Monthly Archives: June 2016

Valid Searches and Seizures Without Warrants

While the Supreme Court stresses the importance of warrants and has repeatedly referred to searches without warrants as ''exceptional,'' 1 it appears that the greater number of searches, as well as the vast number of arrests, take place without warrants. The Reporters of the American Law Institute Project on a Model Code of Pre- Arraignment Procedure have noted ''their conviction that, as a practical matter, searches without warrant and incidental to arrest have been up to this time, and may remain, of greater practical importance'' than searches pursuant to warrants. ''[T]he evidence on hand . . . compel[s] the conclusion that searches under warrants have played a comparatively minor part in law enforcement, except in connection with narcotics and gambling laws.'' 2 Nevertheless, the Court frequently asserts that ''the most basic constitutional rule in this area is that '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 specially established and well-delineated exceptions.'' 3 The exceptions are said to be ''jealously and carefully drawn,'' 4 and there must be ''a showing by those who seek exemption . . . that the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative.'' 5 While the record does indicate an effort to categorize the exceptions, the number and breadth of those exceptions have been growing.

Detention Short of Arrest: Stop-and-Frisk .--Arrests are subject to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, but the courts have followed the common law in upholding the right of police officers to take a person into custody without a warrant if they have probable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed a felony or has committed a misdemeanor in their presence. 6 The probable cause is, of course, the same standard required to be met in the issuance of an arrest warrant, and must be satisfied by conditions existing prior to the policeman's stop, what is discovered thereafter not sufficing to establish retroactively reasonable cause. 7 There are, however, instances when a policeman's suspicions will have been aroused by someone's conduct or manner, but probable cause for placing such a person under arrest will be lacking. 8 In Terry v. Ohio, 9 the Court almost unanimously approved an on-the-street investigation by a police officer which involved ''patting down'' the subject of the investigation for weapons.

The case arose when a police officer observed three individuals engaging in conduct which appeared to him, on the basis of training and experience, to be the ''casing'' of a store for a likely armed robbery; upon approaching the men, identifying himself, and not receiving prompt identification, the officer seized one of the men, patted the exterior of his clothes, and discovered a gun. Chief Justice Warren for the Court wrote that the Fourth Amendment was applicable to the situation, applicable ''whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away.'' 10 Since the warrant clause is necessarily and practically of no application to the type of on-the-street encounter present in Terry, the Chief Justice continued, the question was whether the policeman's actions were reasonable. The test of reasonableness in this sort of situation is whether the police officer can point to ''specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts,'' would lead a neutral magistrate on review to conclude that a man of reasonable caution would be warranted in believing that possible criminal behavior was at hand and that both an investigative stop and a ''frisk'' was required. 11 Inasmuch as the conduct witnessed by the policeman reasonably led him to believe that an armed robbery was in prospect, he was as reasonably led to believe that the men were armed and probably dangerous and that his safety required a ''frisk.'' Because the object of the ''frisk'' is the discovery of dangerous weapons, ''it must therefore be confined in scope to an intrusion reasonably designed to discover guns, knives, clubs, or other hidden instruments for the assault of the police officer.'' 12 If, in the course of a weapons frisk, ''plain touch'' reveals presence of an object that the officer has probable cause to believe is contraband, the officer may seize that object. Supp.3 The Court viewed the situation as analogous to that covered by the ''plain view'' doctrine: obvious contraband may be seized, but a search may not be expanded to determine whether an object is contraband. Supp.4

Terry did not pass on a host of problems, including the grounds that could permissibly lead an officer to momentarily stop a person on the street or elsewhere in order to ask questions rather than frisk for weapons, the right of the stopped individual to refuse to cooperate, and the permissible response of the police to that refusal. Following that decision, the standard for stops for investigative purposes evolved into one of ''reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.'' That test permits some stops and questioning without probable cause in order to allow police officers to explore the foun dations of their suspicions. 13 While not elaborating a set of rules governing the application of the tests, the Court was initially restrictive in recognizing permissible bases for reasonable suspicion. 14 Extensive instrusions on individual privacy, e.g., transportation to the stationhouse for interrogation and fingerprinting, were invalidated in the absence of probable cause. 15 More recently, however, the Court has taken less restrictive approaches. 16

