IN THE SUPREME COURT OF 

CALIFORNIA

THE PEOPLE,

Plaintiff and Appellant,

v.

MARIA ELENA LOPEZ,

Defendant and Respondent.

S238627

Third Appellate District

C078537

Yolo County Superior Court

CRF143400

November 25, 2019

Justice Kruger authored the opinion of the Court, in which 

Justices Liu, Cuéllar, and Groban concurred.

Justice Chin filed a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice 

Cantil-Sakauye and Justice Corrigan concurred.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

S238627

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

Acting on an anonymous tip about a motorist’s erratic 

driving, a police officer approached defendant Maria Elena 

Lopez after she parked and exited her car. When the officer 

asked if she had a driver’s license, she said she did not. Police

then detained her for unlicensed driving and, without asking 

her name, searched the car for Lopez’s personal identification. 

They found methamphetamine in a purse sitting on the front 

passenger’s seat.

The trial court held the search was invalid under Arizona 

v. Gant (2009) 556 U.S. 332 (Gant), which narrowed the scope of 

permissible warrantless vehicle searches incident to a driver’s 

arrest. The Court of Appeal reversed. It held that the search 

was authorized under this court’s pre-Gant decision in In re 

Arturo D. (2002) 27 Cal.4th 60 (Arturo D.), which allowed police 

to conduct warrantless vehicle searches for personal 

identification documents at traffic stops when the driver failed 

to provide a license or other personal identification upon 

request.

We granted review to consider the application and 

continuing validity of the Arturo D. rule in light of subsequent 

legal developments. At the time Arturo D. was decided, no other 

state or federal court had recognized an exception to the Fourth 

Amendment’s warrant requirement for suspicionless traffic-stop 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

2

vehicle searches. The same holds true today; California remains 

the only state to have recognized such an exception. 

Considering the issue in light of more recent decisions from both 

the United States Supreme Court and our sister states, we now 

conclude that the desire to obtain a driver’s identification 

following a traffic stop does not constitute an independent, 

categorical exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant 

requirement. To the extent Arturo D. held otherwise, we 

conclude that rule should no longer be followed. We reverse the 

judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand for further 

proceedings.

I.

On the morning of July 4, 2014, City of Woodland Police 

Officer Jeff Moe responded to an anonymous tip concerning 

erratic driving. The tip described the car, a dark-colored Toyota, 

and the area in which it was driving. Unable to locate the 

vehicle, Officer Moe asked dispatch to run a computer search of 

the license plate, then drove by the address where the car was 

registered. Not seeing the vehicle, he resumed his duties.

Around 1:30 p.m., Officer Moe received a second 

anonymous report concerning the same car. The tipster 

identified the car’s location and asserted the driver, whom the 

tipster identified as “Marlena,” “had been drinking all day.” 

Again unable to locate the car, Officer Moe returned to the 

address where the car was registered. This time, he parked and 

waited. A few minutes later, defendant Maria Elena Lopez 

drove up and parked in front of the house.

Moe did not observe any traffic violations or erratic 

driving. But believing the driver to be “Marlena,” Officer Moe 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

3

approached the car. Moe testified at the suppression hearing 

that Lopez saw him, looked nervous, got out of the car, and 

began walking away from him. Moe did not smell alcohol or note 

any other signs of intoxication. But because he “wanted to know 

what her driving status was based on the allegations earlier, 

plus [he] wanted to identify who she was,” Moe asked Lopez if 

she had a driver’s license. Lopez said that she did not. Without 

asking Lopez for her name or other identifying information, Moe 

detained her by placing her in a control hold. When Lopez tried 

to pull away, Moe handcuffed her.

Officer Moe then asked Lopez “if she had . . . any 

identification possibly within the vehicle.” When Lopez 

responded “there might be,” a second officer on the scene opened

the passenger door, retrieved a small purse from the passenger 

seat, and handed it to Moe. Moe then searched the purse and 

found a baggie containing methamphetamine in a side pocket.

