Arizona v. Gant, --- S.Ct. ----, 2009 WL 1045962 (U.S.Ariz.),
09 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 4732 (April 21, 2009)
Facts
After Rodney Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended license,
handcuffed, and locked in the back of a patrol car, police officers
searched his car and discovered cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on
the backseat. Because Gant could not have accessed his car to
retrieve weapons or evidence at the time of the search, the Arizona
Supreme Court held that the search-incident-to-arrest exception to
the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, as defined in Chimel v.
California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), and
applied to vehicle searches in New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101
S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), did not justify the search in
this case. We agree with that conclusion.
Holdings
The Supreme Court, Justice Stevens, held that:
(1) search of defendant's vehicle while he was handcuffed in patrol
car was unreasonable, and
(2) doctrine of stare decisis did not require Supreme Court to
adhere to broad reading of its prior decision in New York v. Belton.
Affirmed.
Reasoning
1. Searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior
approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the
Fourth Amendment, subject only to a few specifically established and
well-delineated exceptions.
2. Among the exception is a search incident to a lawful arrest.
3. The search incident to a lawful arrest exception to the warrant
requirement derives from interests in officer safety and evidence
preservation that are typically implicated in arrest situations.
4. The limitation to a search incident to arrest, that it may only
include the arrestee's person and the area within his immediate
control, that is the area from within which he might gain possession
of a weapon or destructible evidence, defines the boundaries of this
exception to the warrant requirement and ensures that the scope of a
search incident to arrest is commensurate with its purposes of
protecting arresting officers and safeguarding any evidence of the
offense of arrest that an arrestee might conceal or destroy.
5. If there is no possibility that an arrestee could reach into the
area that law enforcement officers seek to search, both
justifications for the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the
warrant requirement, namely protecting arresting officers and
safeguarding any evidence of the offense of arrest that an arrestee
might conceal or destroy, are absent, and the exception does not
apply.
6. Under the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the warrant
requirement, police may search a vehicle incident to a recent
occupant's arrest when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching
distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search.
7. Circumstances unique to the vehicle context justify a search
incident to a lawful arrest when it is reasonable to believe
evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the
vehicle.
8. Search incident to arrest exception to warrant requirement did
not apply to search of defendant's vehicle following his arrest for
driving with a suspended license, where defendant and two other
suspects were handcuffed and secured in separate patrol cars before
the officers searched defendant's car.; police could not reasonably
have believed either that defendant could have accessed his car at
the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he
was arrested might have been found therein.
9. Although a motorist's privacy interest in his vehicle is less
substantial than in his home, the former interest is nevertheless
important and deserving of constitutional protection.
10. The central concern underlying the Fourth Amendment was about
giving police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among
a person's private effects.
11. An officer may lawfully search a vehicle's passenger compartment
when he has reasonable suspicion that an individual, whether or not
the arrestee, is dangerous and might access the vehicle to gain
immediate control of weapons.
12. If there is probable cause to believe a vehicle contains
evidence of criminal activity, police may lawfully search any area
of the vehicle in which the evidence might be found.
13. Doctrine of stare decisis did not require Supreme Court to
adhere to broad reading of its prior decision in New York v. Belton
that had been adopted by many courts, under which a vehicle search
would be authorized incident to every arrest of a recent occupant
notwithstanding that the vehicle's passenger compartment will not be
within the arrestee's reach at the time of the search, rather than
recognize that under Belton police may search a vehicle incident to
a recent occupant's lawful arrest only if the arrestee is within
reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the
search; blind adherence to broad reading of Belton would authorize
myriad unconstitutional searches.
14. The doctrine of stare decisis is essential to the respect
accorded to the judgments of the court and to the stability of the
law, but it does not compel the Supreme Court to follow a past
decision when its rationale no longer withstands careful analysis.
15. Police may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's
arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the
passenger compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable
to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest,
and when these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee's
vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant or show
that another exception to the warrant requirement applies.
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