It took the Court some time to settle on a test for when a ''seizure'' has occurred, and the Court has recently modified its approach. The issue is of some importance, since it is at this point that Fourth Amendment protections take hold. The Terry Court recognized in dictum that ''not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves 'seizures' of persons,'' and suggested that ''[o]nly when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a 'seizure' has occurred.'' 17 Years later Justice Stewart proposed a similar standard, that a person has been seized ''only if, in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.'' 18 This reasonable perception standard was subse quently endorsed by a majority of Justices, 19 and was applied in several cases in which admissibility of evidence turned on whether a seizure of the person not justified by probable cause or reasonable suspicion had occurred prior to the uncovering of the evidence. No seizure occurred, for example, when INS agents seeking to identify illegal aliens conducted work force surveys within a garment factory; while some agents were positioned at exits, others systematically moved through the factory and questioned employees. 20 This brief questioning, even with blocked exits, amounted to ''classic consensual encounters rather than Fourth Amendment seizures.'' 21 The Court also ruled that no seizure had occurred when police in a squad car drove alongside a suspect who had turned and run down the sidewalk when he saw the squad car approach. Under the circumstances (no siren, flashing lights, display of a weapon, or blocking of the suspect's path), the Court concluded, the police conduct ''would not have communicated to the reasonable person an attempt to capture or otherwise intrude upo
n [one's] freedom of movement.'' 22

Soon thereafter, however, the Court departed from the Mendenhall reasonable perception standard and adopted a more formalistic approach, holding that an actual chase with evident intent to capture did not amount to a ''seizure'' because the suspect did not comply with the officer's order to halt. Mendenhall, said the Court in California v. Hodari D., stated a ''necessary'' but not a ''sufficient'' condition for a seizure of the person through show of authority. 23 A Fourth Amendment ''seizure'' of the person, the Court determined, is the same as a common law arrest; there must be either application of physical force (or the laying on of hands), or submission to the assertion of authority. 24 Indications are, however, that Hodari D. does not signal the end of the reasonable perception standard, but merely carves an exception applicable to chases and perhaps other encounters between suspects and police.

Later in the same term the Court ruled that the Mendenhall ''free-to-leave'' inquiry was misplaced in the context of a police sweep of a bus, but that a modified reasonable perception approach still governed. 25 In conducting a bus sweep, aimed at detecting illegal drugs and their couriers, police officers typically board a bus during a stopover at a terminal and ask to inspect tickets, identification, and sometimes luggage of selected passengers. The Court did not focus on whether an ''arrest'' had taken place, as adherence to the Hodari D. approach would have required, but instead suggested that the appropriate inquiry is ''whether a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter.'' 26 ''When the person is seated on a bus and has no desire to leave,'' the Court explained, ''the degree to which a reasonable person would feel that he or she could leave is not an accurate measure of the coercive effect of the encounter.'' 27

A Terry search need not be limited to a stop and frisk of the person, but may extend as well to a protective search of the passenger compartment of a car if an officer possesses ''a reasonable belief, based on specific and articulable facts . . . that the suspect is dangerous and . . . may gain immediate control of weapons.'' 28 How lengthy a Terry detention may be varies with the circumstances. In approving a 20-minute detention of a driver made necessary by the driver's own evasion of drug agents and a state police decision to hold the driver until the agents could arrive on the scene, the Court indicated that it is ''appropriate to examine whether the police diligently pursued a means of investigation that was likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly, during which time it was necessary to detain the defendant.'' 29

Similar principles govern detention of luggage at airports in order to detect the presence of drugs; Terry ''limitations applicable to investigative detentions of the person should define the permissible scope of an investigative detention of the person's luggage on less than probable cause.'' 30 The general rule is that ''when an officer's observations lead him reasonably to believe that a traveler is carrying luggage that contains narcotics, the principles of Terry . . . would permit the officer to detain the luggage briefly to investigate the circumstances that aroused his suspicion, provided that the investigative detention is properly limited in scope.'' 31 Seizure of luggage for an expeditious ''canine sniff'' by a dog trained to detect narcotics can satisfy this test even though seizure of luggage is in effect detention of the traveler, since the procedure results in ''limited disclosure,'' impinges only slightly on a traveler's privacy interest in the contents of personal luggage, and does not constitute a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. 32 By contrast, taking a suspect to an interrogation room on grounds short of probable cause, retaining his air ticket, and retrieving his luggage without his permission taints consent given under such circumstances to open the luggage, since by then the detention had exceeded the bounds of a permissible Terry investigative stop and amounted to an invalid arrest. 33 But the same requirements for brevity of detention and limited scope of investigation are apparently inapplicable to border searches of international travelers, the Court having approved a 24-hour detention of a traveler suspected of smuggling drugs in her alimentary canal. 34

