It is often said that a man’s home is his castle. The Supreme Court has upheld this rule many times. Police may only search upon probable cause or a warrant from a Judge. When, however, can the police search your car incident to a traffic violation? Just about always, claimed the police. Not so fast, rules the Supreme Court. In a close decision, the nation’s highest court reined back the ability of police to make warrantless searches in auto stop cases. Make no mistake, you are not “home” when you are in your car, no matter how much time you spend there or what you do there. Indeed, you have a greater right to privacy walking down a street.
A police officer, during a vehicle stop, has a right to search your car as far as your “wingspan.” This is a limited right to search your car for any area you can physically reach, for weapons. This exception to the Fourth Amendment limitation on searches is for the officer’s safety.
The police may search your car for traces of a crime they see; so if they see oddly small “cigarettes” in the ashtray or car parts recently reported stolen, the car will be searched upon probable cause. (“In plain sight” is a frequent claim of police, but clients will often differ on this point.)
Up until today, the police may also search “incident to arrest”, which is a broad right—so broad the police contended that this allowed them to search anyone “incident to arrest” . . . ANY arrest.
The test case concerned a man who was arrested for “operation on a suspended license.” At the time, he was home and his car was outside in his driveway. He was arrested and put into the police car (so the police were in no danger) and was not at the time suspected of anything else.
Subsequent to this the police searched and found cocaine and a gun in a jacket in the back seat of the car, which he was neither driving nor occupying at the time of arrest. There is, of course, no physical “evidence” in a case of driving while suspended. (This is what lawyers call a “perfect test case.”)
In this case, police had no probable cause, no warrant and no officer safety issues; subsequently, the search was ruled not legal. A legal ruling would have given police power to thoroughly search vehicles when the driver receives any citation, even those as minor as a “five over the limit” moving violation or inoperative signal lamp.
It is a pleasure to see the Supreme Court uphold the intent of the Bill of Rights.
Indeed, good to see. But isn’t it fairly easy to come up with probable cause if they really want to search your car (in any traffic stop)?
Just go to YouTube and do a search on “crazy cop”…you will find…oh so many cops which are off-center. But then again, ask yourself what type of individual CHOOSES this type of work to begin with. Trust me, they love it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iErDW9Co17o
http://www.infowars.com/insane-cop-arrests-abc-news-reporter-for-filming-traffic-accident/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCe0zYqBQ3g
Not only will they search you…they will BEAT and TAZE you.
Do your own search…there are tons of clips out there. It’s at the point where you almost have to carry a cam-corder to obtain evidence to protect yourself.
I think what this means (and I’m not a lawyer), is that if you get pulled over for speeding and they search your trunk and find a dead hooker it _may_ be inadmissible in court because the reason for the stop was speeding.
So basically, if they want to search, they’ll probably detain you and get a warrant before they look for the dead hooker so that it’s a valid search.
Generally, I take the ruling to mean that the officer can check that you’re not a danger to him, and beyond that the search needs to be related to why you were pulled over.
Various state courts have been cautiously pruning back the ‘Search Incident To Arrest’ warrant exception for years. Our state court fairly recently held that cops can’t collar someone two blocks from his car and then march him back to arrest him next to his car and search it ‘incident to arrest.’
It always did seem odd that ‘officer safety’ or ‘preservation of evidence’ could justify letting police search a car that the suspect (already cuffed and locked in the back of a squad car across the street) cannot access. Especially when the driver has been arrested for something like Driving While Suspended, and there’s no way the car itself will contain any other evidence of that crime anyway. (Certain drug arrest searches will be treated very differently, I predict.)
Now police will usually have to a search a car the old-fashioned way, with a warrant supported by probable cause that the car contains evidence of a crime.
As a defense lawyer, I LOVE this decision and I can’t wait to make use of it in suppression motions.
Airhen
Yes, and if you get pulled over by an officer from an aggresive dept. saying “no” to a search will definitely get you handcuffed. In NY at least, you’d be ok with a statie, not so much with sherrifs and cops from big departments. NYC uptown is the worst ex. of the other practice, simply searching you regardless and lying on the report if they find something. I lived up there for 2 years (139th and 212th) and had my car searched 3 times, no tickets, no handcuffs, no arrest, nothing even remotely resembling probable cause. The irony of being profiled as a white drug buyer while I was looking for a parking spot on my own block was entirely lost on me at the time. They were never polite or apologetic and the threat of violence was certain. (and I’ve got a squeeky clean record with a fairly clean cut appearance) Oh yeah, and two of those times were plainclothes officers in unmarked cars.
This ruling changes nothing, because good departments already err on the side of respect and the aggresive ones couldn’t care less. They were already ignoring the (very abusable) requirement for an arrest prior to search, simply to avoid leaving a string of unprosecutable arrests in the wake of their daily routine. Without that paper trail the civilian review boards have got nothing to investigate when it comes to misconduct and harrassment (a police officer told me that btw). From what I’ve heard these practices are in no way limited to NYC.
It was interesting how the justices aligned themselves on this one. The justices divided in an unusual fashion.
Justices John Paul Stevens (wrote majority opinion), Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, David Souter and Clarence Thomas joined the majority opinion.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy were in dissent along with Samuel Alito (who wrote the dissent).
miked
Yeah but if they smell a dead hooker that’s grounds for a search regardless of the reason for pulling you over. So keep your dead hookers fresh.
The standard to search a car is reasonable suspicion, a warrant is not required, you do not have to have committed a crime, and reasonable suspicion is a lower standard than probable cause.
Jay-Z describes it surprisingly well (first inaccurately stating that a warrant is necessary for a car search, but then going on to outline the fact that drug sniffing dogs can be called in even without reasonable suspicion, and that the dogs can more than create reasonable suspicion) in “99 Problems”.
This uncharacteristically supportive of civil liberties Supreme Court decision does at least keep it so that reasonable suspicion is still required, and not just a minor unrelated traffic offense.
If you really want amusement look up the Supreme Court opinions dissecting what is required to change a mobile home from a vehicle to a home for search standard purposes.
You’d be surprised by how many people consent to a search. So many of these aren’t any sort of abuses of power by law enforcement; its just people who afterwards, regret their criminal activity and ignorance of their basic rights.
Most cops aren’t out there to trample your rights. If they see something in plainview, or smell weed, they will call you out for it. You can’t honestly expect anything else… that’s their job. At the same time, you are under no obligation to consent to a search. If they have to ask, then there’s a reason for that.
And I think the vehicle as one’s home thing should be clarified. While there aren’t as many rights to a search on your vehicle as say, your actual home, it is still considered a private conveyance in many states – although mostly that’s a definition for purposes of defining crimes involving a vehicle, e.g., carjacking – someone forcibly enters your car with criminal intent, you are justified in believing you are in mortal danger.
Was the firearm and the cocaine returned to the innocent party?
tedward I think brings up a good point. Aggressive departments will do what they want. I live in Chicago, and I have no doubt the police here abuse this regularly. I’ve never been a victim, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it going on (guys in cuffs across the street, cops in the car, then everyone walks away).
This aggressiveness is also a likely reason that very few Chicago police cruisers have cameras mounted in them….too many cops could get caught breaking the rules, so no camera solves that problem.
Meanwhile we got cameras seemingly on every block, just in case something happens in the neighborhood, then they can get it on camera to “protect the citizens”.
Why would we need protection from those who are protecting us?
Do I have this right that it really doesn’t change anything? they can search wingspan, but if they see a funny crumpled leaf on the floor they think looks like weed, they can still search the entire car right? Really, this just limits the arrest and search, correct?
As long as operating a motor vehicle is a state granted privilege and not a right, there will always be exceptions for road side searches, traffic stops, even photo enforcement.
If there were cars in 1788 I bet we would have seen protections for traveling by auto in the constitution.
@no_slushbox: can you please post a link to the analysis of the Mobile Home opinions?
@GS650G: they carrages (and watercraft, major difference being means of propulsion, such distinction could be stretched to view horses and bi-wheeled conveyances similarly) in 1788 though, is there a difference between these and modern conveyances as far as such searches go?
Robert.Walter:
Here is the major mobile home case. In bold defiance of the meth cooking stereotypes the underlying crime was trading marijuana for sex.
Here is a sample of the majority:
“Moreover, to fail to apply the exception to vehicles such as a motor home ignores the fact that a motor home lends itself easily to use as an instrument of illicit drug traffic and other illegal activity.”
And here is a sample of the dissent:
“Unlike a brick bungalow or a frame Victorian, a motor home seldom serves as a permanent lifetime abode. The motor home in this case, however, was designed to accommodate a breadth of ordinary everyday living. Photographs in the record indicate that its height, length, and beam provided substantial living space inside: stuffed chairs surround a table; cupboards provide room for storage of personal effects; bunk beds provide sleeping space; and a refrigerator provides ample space for food and beverages. [Footnote 2/19] Moreover, curtains and large opaque walls inhibit viewing the activities inside from the exterior of the vehicle. The interior configuration of the motor home establishes that the vehicle’s size, shape, and mode of construction should have indicated to the officers that it was a vehicle containing mobile living quarters.
The State contends that officers in the field will have an impossible task determining whether or not other vehicles contain mobile living quarters. It is not necessary for the Court to resolve every unanswered question in this area in a single case, but common English usage suggests that we already distinguish between a “motor home” which is ‘equipped as a self-contained traveling home,’ a ‘camper’ which is only equipped for ‘casual travel and camping,’ and an automobile which is ‘designed for passenger transportation.\'”
http://supreme.justia.com/us/471/386/case.html
Wait, I thought the Supreme Court was filled with right wing facist Nazi’s who who wanted to give all power to the State? Did I miss the memo?
True fact. In WW II, Roosevelt wanted to put all the Japanese Americans in internment camps. The then chief justice of California, Earl Warren (who later was chief justice of the Supreme Court, the famed “Warren Court”), was all for it. J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI was opposed to it, because they were American citizens and this would violate their rights. Today Warren is liberal icon and Hoover is considered a “right winger” (among other things that won’t be mentioned (I like to keep it safe for family viewing)).
This shouldn’t change much for law enforcement (at least at the agency I worked at)…if I arrested someone who was driving (arrested for any reason), and they were going to jail (as opposed to me just writing an NTA and releasing them), we’d tow the car. And you can’t tow the car without performing an inventory (department policy).
Thanks for the information! It makes sense that there would need to be probable cause in order to search a car just like a home. Unless there is some kind of safety hazard such as lead toxicity in a home or possibly another dangerous substance in a car it is better for law enforcement officials to have good cause before searching. http://www.thedeepwaterproject.com