## Facts

- DEA agents arranged an undercover cocaine purchase with Apolinar Tejada.
- At a restaurant parking lot, Tejada showed an undercover agent a small blue travel bag containing cocaine and directed that the sale occur in his nearby attic apartment.
- The agent followed Tejada, observed him enter the apartment, and saw him at a window holding the same bag.
- Agents forcibly entered the apartment without a warrant, confronted Tejada, and arrested him; during the struggle Tejada reached toward a gun in his waistband, which agents seized.
- After Tejada was restrained, agents conducted a protective sweep of the small apartment (about 400 square feet) for other persons and weapons.
- Agents opened a closed cabinet in a living-room entertainment center, found the blue travel bag, unzipped it, and opened an inner bag containing cocaine.
- Tejada moved to suppress the cocaine as the product of an unlawful search; the district court denied suppression.
- Tejada pleaded guilty but preserved his right to appeal the suppression ruling.

## Issues

1. Whether the warrantless entry and in-home arrest were lawful under exigent circumstances.
2. Whether opening a closed cabinet and unzipping the travel bag were permissible as a search incident to arrest when the arrestee was already handcuffed and controlled.
3. If the search exceeded the lawful scope incident to arrest, whether the cocaine was nonetheless admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress and the resulting conviction and sentence.
- The court held the warrantless arrest in the home was justified by exigent circumstances because agents could not obtain a warrant in time during an ongoing drug transaction and faced risks related to evidence and officer safety.
- The court held the search of the cabinet and the travel bag was lawful as incident to a valid arrest, given the confined space, proximity of the searched area to Tejada, and the immediate safety/evidence concerns highlighted by Tejada’s resistance and reaching for a firearm.
- Alternatively, the court held the cocaine was admissible because agents would inevitably have discovered it by securing the apartment and obtaining a warrant based on strong probable cause that the bag containing cocaine was inside.

## Legal Principles

- Warrantless in-home arrests may be permissible when exigent circumstances make obtaining a warrant impracticable and immediate action is justified by risks such as destruction of evidence or threats to safety.
- A search incident to arrest may extend to the arrestee’s person and areas within immediate control; in a small dwelling, nearby containers or cabinets may fall within that scope where safety and evidence-preservation concerns are concrete.
- Handcuffing an arrestee does not categorically eliminate the justification for searching nearby areas when the circumstances show a continuing risk, including recent resistance or access to weapons.
- Under inevitable discovery, evidence need not be suppressed if the government shows it would have been found through lawful means, such as securing the premises and obtaining a warrant supported by probable cause.

## Conclusion

The court upheld admission of cocaine found in a cabinet-contained travel bag because the search was a reasonable search incident to a lawful, exigency-based in-home arrest in a confined apartment, and because the drugs would have been found anyway through a warranted search.


United States v. Tejada, 524 F.3d 809 (7th Cir. 2008)