Search Incident to Arrest .--The common-law rule permitting searches of the person of an arrestee as an incident to the arrest has occasioned little controversy in the Court. 35 The dispute has centered around the scope of the search. Since it was the stated general rule that the scope of a warrantless search must be strictly tied to and justified by the circumstances which rendered its justification permissible, and since it was the rule that the justification of a search of the arrestee was to prevent destruction of evidence and to prevent access to a weapon, 36 it was argued to the court that a search of the person of the defendant arrested for a traffic offense, which discovered heroin in a crumpled cigarette package, was impermissible, inasmuch as there could have been no destructible evidence relating to the offense for which he was arrested and no weapon could have been concealed in the cigarette package. The Court rejected this argument, ruling that ''no additional justification'' is required for a custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause. 37

However, the Justices have long found themselves embroiled in argument about the scope of the search incident to arrest as it extends beyond the person to the area in which the person is arrested, most commonly either his premises or his vehicle. Certain early cases went both ways on the basis of some fine distinctions, 38 but in Harris v. United States, 39 the Court approved a search of a four-room apartment pursuant to an arrest under warrant for one crime and in which the search turned up evidence of another crime. A year later, in Trupiano v. United States, 40 a raid on a distillery resulted in the arrest of a man found on the premises and a seizure of the equipment; the Court reversed the conviction because the officers had had time to obtain a search warrant and had not done so. ''A search or seizure without a warrant as an incident to a lawful arrest has always been considered to be a strictly limited right. It grows out of the inherent necessities of the situation at the time of the arrest. But there must be something more in the way of necessity than merely a lawful arrest.'' 41 This decision was overruled in United States v. Rabinowitz, 42 in which officers arrested defendant in his one-room office pursuant to an arrest warrant and proceeded to search the room completely. The Court observed that the issue was not whether the officers had the time and opportunity to obtain a search warrant but whether the search incident to arrest was reasonable. Though Rabinowitz referred to searches of the area within the arrestee's ''immediate control,'' 43 it provided no standard by which this area was to be determined, and extensive searches were permitted under the rule. 44

In Chimel v. California, 45 however, a narrower view was asserted, the primacy of warrants was again emphasized, and a standard by which the scope of searches pursuant to arrest could be ascertained was set out. ''When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his
escape. Otherwise, the officer's safety might well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee's person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. And the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like rule. A gun on a table or in a drawer in front of one who is arrested can be as dangerous to the arresting officer as one concealed in the clothing of the person arrested. There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of the arrestee's person and the area 'within his immediate control'--construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.

''There is no comparable justification, however, for routinely searching any room other than that in which an arrest occurs--or, for that matter, for searching through all the desk drawers or other closed or concealed areas in that room itself. Such searches, in the absence of well-recognized exceptions, may be made only under the authority of a search warrant.'' 46

Although the viability of Chimel had been in doubt for some time as the Court refined and applied its analysis of reasonable and justifiable expectations of privacy, 47 it has in some but not all contexts survived the changed rationale. Thus, in Mincey v. Arizona, 48 the Court rejected a state effort to create a ''homicide-scene'' exception for a warrantless search of an entire apartment extending over four days. The occupant had been arrested and removed and it was true, the Court observed, that a person legally taken into custody has a lessened right of privacy in his person, but he does not have a lessened right of privacy in his entire house. And, in United States v. Chadwick, 49 emphasizing a person's reasonable expectation of privacy in his luggage or other baggage, the Court held that, once police have arrested and immobilized a suspect, validly seized bags are not subject to search without a warrant. 50 Police may, however, in the course of jailing an arrested suspect conduct an inventory search of the individual's personal effects, including the contents of a shoulder bag, since ''the scope of a station-house search may in some circumstances be even greater than those supporting a search immediately following arrest.'' 51

Still purporting to reaffirm Chimel, the Court in New York v. Belton 52 held that police officers who had made a valid arrest of the occupant of a vehicle could make a contemporaneous search of the entire passenger compartment of the automobile, including containers found therein. Believing that a fairly simple rule understandable to authorities in the field was desirable, the Court ruled ''that articles inside the relatively narrow compass of the passenger compartment of an automobile are in fact generally, if not inevitably, within 'the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m].''' 53

Chimel has, however, been qualified by another consideration. Not only may officers search areas within the arrestee's immediate control in order to alleviate any threat posed by the arrestee, but they may extend that search if there may be a threat posed by ''unseen third parties in the house.'' A ''protective sweep'' of the entire premises (including an arrestee's home) may be undertaken on less than probable cause if officers have a ''reasonable belief,'' based on ''articulable facts,'' that the area to be swept may harbor an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene. 54

