Supreme Court Decision on car searching

Taz, you are close on your understanding. Searches as you describe are generally acceptable if the car is impounded. They are routinely conducted when cars are impounded, for the reason you describe, as well as to secure any valuables that the arrested person may actually have in the car so they don't disappear from the car before the arrested person can get back to it. Although I haven't yet read the recent opinion, it appears to me that this rule is still good law. At least from the write-up that the CSM did, it doesn't look like this case involved a routine inventory search. What's more, the doctrine of inventory searches is so well established, I can't imagine that it would be discarded without significant discussion of the matter which this opinion doesn't appear to have.Coyote, the excuse isn't phony as applied to impound cases. It's important to keep in mind that the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches. It doesn't require a warrant in all cases. Look at it this way. Imagine you are arrested for an unpaid parking ticket you forgot about and, at the time of the arrest, you have a laptop computer in your car. Would you want the police to leave that in the car as it sits in the impound lot, or take possession of it until such time as you sort out the ticket?If the police department has an established policy of conducting an inventory search of all seized vehicles, any search conducted pursuant to this policy is reasonable, because there's a rational for the search other than looking for incriminating evidence.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Uh, no.There is another well-established doctrine that will likely never be modified, that provides that if the police are conducting a reasonable search for one purpose, evidence of other criminal activity found pursuant to the search is admissible. The idea behind this is that if the police are lawfully searching something or someone, they aren't required to close their eyes to evidence they discover during that search.However, the discovery must be truly incident to the lawful search. For example, if police have a warrant to search a resident for drugs and they find a stolen piano incident to that search, they can use that. However, if they have a warrant to look for a stolen piano and find drugs in a desk drawer, that evidence would be suppressed. There would be no reasonable basis to conclude that evidence of a stolen piano might be found in the drawer.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

For an ordinary traffic stop, such as a speeding ticket, police need either permission, probable cause to believe that there is evidence of criminal activity, or an articulable suspicion that you are armed before they can search your car. In Arizona v. Gant, the issue is the standard for a search incident to an arrest.The change that Gant makes is that it clarifies that a car can be searched incident to arrest for safety reasons only if the arrested person is within reach of the passenger compartment at the time of the search.

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For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. -- Barack ObamaWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat