United States v. Ulibarri, 2025 WL 2371551 (10th Cir. 2025)
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Officers Lucas Perez and Neill Elsman heard a loud car a few blocks away. Believing it violated a city ordinance prohibiting excessive auto noise, the officers drove off in hopes of locating the source. After identifying the car as belonging to Manuel Ulibarri, they initiated a traffic stop.
Ulibarri pulled over to the sidewalk and parked across two metered parking spots. (This was potentially a citable offense if the car was left in place.) Spotting ammunition in the back seat, Officer Elsman asked Ulibarri if he had any weapons. Ulibarri said he did not and explained that his son had been playing with the bullets. A records check indicated the man had two outstanding misdemeanor warrants, which would have allowed Ulibarri to post bond and be released without an arrest.
The officers walked back to their car and Officer Perez told Officer Elsman he planned to arrest Ulibarri. He said: “I’m gonna take him out. Just use 48 (caution), because there were some bullets in the car, so he might have something.” Perez told Ulibarri he intended to arrest him, prompting Ulibarri to ask if he could just go to the bond window and pay the bail amount. Officer Perez later testified he chose not to take Ulibarri to the bond window because he was worried about Ulibarri’s nonchalant attitude about the warrants and also because Ulibarri’s car exhaust was so loud as to be a public nuisance.
Officer Elsman called for a tow truck. That’s when Ulibarri informed the officers there was a gun in the vehicle and asked to have his mother retrieve the car. The officers refused, and Officer Perez later testified, “t was never really an option to have somebody else take a vehicle.” The officers were concerned about leaving the car in a high-crime area. They feared someone could break into the car and steal the gun.
Even when Ulibarri’s mother showed up, the tow truck had already arrived and the vehicle was impounded. During an inventory search prior to towing, officers found a handgun, a rifle, a magazine, $10,000 in cash, and fentanyl.
Ulibarri was charged with possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug-trafficking crime. He asked the trial court to suppress the evidence from his car, claiming the stop, vehicle impound, and inventory search all violated the Fourth Amendment. The court denied his motion and Ulibarri pled guilty, reserving his right to appeal the denial of the suppression motion. He was sentenced to six years.
The appellate court upheld the denial of the suppression motion, affirming the officers had reasonable suspicion to justify the stop based on hearing the noise from two blocks away. The court also listened to the officers’ body-worn camera recordings and heard the exhaust noise.
Ulibarri argued the officers’ motivation to impound his car was purely so they could search for evidence. While the officers might have hoped to find something, the prosecution noted they were also concerned about the driver’s two warrants. The appellate court held the officers “had mixed motives. And we have held that mixed-motive impoundments do not run afoul of the Constitution.”
The court held the impound was justified by the community-caretaking doctrine. The car “straddled the lines of two metered sidewalk parking spots” and thus “may have been subject to parking citations.” The appellate court cited the Supreme Court holding that, “The authority of police to seize and remove from the streets vehicles impeding traffic or threatening public safety and convenience is beyond challenge” (South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976)). The court further added: “If this rule seems broad, that’s because it is.”
Ulibarri also challenged the inventory search. According to Opperman, the justification for impound inventories rests on three needs: “the protection of the owner’s property while it remains in police custody; the protection of the police against claims or disputes over lost or stolen property; and the protection of the police from potential danger.” An inventory may not be used as a ruse to search for evidence, though an officer’s mixed motives will not necessarily invalidate an otherwise proper inventory. The inventory must be conducted in accordance with a standard policy (Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1 (1990)).
Since it complied with the department’s written vehicle inventory policy, the search was deemed lawful. Though both the trial and appellate courts noted the inventory document wasn’t perfect, the officers followed the standardized procedures laid out in their agency’s policy: “In sum, because the officers conducted an inventory search imperfectly but according to department policy, the search was reasonable.”
And that’s the big lesson here. A simple violation, such as loud exhaust, can lead to an investigatory detention, as it did here. But to validate the search, it was essential that the officers had some motive other than discovering evidence. Even more critically, it was important they complied with their department’s vehicle inventory policy.
