A Stitch in Haste

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an important Fourth Amendment case regarding the search of an automobile after its driver has been lawfully arrested.

The procedural posture of Arizona v. Gant, No. 07-542, is a bit complicated. The facts are not:

At the time of the search, Gant was handcuffed, seated in the back of a locked patrol car, and under the supervision of a police officer. The other two arrestees at the scene were also handcuffed and detained in the back of patrol cars, and the record reflects no unsecured civilians in the vicinity. At least four officers were on the scene. At that point, the police had no reason to believe that anyone at the scene could have gained access to Gant's vehicle or that the officers' safety was at risk. Indeed, one of the officers who searched Gant's car acknowledged at the evidentiary hearing that the scene was secure at the time of the search. Therefore neither a concern for officer safety nor the preservation of evidence justified the warrantless search of Gant's car. Absent either of these Chimel* rationales, the search cannot be upheld as a lawful search incident to arrest.

That was the decision of the Arizona Supreme Court [PDF - 28 pages]. The State of Arizona begs to differ.

Arizona is asking the Supreme Court to extend the key case regarding post-arrest vehicle searches, New York v. Belton**, to the Gant fact pattern. That is asking too much:

When the occupant of an automobile is subjected to a lawful custodial arrest, does the constitutionally permissible scope of a search incident to his arrest include the passenger compartment of the automobile in which he was riding? That is the question at issue in the present case.

That was the very first paragraph of Belton, and it explains, quite succinctly, why that case in wholly inapposite to the Gant case: Gant was simply not an "occupant of an automobile" in any meaningful sense of the word at the time he was arrested.

He had driven up his own driveway, parked, turned the motor off and exited the vehicle before the police even spoke to him. He was eight to twelve feet away from the vehicle when he was arrested. The arrest was subsequent to an outstanding warrant, not to an immediate crime involving the vehicle. Gant had not been fleeing in the vehicle. The arrest warrant was not related to drugs, weapons or any other contraband (i.e., that might have been in the vehicle). And, finally, "the police had no reason to believe that anyone at the scene could have gained access to Gant's vehicle or that the officers' safety was at risk."

The search of Gant's vehicle was a self-serving fishing expedition by the authorities, nothing more. This the police may not do, even to a lawfully arrested individual.

Based on all that, how can anyone possibly conclude that this excessive, unjustified, warrantless search was reasonable and consistent with the Fourth Amendment?

Then again, whoever said Supreme Court Justices are always reasonable -- especially about the Fourth Amendment?

It will be some time before the Supreme Court hears and decides the case. Stay tuned...

Links to case documents available at SCOTUSblog.

---

*Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969)
**New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981)