For almost 30 years, as an exception to the 4th Amendment's warrant requirement to permit a search and seizure, courts allowed police routinely to search the inside of a vehicle, including trunks, glove boxes, consoles and containers, upon the arrest of someone who just had been inside it ("incident to the lawful arrest of a recent occupant"). The mobility of the vehicle and presumed ability of a driver or passenger to hide or destroy evidence of a crime served as the justification to empower law enforcement with such broad intrusion into a citizen's constitutional protection of privacy and against unreasonable searches. That never made sense to me in the usual case where the vehicle's occupant is removed and unable to access it. Well, no more!
The United States Supreme Court ruled this week in Arizona v. Gant, that once someone is arrested and secured out of the vehicle, there is no logic to justify a full vehicle search in the name of preventing the loss or destruction of evidence. The Court allowed an exception where the police reasonably believe evidence related to the crime for which the person was arrested is in the vehicle. So in Gant's case, after an arrest for a traffic offense, police wrongly searched his jacket on the back seat of his vehicle where they found illegal drugs.
Watch to see whether police modify their procedures to allow someone to remain in a vehicle to create the "need" to conduct a sweeping search of its interior....
Of course, other exceptions to the "warrant requirement" still apply: police may search 1) with consent of the person who controls the vehicle, 2) if they see contraband in "plain view", 3) to inventory the vehicle's contents prior to impounding it and 4) in emergencies called "exigent circumstances" typically involving weapons or seeing "furtive", i.e. unusual, movements within the vehicle that signal possible danger or destruction or hiding of evidence. These exceptions have their own bodies of case law and are subject to much interpretation.
