State v. Kaluna

OPINION OF THE COURT BY

LEVINSON, J.

This appeal poses important questions concerning the allowable scope, under the federal and state constitutions, of a warrantless search of an arrestee’s body conducted incident to a lawful arrest and preliminary to the arrestee’s incarceration. On the afternoon of September 26, 1972, two men, one of whom was armed with a pistol, and a woman reportedly committed an attempted robbery of the McDonald’s restaurant in Palolo. In the evening of the same day, the defendant was arrested on the belief that she was one of the participants in the alleged crime. The…