The Supreme Court has granted cert in Arizona v. Gant, per ScotusBlog and How Appealing. This should prove to be an interesting case, where the issue is whether the police can search a defendant’s car after the defendant has been handcuffed, taken into custody and the scene is secured.
In this case, the defendant, sought by police, drove up to the scene, got out of his car and walked over to a police officer, who promptly arrested him. He was placed inside the police car. But there was still the matter of what, if anything, might be inside his car, which was lawfully parked and otherwise wholly unrelated to the cause for arrest. The police then searched the car, and found a gun and cocaine.
This case will test whether the old fallback, that the car may contain something of “imminent danger” to the cops, giving them a right to search for weapons. Of course, it poses the question under circumstances where the potential for harm was non-existent, since the defendant was already cuffed and in the police cruiser.
According to Reuters,
The Arizona case will require the Supreme Court to reexamine its 1981 ruling that risks to officer safety and the preservation of evidence justify a warrantless car search as part of the arrest.
Arizona officials said the state Supreme Court effectively overruled the 1981 ruling in requiring that the police show that inherent dangers actually existed at the time of the search.
This is yet another example of remembering the rubric and forgetting the rationale. The rationale for creating this exception to the warrant requirement was to protect the safety of police officers from imminent harm. Fair enough, but once the defendant is away from the car, the contents of the car no longer present any threat. End of story? Not even close.
Automobile stop jurisprudence is a wreck. More often than not, judges just throw up their hands whenever a car is involved, say that magic words, “automobile exception,” and let cops search at will. Basically, they figure that the cops are going to end up searching one way or another, given that there are more exceptions than rule. But the Arizona Supreme Court held this search unconstitutional.
So what will SCOTUS do? Will Scalia, in a fit of reason, demand that the rationale for ignoring the 4th Amendment be honored and affirm the Arizona decision, or will the Court reverse and proclaim that when it comes to cars, there’s no 4th Amendment anymore?
Arizona v. Gant is a great case to test the integrity of the Supreme Court. There is no rational justification for permitting this search under any existing exception. No threat. No search incident to arrest. No inventory search. No risk to preservation of evidence. Nothing. If they uphold the search, then they will prove that they have abandoned the 4th Amendment as to cars entirely, removing all reason from the equation. It will take some mighty efforts to explain away that one, but they are smart cookies.
If ever there was a case that screamed “search warrant,” this is it. We shall see whether there’s any vitality left in the 4th Amendment when it comes to searching automobiles.
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Perhaps I spoke too soon about taking the “wrong kind of cases.” Kudos to SCOTUS for granting cert here.
And I could see Scalia siding with Gant (I don’t think there’s an “r” in the respondent’s name…but I could be wrong.) for exactly the reasons you mention. There’s something about that colloquy between Scalia and the counsel for Virginia in the Virginia v. Moore oral arguments (http://blog.simplejustice.us/2008/01/15/another-reason-why-justice-scalia-isnt-the-devil.aspx) that gives me hope.
Hey OS. You are right about the name (I’ll change that). As for Scalia, I hope you’re right about that too. It would be a blessing.
I’m not sure what SCOTUS can do with this, because I believe the Arizona ruling is based upon the Arizona constitution. Typically, states’ constitutions provide greater rights to their citizens than the U.S. Constitution does. I’m curious to know the grounds for a review of this case by SCOTUS.
I was wrong. Arizona is more bold than I thought, as they based the decision on a 4th Amendment analysis.
The decision was based on the US Constitution because Gant never argued that the search violated his rights under the Arizona Constitution. (See 216 Ariz. 1, 3 footnote 1)
I have to differ with this article on one point: There is a legal rational (although weak) for siding with Arizona in this case.
It has been long decided in Chimel that incident to arrest, police are justified in searching the arrestee and the immediately surrounding area. Unfortunately, police and courts have had a hard time deciding what was the immediate area in car stops until Belton, where the US Supreme Court decided that THE ENTIRE PASSENGER COMPARTMENT (including closed containers but excluding the trunk) is in the immediate area.
Further, and perhaps more on point, once Belton was arrested, out of the vehicle and could not access to the contents of the car, the officer grabbed a jacket in the back seat of Belton’s car and opened the zipped-up pocket and found drugs.
The US Supreme court found that the search was valid because is was subject to a search incident to arrest, even though Belton was arrested outside the vehicle and did not have access to the jacket.
In the dissent, Brennan, with whom Marshall joined, warned that this case extended Chimel and would be used to justify searching a car incident to arrest even when the arrestee has been removed from the car and is in cuffs.
Brennan pointed to other cases such as Chadwick, Coolidge, and Chambers, where the issue was whether the arrestee could access the area at the time of the search. Brennan’s words were prophetic, but overruled by the majority’s perceived need for a “bright line rule.”
