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Searches and Seizures: Roads and Vehicles What's a reasonable expectation of privacy of a person traveling in a car? Can a law enforcement agent pull over any vehicle he or she wants for any reason? Can a police officer search a car without a warrant? What about personal belongings found in the car, such as a purse or a locked briefcase? Excerpts in this category try to shed light on these and other issues relating to searches of cars, buses and other vehicles roaming the roads. Pages: ‹1› ‹2› ‹3› ‹4› ‹5› ‹6›
We decline today to distinguish between "worthy" and "unworthy" vehicles [cars or mobile homes] which are either on the public roads and highways, or situated such that it is reasonable to conclude that the vehicle is not being used as a residence.
Our application of the vehicle exception has never turned on the other uses to which a vehicle might be put. The exception has historically turned on the ready mobility of the vehicle, and on the presence of the vehicle in a setting that objectively indicates that the vehicle is being used for transportation. [...]
The Court's decision to forge ahead has established a rule for searching motor homes that is to be followed by the entire Nation. If the Court had merely allowed the decision below to stand, it would have only governed searches of those vehicles in a single State. The breadth of this Court's mandate counsels greater patience before we offer our binding judgement on the meaning of the Constitution.
Premature resolution of the novel question presented has stunted the natural growth and refinement of alternative principles. Despite the age of the automobile exception and the countless cases in which it has been applied, we have no prior cases defining the contours of a reasonable search in the context of hybrids such as motor homes, house trailers, houseboats, or yachts. In this case, the Court can barely glimpse the diverse lifestyles associated with recreational vehicles and mobile living quarters. [...]
In my opinion, searches of places that regularly accommodate a wide range of private human activity are fundamentally different from searches of automobiles which primarily serve a public transportation function. Although it may not be a castle, a motor home is usually the functional equivalent of a hotel room, a vacation and retirement home, or a hunting and fishing cabin. These places may be as spartan as a humble cottage when compared to the most majestic mansion, but the highest and most legitimate expectations of privacy associated with these temporary abodes should command the respect of this Court. [...] In my opinion, a warrantless search of living quarters in a motor home is "presumptively unreasonable absent exigent circumstances."
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We do not suggest that police officers may indefinitely retain possession of a vehicle and its contents before they complete a vehicle search. [...] Nor do we foreclose the possibility that the owner of a vehicle or its contents might attempt to prove that delay in the completion of a vehicle search was unreasonable because it adversely affected a privacy or possessory interest.
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[Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132]... held that a warrantless search of an automobile, based upon probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained evidence of crime in the light of an exigency arising out of the likely disappearance of the vehicle, did not contravene the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment.
In United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, decided in 1982, we held that a warrantless search of an automobile under the Carroll doctrine could include a search of a container or package found inside the car when such a search was supported by probable cause. In addition to this clarification, Ross distinguished the Carroll doctrine from the separate rule that governed the search of closed containers. See 456 U.S., at 817. The Court had announced this separate rule, unique to luggage and other closed packages, bags, and containers, in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1 (1977). In Chadwick, federal narcotics agents had probable cause to believe that a 200-pound double-locked footlocker contained marijuana. [T]the United States urged that the search of movable luggage could be considered analogous to the search of an automobile. The Court rejected this argument because, it reasoned, a person expects more privacy in his luggage and personal effects than he does in his automobile. In Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753 (1979), the Court extended Chadwick 's rule to apply to a suitcase actually being transported in the trunk of a car. In Ross, the Court endeavored to distinguish between Carroll, which governed the Ross automobile search, and Chadwick, which governed the Sanders automobile search. It held that the Carroll doctrine covered searches of automobiles when the police had probable cause to search an entire vehicle, but that the Chadwick doctrine governed searches of luggage when the officers had probable cause to search only a container within the vehicle. Until today, this Court has drawn a curious line between the search of an automobile that coincidentally turns up a container and the search of a container that coincidentally turns up in an automobile. We now agree that a container found after a general search of the automobile and a container found in a car after a limited search for the container are equally easy for the police to store and for the suspect to hide or destroy. In fact, we see no principled distinction in terms of either the privacy expectation or the exigent circumstances between the paper bag found by the police in Ross and the paper bag found by the police here. [...]
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