. 332, 337 , 190 A.2d 84, 86 (1963); Callahan v. State, 163 Md. 298, 301 , 162 A. 856, 857-58 (1932); Lawrence v. State, 103 Md. 17, 37 , 63 A. 96, 104 (1906).

In addition, we have consistently interpreted this principle of Maryland law to coincide with the permissible scope of a search incident to an arrest authorized by the Supreme Court in Chimel , 395 U.S. ⁵¹⁹ at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040 . Ricks, 322 Md. at 191 , 586 A.2d at 744 . See also Stackhouse v. State, 298 Md. 203, 208-09 , 468 A.2d 333, 336 (1983). Finally, the scope of such a search extends both to weapons and to evidence or the instruments of crime.

See Mulcahy v. State, 221 Md. 413, 422 , 158 A.2d 80, 85 (1960). 16 Applying these principles to the present cases, our earlier holding that the initial detentions of Respondents constituted lawful arrests under Maryland law should be dispositive of the search incident issue: given the existence of a valid arrest, the officers were constitutionally permitted under Robinson and its progeny, as well as our own precedent, to