Now, the US Supreme court has once again decided to revisit the issue. The way I see it, the court must decide based on the rationale that an incident to arrest search is only justified to 1. find weapons that could be used to hurt arresting officers and others, 2. find and remove something that could potentially be used to free the arrestee, or 3. find and secure evidence that may be destroyed by the arrestee.
An honest court will likely have to narrow Belton since these three interests do not support a warrentless search incident to arrest where the arrestee does not have access to the search area. However, this WAS the scenario in Belton. And the court DID rule that the search was proper.
The deciding point will likely be how pleased the Supreme Court is with how the lower courts have applies Belton. If teh Supreme Court does not like lower courts allowing officers cuffing and placing arrestees in squad cars before searching the area, it will likely narrow Belton. If the court, as it did in Belton, finds the need for a bright line rule, it will likely find that there is no need for an officer to believe that there is a reasonable belief of danger in order to search the area of arrest.
So IMHO, a rational court should find no justification for searching the arrest area when the arrestee has been secured, there is certainly case law and a rationale for finding that the Gant search was justified.
You’ve confused two words: rational and rationale. Precedent provides a rationale for the Supreme to side with Arizona. But such a holding would not be rational. I think most lawyers are already familiar with search incident and automobile exception law.
The rationale for a search indident to arrest in Chimel is police safety, securing the arrestee, and preserving evidence. This is rational.
The rationale in Belton to apply this to a scenario where the arrestee is secured away from the search area is creating a “bright line” rule. The question in Gant is whether this rationale is rational.
On this point, I think we both agree that it is not.
The use of the word “rational” in my first sentence was a typo and should have included the letter “e.”
Then I think there’s no disagreement at all.
Oh goodness, what kind of society have we engineered? With this kind of legal reasoning we can justify what Hitler Did in Germany to 6 Million Human Beings..is that where we’re going? Clearly in this case the Police had secured the Suspect and then they went looking for the crime!
The Judges are suppose to be intelligent people that have ‘Sworned’ under oath to be impartial and unbais…how can they ‘Clown-Around’ and try to make the Public ‘Stupid’ when it’s the other way around…we have Clowns running the Circus and they should just look in the mirror and judge themselves because ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ are sure watching the Show.
But only if they LOCKED the doors after exiting their cars…With keys left on front seat.
Gant is Good; Gant Ain’t Great
There were parties across the practical blawgosphere last night, following the Supreme Court’s shocking decision in Arizona v. Gant.
Gant is Good; Gant Ain’t Great
There were parties across the practical blawgosphere last night, following the Supreme Court’s shocking decision in Arizona v. Gant.
This is one of the most unbelievable decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. This has not only put another gun back on the street, but it has let a known felon back on the street.
This decision by our court has not a blessing for people rights. This ruling doesn’t effect the law abiding citizen’s of this great nation. This once again has taken power away from the police to successfully do their job. Every chance the courts get they make it harder for for police, this to me is incredible.
Police just don’t search peoples vehicles for no apparent reason. I’m not saying that all police are an inspiration, but 95% are outstanding for their perspective communities, and they are there to serve the public. every occupation has their bad seeds, but I’m willing to take that chance to get felons off of my streets. If the police want to search my car, they are more than welcome. i don’t have any thing to hid.
I wonder if the justices from the supreme court would be so liberal if grant would have committed a crime towards one of them or a family member.
This is just one more example of the courts giving more rights to the criminals. When is it ever going to end. When are my rights going to be better that the criminals, I’m guessing never. Don’t worry I’m betting we will be seeing Grant again in court. ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They say that the use of more than 3 exclamation marks at the end of a sentence suggests insanity. I say it’s not always the case. But it’s good to know that there is at least one person in the entire United States who didn’t think that Gant was decided in the only rational way possible. Otherwise, how would the rest of us measure ourselves?
A recent decision by the D.C. Court of Appeals further interpreting Arizona v. Gant had me thinking about this case again. Curious about what you may have said about Gant at the time the opinion was issued in April 2009, I came instead across this blog entry you wrote over a year earlier, back when the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
If it is hard to write about opinions when they are issued, it is even harder to write about cases when they first appear on the radar screen. It is for this reason – because I don’t think I will be very good at it and who wants to look like an idiot? — that I mostly avoid this type of prognostication.
Your prediction in this case – namely, that there are some “smart cookies” on the Court, no matter what else you might think – turned out to be spot on. And the issues you raised in the blog entry you wrote after Gant was issued are the very issues the D.C. Court of Appeals has been dealing with in a number of recent decisions.
Thanks. Sometimes I get it right. The worst that can happen is I get it wrong. Life goes on.