Background/Facts:  On September 1, 1980, at about 10 p.m., Officer Maurice Mietzner of the Kankakee City Police arrived at the Town Cinema in Kankakee, Ill., in response to a call about a disturbance.  There he found respondent involved in an altercation with the theater manager.  He arrested respondent for disturbing the peace, handcuffed him, and took him to the police station.  At the police station respondent was taken to the booking room; there Officer Mietzner removed the handcuffs from respondent and ordered him to empty his pockets and place the contents on the counter.  After doing so, respondent took a package of cigarettes from his shoulder bag and placed the bag on the counter.  Mietzner then removed the contents of the bag, and found 10 amphetamine pills inside the plastic wrap of a cigarette package.  Respondent was subsequently charged with violating 402(b) of the Illinois Controlled Substances Act, on the basis of the controlled substance found in his shoulder bag.  A pretrial suppression hearing was held at which the State argued that the search of the shoulder bag was a valid inventory search under South Dakota v. Opperman, (1976).  Officer Mietzner testified that he examined the bag's contents because it was standard procedure to inventory "everything" in the possession of an arrested person.  He testified that he was not seeking and did not expect to find drugs or weapons when he searched the bag, and he conceded that the shoulder bag was small enough that it could have been placed and sealed in a bag, container, or locker for protective purposes.  After the hearing, but before any ruling, the State submitted a brief in which it argued for the first time that the search was valid as a delayed search incident to arrest.  Thereafter, the trial court ordered the suppression of the amphetamine pills.

Issue/Points of Law:  The question here is whether, consistent with the 4^th Amendment, it is reasonable for police to search the personal effects of a person under lawful arrest as part of the routine administrative procedure at a police station house incident to booking and jailing the suspect.  The justification for such searches does not rest on probable cause, and hence the absence of a warrant is immaterial to the reasonableness of the search.
Decision and Rationale:  The Illinois court held that the search of respondent's shoulder bag was unreasonable because "preservation of the defendant's property and protection of police from claims of lost or stolen property, could have been achieved in a less intrusive manner."  For example, … the defendant's shoulder bag could easily have been secured by sealing it within a plastic bag or box and placing it in a secured locker.  Perhaps so, but the real question is not what "could have been achieved," but whether the Fourth Amendment requires such steps; it is not our function to write a manual on administering routine, neutral procedures of the station house.
Results and Subsequent Cases:  The Supreme Court held that it is not "unreasonable" for police, as part of the routine procedure incident to incarcerating an arrested person, to search any container or article in his possession, in accordance with established inventory procedures.  It also authorized a warrant-less search of items "in plain view."