State v. Rippe

Opinion of the Court by

RECKTENWALD, C.J.'

This case requires us to determine whether a police officer’s request to a defendant for consent to search a bag constituted interrogation. We must also decide whether the defendant, who denied ownership of the bag in response to the officer’s request, abandoned the bag and thus relinquished any reasonable expectation of privacy in it.

On January 30, 2006, Honolulu police received a report that Defendant-Appellee Timothy L. Rippe had been observed removing a license plate from a vehicle parked in Waikiki. A police officer then saw Rippe in the area…