Vehicular Searches .--In the early days of the automobile the Court created an exception for searches of vehicles, holding in Carroll v. United States 55 that vehicles may be searched without warrants if the officer undertaking the search has probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains contraband. The Court explained that the mobility of vehicles would allow them to be quickly moved from the jurisdiction if time were taken to obtain a warrant. 56

Initially the Court limited Carroll's reach, holding impermissible the warrantless seizure of a parked automobile merely because it is movable, and indicating that vehicles may be stopped only while moving or reasonably contemporaneously with movement. 57 Also, the Court ruled that the search must be reasonably contemporaneous with the stop, so that it was not permissible to remove the vehicle to the stationhouse for a warrantless search at the convenience of the police. 58

The Court next developed a reduced privacy rationale to supplement the mobility rationale, explaining that ''the configuration, use, and regulation of automobiles often may dilute the reasonable expectation of privacy that exists with respect to differently situated property.'' 59 '''One has a lesser expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle because its function is transportation and it seldom serves as one's residence or as the repository of personal effects. . . . It travels public thoroughfares where both its occupants and its contents are in plain view.''' 60 While motor homes do serve as residences and as repositories for personal effects, and while their contents are often shielded from public view, the Court extended the automobile exception to them as well, holding that there is a diminished expectation of privacy in a mobile home parked in a parking lot and licensed for vehicular travel, hence ''readily mobile.'' 61

The reduced expectancy concept has broadened police powers to conduct automobile searches without warrants, but they still must have probable cause to search a vehicle 62 and they may not make random stops of vehicles on the roads, but instead must base stops of individual vehicles on probable cause or some ''articulable and reasonable suspicion'' Supp.5 of traffic or safety violation orsome other criminal activity. Supp.6 By contrast, fixed-checkpoint stops in the absence of any individualized suspicion have been upheld. 64 Once police have validly stopped a vehicle, they may also, based on articulable facts warranting a reasonable belief that weapons may be present, conduct a Terry-type protective search of those portions of the passenger compartment in which a weapon could be placed or hidden. 65 And, in the absence of such reasonable suspicion as to weapons, police may seize contraband and suspicious items ''in plain view'' inside the passenger compartment. 66

Once police have probable cause to believe there is contraband in a vehicle, they may remove it from the scene to the stationhouse in order to conduct a search, without thereby being required to obtain a warrant. ''[T]he justification to conduct such a warrantless search does not vanish once the car has been immobilized; nor does it depend upon a reviewing court's assessment of the likelihood in each particular case that the car would have been driven away, or that its contents would have been tampered with, during the period required for the police to obtain a warrant.'' 67 The Justices were evenly divided, however, on the propriety of warrantless seizure of an arrestee's automobile from a public parking lot several hours after his arrest, its transportation to a police impoundment lot, and the taking of tire casts and exterior paint scrapings. 68 Because of the lessened expectation of privacy, inventory searches of impounded automobiles are justifiable in order to protect public safety and the owner's property, and any evidence of criminal activity discovered in the course of the inventories is admissible in court. 69

< p> It is not lawful for the police in undertaking a warrantless search of an automobile to extend the search to the passengers therein. 70 But because passengers in an automobile have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the interior area of the car, a warrantless search of the glove compartment and the spaces under the seats, which turned up evidence implicating the passengers, invaded no Fourth Amendment interest of the passengers. 71 Luggage and other closed containers found in automobiles may also be subjected to warrantless searches based on probable cause, the same rule now applying whether the police have probable cause to search only the containers 72 or whether they have probable cause to search the automobile for something capable of being held in the container. 73

Vessel Searches .--Not only is the warrant requirement inapplicable to brief stops of vessels, but also none of the safeguards applicable to stops of automobiles on less than probable cause are necessary predicates to stops of vessels. In United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, 74 the Court upheld a random stop and boarding of a vessel by customs agents, lacking any suspicion of wrongdoing, for purpose of inspecting documentation. The boarding was authorized by statute derived from an act of the First Congress, 75 and hence had ''an impressive historical pedigree'' carrying with it a presumption of constitutionality. Moreover, ''important factual differences between vessels located in waters offering ready access to the open sea and automobiles on principal thoroughfares in the border area'' justify application of a less restrictive rule for vessel searches. The reason why random stops of vehicles have been held impermissible under the Fourth Amendment, the Court explained, is that stops at fixed checkpoints or roadblocks are both feasible and less subject to abuse of discretion by authorities. ''But no reasonable claim can be made that permanent checkpoints would be practical on waters such as these where vessels can move in any direction at any time and need not follow established 'avenues' as automobiles must do.'' 76 Because there is a ''substantial'' governmental interest in enforcing documentation laws, ''especially in waters where the need to deter or apprehend smugglers is great,'' the Court found the ''limited'' but not ''minimal'' intrusion occasioned by boarding for documentation inspection to be reasonable. 77 Dis senting Justice Brennan argued that the Court for the first time was approving ''a completely random seizure and detention of persons and an entry onto private, noncommercial premises by police officers, without any limitations whatever on the officers' discretion or any safeguards against abuse.'' 78

