Roach v. Wuesthoff Memorial Hospital

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• concluding that there is no distinction between the terms “impounded” and “towed and stored” for purposes of section 6309.2
• holding that a “warrantless inventory search of a vehicle is permissible only when the police have lawfully towed and stored, or impounded the vehicle.”
• holding police lacked evidence to impound vehicle where it was undamaged, legally parked, and not creating safety hazard
• stating that “because there was no basis for [the officer] to tow [a]ppellant’s vehicle in the first instance, the inventory search of [a]ppellant’s vehicle was improper….
• noting that “an officer who stops a vehicle operated by a person whose driving privilege is, inter alia, suspended, is faced with two options: immobilize the vehicle in place or, if it poses public safety concerns, have it towed and stored at an impound lot.”
• finding no basis for officers to conduct inventory search pursuant to Section 6309.2(a)(1) where “the Commonwealth failed to introduce any evidence that [officer’s] decision to tow [] vehicle was based on public safety”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).