State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A21-0776

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Amber Kay Barrow,
Appellant.

Filed May 16, 2022
Affirmed
Slieter, Judge

Stearns County District Court
File No. 73-CR-18-5748

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Janelle P. Kendall, Stearns County Attorney, River D. Thelen, Assistant County Attorney,
St. Cloud, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Ap pellate Public Defender, Ab igail H. Rankin, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Slieter, Pr esiding Judge; Segal, Chief Judge; and
Bratvold, Judge.
NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
SLIETER, Judge
Appellant challenges the district court’ s order denying her motion to suppress
evidence of drug possession arguing that the police officer’s warrantless search of her purse
was unconstitutional because a purse is an extension of her person and thus, not subject to
2
a warrantless search. Because a purse is a c ontainer which is subject to the automobile-
exception to the warrant requirement, we affirm.
FACTS
In March 2018, appellant Amber Kay Barrow was the passenger in a vehicle stopped
by an officer from the A von Police Department after observing the driver “hit the brakes
hard”; “decelerate[] quickly”; and “cross over lane lines and swerve in its own lane.”
After approaching the vehicle and while speaking with the driver and appellant, the
officer smelled marijuana coming from inside the vehicle. The occupants denied
possessing marijuana but stated that they had left a friend’ s house where multiple people
had been smoking marijuana. During her di scussion with the officer, appellant admitted
that she is a recovering methamphetamine addict.
The officer asked the occupants to step out of the vehicle. They complied. The
officer noticed that appellant was carrying her purse and he asked her to “leave your purse
in there.” Appellant set the purse on the vehicle’s trunk. After confirming with appellant
that she did not have any weapons on her, th e officer placed the purse back inside the
vehicle and commenced a vehicle search.
The officer asked appellant whether she currently possessed me thamphetamine.
She responded that, in “the middle zipper pocket of [her] purse,” she had a “used needle”
and “a baggy” which formerly contained methamphetamine. While searching inside
appellant’s purse, the officer found a hypodermic needle, a spoon, a straw, cotton swabs,
and four pills later identified as clonazepam, a controlled substance. The officer also found
a glass jar in the glove compartment that he believed formerly contained marijuana.
3
Appellant was arrested and charged with one count of fifth-degree possession of a
controlled substance based upon the possession of the “four pills identified as Clonazepam,
a schedule IV controlled substance,” in viol ation of Minn. Stat. § 152.025, subd. 2(1)
(2016). Appellant moved to suppress the evidence obtained as a result of the purse search,
arguing that her purse was an “extension” of he r person, not a “container” in the vehicle,
and was thus not subject to the automobile-search exception. The district court denied the
motion.
Appellant agreed to a stipulated-evidence court trial, pursuant to Minn. R. Crim. P.
26.01, subd. 4. The district court accepted th e stipulation, including appellant’s personal
waiver of her trial rights, found appellant guilty, and sentenced her. Barrow appeals.
DECISION
“When reviewing the denial of a pretrial motion to suppress evidence, [appellate
courts] review the district court’s factual fi ndings for clear error and its legal conclusions
de novo.” State v. Molnau, 904 N.W.2d 449, 451 (Minn. 2017).
The United States and Minnesota Cons titutions protect against “unreasonable
searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. The supreme
court has said that a warrantless search is “presumptively unreasonable unless one of a few
specifically established and well-de lineated exceptions applies.” State v. Licari , 659
N.W.2d 243, 250 (Minn. 2003) (quotation omitted). The state bears the burden of proving
an exception applies. Id. “If a warrantless search does not fall within a proper exception,
its fruits must be suppressed.” State v. Hummel, 483 N.W.2d 68, 72 (Minn. 1992).
4
The automobile exception provides that if the police have “probable cause to believe
the search will result in a discovery of evidence or contraband,” State v. Lester, 874 N.W.2d
768, 771 (Minn. 2016) (quoting State v. Search, 472 N.W.2d 850, 852 (Minn. 1991)), “they
may search every part of the vehicle and its contents which may conceal the object of the
search.” State v. Bigelow, 451 N.W.2d 311, 311 (Minn. 199 0). The scope of the search
may include closed compartments, Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 44-45, 52 (1970),
locked trunks, Cady v. Dombrowski , 413 U.S. 433, 448 (1973) , and closed containers
within a vehicle, U.S. v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 821-22 (1982).
Appellant does not challenge that the officer possessed probable cause to search the
vehicle and that the search of the vehicle fe ll within the automobile exception. However,
she claims that her purse was “an extension of her person,” pursuant to State v. Wynne, 552
N.W.2d 218 (Minn. 1996), and, therefore, not a “container” subject to the automobile
exception. Appellant’s reliance on Wynne is unpersuasive and we conclude the automobile
exception applies to the warrantless search of a passenger’s purse.
The search in Wynne involved a warrant to sear ch Wynne’s mother’s home and
persons at the residence. 552 N.W.2d at 219. In Wynne, officers had begun their search,
seizing various controlled substances and paraphernalia, when “Wynne arrived home in a
car . . . to discover the search in progress.” Id. Officers questioned Wynne as she exited
her vehicle and learned that she lived in the home. Id. Officers took Wynne’s purse,
escorted her into the home, searched her purse without her consent, and discovered
controlled substances and drug paraphernalia. Id.
5
Ultimately, the supreme court concluded that “the search of Wynne’s purse
constituted a search of her person and did not fall within the ambit of the premises search
warrant.” Id. at 220. Moreover, it held that the automobile exception was “inapplicable to
the present situation” because “Wynne’s purse was . . . brought into the home by officers
from an automobile that was dr iven onto the premises after the search was commenced.”
Id. Thus, the search of Wynne’s purse was unconstitutional. Id.
Unlike Wynne, the automobile exception plainly applies to the present case. The
officer conducted a traffic stop of a vehicle occupied by a ppellant and appellant’s purse
was in the vehicle when the officer established probable cau se based on the marijuana
smell. Therefore, the automobile-search exception applies and provides exceedingly broad
authority to search the contents of the vehicle, including all containers that could conceal
contraband, such as appellant’s purse. See Bigelow, 451 N.W.2d at 313 (holding that, if
police have probable cause to search an automobile for drug s or other contraband, they
may search every part of the vehicle and its contents which may conceal the object of the
search).
In sum, Wynne, a residence-search warrant case, is inapplicable in this automobile-
search-exception case and, because the officer had probable cause to search the automobile
for evidence of drug possession, he could se arch appellant’s purse without violating her
Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable search and seizure.1
Affirmed.

1 Appellant summarily argues that the automobile exception does not authorize the search
of her purse because her “purse was only in the car during the search because the officer

manipulated the scene by having [appellant] remove it from her person and by then picking
up the bag and putting it back in to the vehicle.” However, appellant fails to support her
argument with any citation to legal authority and, therefore, we do not address it. State v.
Krosch, 642 N.W.2d 713, 719 (Minn. 2002); see also State v. Myhre, 875 N.W.2d 799, 806
(Minn. 2016).