Footnotes

[Footnote 1] E.g., Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14 (1948); McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 453 (1948); Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 528 -29 (1967); G.M. Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U.S. 338, 352 -53, 355 (1977).

[Footnote 2] American Law Institute, A Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure, Tent. Draft No. 3 (Philadelphia: 1970), xix.

[Footnote 3] Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 454 -55 (1971) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967)); G.M. Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U.S. 338, 352 -53, 358 (1977).

[Footnote 4] Jones v. United States, 357 U.S. 493, 499 (1958).

[Footnote 5] McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 456 (1948). In general, with regard to exceptions to the warrant clause, conduct must be tested by the reasonableness standard enunciated by the first clause of the Amendment, Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 (1968), and the Court's development of its privacy expectation tests, supra, pp.1206-09, substantially changed the content of that standard.

[Footnote 6] United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411 (1976). See supra, p.1209.

[Footnote 7] Henry v. United States, 361 U.S. 98 (1959); Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 16 -17 (1948); Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40, 62 - 63 (1968).

[Footnote 8] ''The police may not arrest upon mere suspicion but only on 'probable cause.''' Mallory v. United States, 354 U.S. 449, 454 (1957).

[Footnote 9] 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Only Justice Douglas dissented. Id. at 35.

[Footnote 10] Id. at 16. See id. at 16-20.

[Footnote 11] Id. at 20, 21, 22.

[Footnote 12] Id. at 23-27, 29. See also Sibron v. New York, 392 U.S. 40 (1968) (after policeman observed defendant speak with several known narcotics addicts, he approached him and placed his hand in defendant's pocket, thus discovering narcotics; impermissible, because he lacked reasonable basis for frisk and in any event his search exceeded permissible scope of weapons frisk); Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143 (1972) (acting on tip that defendant was sitting in his car with narcotics and firearm, police approached, asked defendant to step out, and initiated frisk and discovered weapon when he merely rolled window down; justifiable); Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977) (after validly stopping car, officer required defendant to get out of car, observed bulge under his jacket, and frisked him and seized weapon; while officer did not suspect driver of crime or have an articulable basis for safety fears, safety considerations justified his requiring driver to leave car).

[Footnote 3 (1996 Supplement)] Minnesota v. Dickerson, 508 U.S. 366 (1993).

[Footnote 4 (1996 Supplement)] Id. at 2237, 2139. In Dickerson the Court held that seizure of a small plastic container that the officer felt in the suspect's pocket was not justified; the officer should not have continued the search, manipulating the container with his fingers, after determining that no weapon was present.

[Footnote 13] In United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411 (1981), a unanimous Court attempted to capture the ''elusive concept'' of the basis for permitting a stop. Officers must have ''articulable reasons'' or ''founded suspicions,'' derived from the totality of the circumstances. ''Based upon that whole picture the detaining officer must have a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity.'' Id. at 417-18. The inquiry is thus quite fact-specific. In the anonymous tip context, the same basic approach requiring some corroboration applies regardless of whether the standard is probable cause or reasonable suspicion; the difference is that less information, or less reliable information, can satisfy the lower standard. Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325 (1990).

[Footnote 14] E.g., Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979) (individual's presence in high crime area gave officer no articulable basis to suspect him of crime); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648 (1979) (reasonable suspicion of a license or registration violation is necessary to authorize automobile stop; random stops impermissible); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873 (1975) (officers could not justify random automobile stop solely on basis of Mexican appearance of occupants); Reid v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438 (1980) (no reasonable suspicion for airport stop based on appearance that suspect and another passenger were trying to conceal the fact that they were travelling together). But cf. United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 (1976) (halting vehicles at fixed checkpoints to question occupants as to citizenship and immigration status permissible, even if officers should act on basis of appearance of occupants).

[Footnote 15] Davis v. Mississipp
i, 394 U.S. 721 (1969); Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200 (1979).

[Footnote 16] See, e.g., United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221 (1985) (reasonable suspicion to stop a motorist may be based on a ''wanted flyer'' as long as issuance of the flyer has been based on reasonable suspicion); United States v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1 , (1989) (airport stop based on drug courier profile may rely on a combination of factors that individually may be ''quite consistent with innocent travel'').

[Footnote 17] 392 U.S. at 19 , n.16.

[Footnote 18] United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554 (1980).

[Footnote 19] See, e.g., Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491 (1983), in which there was no opinion of the Court, but in which the test was used by the plurality of four, id. at 502, and also endorsed by dissenting Justice Blackmun, id. at 514.

[Footnote 20] INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210 (1984).

[Footnote 21] Id. at 221.

[Footnote 22] Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 575 (1988).

[Footnote 23] 499 U.S. 621, 628 (1991). As in Michigan v. Chesternut, supra n.22, the suspect dropped incriminating evidence while being chased.

[Footnote 24] Adherence to this approach would effectively nullify the Court's earlier position that Fourth Amendment protections extend to ''seizures that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest.'' United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 878 (1975), quoted in INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S., 210, 215 (1984).

[Footnote 25] Florida v. Bostick, (1991).

[Footnote 26] Id. at 2387.

[Footnote 27] Id. The Court asserted that the case was ''analytically indistinguishable from Delgado. Like the workers in that case [subjected to the INS ''survey'' at their workplace], Bostick's freedom of movement was restricted by a factor independent of police conduct--i.e., by his being a passenger on a bus.'' Id.

[Footnote 28] Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032 (1983) (suspect appeared to be under the influence of drugs, officer spied hunting knife exposed on floor of front seat and searched remainder of passenger compartment). Similar reasoning has been applied to uphold a ''protective sweep'' of a home in which an arrest is made if arresting officers have a reasonable belief that the area swept may harbor another individual posing a danger to the officers or to others. Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990).

[Footnote 29] United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 686 (1985). A more relaxed standard has been applied to detention of travelers at the border, the Court testing the reasonableness in terms of ''the period of time necessary to either verify or dispel the suspicion.'' United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531, 544 (1985) (approving warrantless detention for more than 24 hours of traveler suspected of alimentary canal drug smuggling).

[Footnote 30] United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 709 (1983).

[Footnote 31] Id. at 706.

[Footnote 32] 462 U.S. at 707 . However, the search in Place was not expeditious, and hence exceeded Fourth Amendment bounds, when agents took 90 minutes to transport luggage to another airport for administration of the canine sniff.

[Footnote 33] Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491 (1983). On this much the plurality opinion of Justice White (id. at 503), joined by three other Justices, and the concurring opinion of Justice Brennan (id. at 509) were in agreement.

[Footnote 34] United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531 (1985).

[Footnote 35] Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392 (1914); Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 158 (1925); Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20, 30 (1925).

[Footnote 36] Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 (1968); Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762 , 763 (1969).

[Footnote 37] United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235 (1973). See also id. at 237-38 (Justice Powell concurring). The Court applied the same rule in Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U.S. 260 (1973), involving a search of a motorist's person following his custodial arrest for an offense for which a citation would normally have issued. Unlike the situation in Robinson, police regulations did not require the Gustafson officer to take the suspect into custody, nor did a departmental policy guide the officer as to when to conduct a full search. The Court found these differences inconsequential, and left for another day the problem of pretextual arrests in order to obtain basis to search. Soon thereafter, the Court upheld conduct of a similar search at the place of detention, even after a time lapse between the arrest and search. United States v. Edwards, 415 U.S. 800 (1974).

[Footnote 38] Compare Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192 (1927), with Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U.S. 344 (1931), and United States v. Lefkowitz, 285 U.S. 452 (1932).

[Footnote 39] 331 U.S. 145 (1947).

[Footnote 40] 334 U.S. 699 (1948).

[Footnote 41] Id. at 708.

[Footnote 42] 339 U.S. 56 (1950).

[Footnote 43] Id. at 64.

[Footnote 44] Cf. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 764 -65 & n.10 (1969). But in Kremen v. United States, 353 U.S. 346 (1957), the Court held that the seizure of the entire contents of a house and the removal to F.B.I. offices 200 miles away for examination, pursuant to an arrest under warrant of one of the persons found in the house, was unreasonable. In decisions contemporaneous to and subsequent to Chimel, applying pre-Chimel standards because that case was not retroactive, Williams v. United States, 401 U.S. 646 (1971), the Court has applied Rabinowitz somewhat restrictively. See Von Cleef v. New Jersey, 395 U.S. 814 (1969), which followed Kremen; Shipley v. California, 395 U.S. 818 (1969), and Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U.S. 30 (1970) (both involving arrests outside the house with subsequent searches of the house); Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 455 -57 (1971). Substantially extensive searches were, however, approved in Williams v. United States, 401 U.S. 646 (1971), and Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797 (1971).

[Footnote 45] 395 U.S. 752 (1969).

[Footnote 46] Id. at 762-63.

[Footnote 47] Supra, pp.1206-09. See, e.g., Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 492 , 493, 510 (1971), in which the four dissenters advocated the reasonableness argument rejected in Chimel.

[Footnote 48] 437 U.S. 385 (1978). The expectancy distinction is at 391.

[Footnote 49] 433 U.S. 1 (1977). Defendant and his luggage, a footlocker, had been removed to the police station, where the search took place.

[Footnote 50] If, on the other hand, a sealed shipping container had already been opened and resealed during a valid customs inspection, and officers had maintained surveillance through a ''controlled delivery'' to the suspect, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the container and officers may search it, upon the arrest of the suspect, without having obtained a warrant. Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U.S. 765 (1983).

[Footnote 51] Illinois v. LaFayette, 462 U.S. 640, 645 (1983) (inventory search) (following South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976)). Similarly, an inventory search of an impounded vehicle may include the contents of a closed container. Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367 (1987). Inventory searches of closed containers must, however, be guided by a police policy con
taining standardized criteria for exercise of discretion. Florida v. Wells, 495 U.S. 1 (1990).

[Footnote 52] 453 U.S. 454 (1981).

[Footnote 53] Id. at 460 (quoting Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 763 (1969)). In this particular instance, Belton had been removed from the automobile and handcuffed, but the Court wished to create a general rule removed from the fact-specific nature of any one case. '''Container' here denotes any object capable of holding another object. It thus includes closed or open glove compartments, consoles, or other receptacles located anywhere within the passenger compartment, as well as luggage, boxes, bags, clothing, and the like. Our holding encompasses only the interior of the passenger compartment of an automobile and does not encompass the trunk.'' Id. at 460-61 n.4.

[Footnote 54] Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 334 (1990). This ''sweep'' is not to be a full-blown, ''top-to-bottom'' search, but only ''a cursory inspection of those spaces where a person may be found.'' Id. at 335-36.

[Footnote 55] 267 U.S. 132 (1925). Carroll was a Prohibition-era liquor case, whereas a great number of modern automobile cases involve drugs.

[Footnote 56] Id. at 153. See also Husty v. United States, 282 U.S. 694 (1931); Scher v. United States, 305 U.S. 251 (1938); Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160 (1949). All of these cases involved contraband, but in Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42 (1970), the Court, without discussion, and over Justice Harlan's dissent, id. at 55, 62, extended the rule to evidentiary searches.

[Footnote 57] Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 458 -64 (1971). This portion of the opinion had the adherence of a plurality only, Justice Harlan concurring on other grounds, and there being four dissenters. Id. at 493, 504, 510, 523.

[Footnote 58] Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364 (1964); Dyke v. Taylor Implement Mfg. Co., 391 U.S. 216 (1968).

[Footnote 59] Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753, 761 (1979).

[Footnote 60] Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 590 (1974) (plurality opinion), quoted in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1, 12 (1977). See also United States v. Ortiz, 422 U.S. 891, 896 (1975); United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 561 (1976); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 367 -68 (1976); Robbins v. California, 453 U.S. 420, 424 -25 (1981); United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 807 n.9 (1982).

[Footnote 61] California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 393 (1985) (leaving open the question of whether the automobile exception also applies to a ''mobile'' home being used as a residence and not ''readily mobile'').

[Footnote 62] Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266 (1973) (roving patrols); United States v. Ortiz, 422 U.S. 891 (1975). Cf. Colorado v. Bannister, 449 U.S. 1 (1980). An automobile's ''ready mobility [is] an exigency sufficient to excuse failure to obtain a search warrant once probable cause is clear''; there is no need to find the presence of ''unforeseen circumstances'' or other additional exigency. Pennsylvania v. Labron, 116 S. Ct. 2485, 2487 (1996).

[Footnote 5 (1996 Supplement)] Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 663 (1979) (discretionary random stops of motorists to check driver's license and registration papers and safety features of cars constitute Fourth Amendment violation); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873 (1975) (violation for rovingpatrols on lookout for illegal aliens to stop vehicles on highways near international borders when only ground for suspicion is that occupants appear to be of Mexican ancestry). In Prouse, the Court cautioned that it was not precluding the States from developing methods for spotchecks, such as questioning all traffic at roadblocks, that involve less intrusion or that do not involve unconstrained exercise of discretion. 440 U.S. at 663.

[Footnote 6 (1996 Supplement)] An officer who observes a traffic violation may stop a vehicle even if his real motivation is to investigate for evidence of other crime. Whren v. United States, 116 S. Ct. 1769 (1996). The existence of probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred establishes the constitutional reasonableness of traffic stops regardless of the actual motivation of the officers involved, and regardless of whether it is customary police practice to stop motorists for the violation observed.

[Footnote 63] Deleted in 1996 Supplement.

[Footnote 64] Michigan Dep't of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990) (upholding a sobriety checkpoint at which all motorists are briefly stopped for preliminary questioning and observation for signs of intoxication). See also United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543 (1976) (upholding border patrol checkpoint, over 60 miles from the border, for questioning designed to apprehend illegal aliens).

[Footnote 65] Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1049 (1983) (holding that contraband found in the course of such a search is admissible).

[Footnote 66] Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730 (1983). Similarly, since there is no reasonable privacy interest in the vehicle identification number, required by law to be placed on the dashboard so as to be visible through the windshield, police may reach into the passenger compartment to remove items obscuring the number and may seize items in plain view while doing so. New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106 (1986).

[Footnote 67] Michigan v. Thomas, 458 U.S. 259, 261 (1982). See also Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42 (1970); Texas v. White, 423 U.S. 67 (1975); United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 807 n.9 (1982).

[Footnote 68] Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583 (1974). Justice Powell concurred on other grounds.

[Footnote 69] Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433 (1973); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364 (1976). See also Cooper v. California, 386 U.S. 58 (1967); United States v. Harris, 390 U.S. 234 (1968). Police, in conducting an inventory search of a vehicle, may open closed containers in order to inventory contents. Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367 (1987).

[Footnote 70] United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581 (1948). While Di Re is now an old case, it appears still to control. See Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 94 -96 (1979).

[Footnote 71] Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 (1978).

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Annotation 3 - Fourth Amendment - FindLaw

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

History.Few provisions of the Bill of Rights grew so directly out of the experience of the colonials as the Fourth Amendment, embodying as it did the protection against the utilization of the "writs of assistance." But while the insistence on freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures as a fundamental right gained expression in the Colonies late and as a result of experience,1 there was also a rich English experience to draw on. "Every man's house is his castle" was a maxim much celebrated in England, as was demonstrated in Semayne's Case, decided in 1603.2 A civil case of execution of process, Semayne's Case nonetheless recognized the right of the homeowner to defend his house against unlawful entry even by the King's agents, but at the same time recognized the authority of the appropriate officers to break and enter upon notice in order to arrest or to execute the King's process. Most famous of the English cases was Entick v. Carrington,3 one of a series of civil actions against state officers who, pursuant to general warrants, had raided many homes and other places in search of materials connected with John Wilkes' polemical pamphlets attacking not only governmental policies but the King himself.4

Entick, an associate of Wilkes, sued because agents had forcibly broken into his house, broken into locked desks and boxes, and seized many printed charts, pamphlets and the like. In an opinion sweeping in terms, the court declared the warrant and the behavior it authorized subversive "of all the comforts of society," and the issuance of a warrant for the seizure of all of a person's papers rather than only those alleged to be criminal in nature "contrary to the genius of the law of England."5 Besides its general character, said the court, the warrant was bad because it was not issued on a showing of probable cause and no record was required to be made of what had been seized. Entick v. Carrington, the Supreme Court has said, is a "great judgment," "one of the landmarks of English liberty," "one of the permanent monuments of the British Constitution," and a guide to an understanding of what the Framers meant in writing the Fourth Amendment.6

In the colonies, smuggling rather than seditious libel afforded the leading examples of the necessity for protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. In order to enforce the revenue laws, English authorities made use of writs of assistance, which were general warrants authorizing the bearer to enter any house or other place to search for and seize "prohibited and uncustomed" goods, and commanding all subjects to assist in these endeavors. The writs once issued remained in force throughout the lifetime of the sovereign and six months thereafter. When, upon the death of George II in 1760, the authorities were required to obtain the issuance of new writs, opposition was led by James Otis, who attacked such writs on libertarian grounds and who asserted the invalidity of the authorizing statutes because they conflicted with English constitutionalism.7 Otis lost and the writs were issued and utilized, but his arguments were much cited in the colonies not only on the immediate subject but also with regard to judicial review.

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