Lopez was charged with misdemeanor violations of 

possessing methamphetamine (Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, 

subd. (a)) and driving when her license to drive had been 

suspended or revoked (Veh. Code, § 14601.2, subd. (a)). She filed 

a motion to suppress evidence (Pen. Code, § 1538.5, subd. (a)(1)), 

arguing she had been unlawfully detained and her purse 

unlawfully searched.

The trial court granted the suppression motion. The court 

concluded the initial contact between Lopez and Officer Moe 

after she exited her vehicle was consensual. Once Lopez told 

Moe she did not have a license, the officer also had probable 

cause to detain and arrest her for driving without a valid license. 

(See Veh. Code, § 12500, subd. (a) [“A person may not drive a

motor vehicle upon a highway, unless the person then holds a
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

4

valid driver’s license issued under this code”].) But the trial 

court concluded that the ensuing search of Lopez’s vehicle was 

invalid because neither of the justifications for conducting a 

vehicle search incident to arrest under Gant, supra, 556 U.S. 

332, was present. Gant held that a vehicle search incident to 

arrest is justified only if it is reasonable to believe the suspect 

can gain access to weapons inside the vehicle or that evidence of 

the offense of arrest might be found inside the vehicle. (Id. at 

p. 335.) Here, Lopez was handcuffed at the rear of her car when 

the search took place and could not reach any weapons inside 

the car. Nor was there any likelihood a search of the car would 

produce evidence of Lopez’s driving without a license in her 

possession.

1

 With the evidence suppressed, the trial court 

dismissed the case.

The Court of Appeal reversed the suppression ruling. The 

appellate court explained that Gant was not applicable because 

Lopez had not been formally arrested, only detained, at the time 

of the search. (People v. Lopez (2016) 4 Cal.App.5th 815, 827–

828.) The authority for the search was therefore not the search 

incident to arrest exception at issue in Gant, but the traffic-stop 

identification-search exception recognized in Arturo D., supra, 

27 Cal.4th 60. (Lopez, at pp. 825–826.) Once Lopez told Officer 

Moe that she did not have a driver’s license, Officer Moe had 

cause to believe Lopez had driven without a license in violation

 

1 The trial court also concluded the People had not supplied 

support for a search for evidence of driving under the influence. 

The first anonymous tip was remote in time, the second was 

vague and conclusory, Officer Moe observed nothing to indicate 

Lopez was under the influence, and the hearing testimony made 

clear the search was directed at finding identification.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

5

of the Vehicle Code. (Id. at p. 825; see Veh. Code, § 12500, 

subd. (a).) Under Arturo D., the police were then permitted to 

search Lopez’s vehicle for other forms of identification in order 

to ensure that any citation and notice to appear for the Vehicle 

Code violation reflected Lopez’s true identity. (Lopez, at p. 826.) 

If Arturo D. “is still good law,” the Court of Appeal concluded, 

“the search in this case was reasonable under the Fourth 

Amendment.” (Lopez, at p. 825.) 

We granted review.

II.

A.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution 

prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” In general, a law 

enforcement officer is required to obtain a warrant before 

conducting a search. (Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton (1995) 

515 U.S. 646, 653.) Warrantless searches “are per se unreasonable 

under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically 

established and well-delineated exceptions.” (Katz v. United States

(1967) 389 U.S. 347, 357, fns. omitted; accord, People v. Redd (2010) 

48 Cal.4th 691, 719 [“A warrantless search is presumed to be 

unreasonable”].) Whether a particular kind of search is exempt 

from the warrant requirement ordinarily depends on whether, 

under the relevant circumstances, law enforcement’s need to 

search outweighs the invasion of individual privacy. (Riley v. 

California (2014) 573 U.S. 373, 385; Delaware v. Prouse (1979) 440 

U.S. 648, 654; Camara v. Municipal Court (1967) 387 U.S. 523, 

536–537.)

In Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60, we considered the 

existence and scope of an exception permitting officers to 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

6

conduct a warrantless vehicle search when a driver pulled over 

for a traffic infraction is unable to produce the required 

documentation in response to an officer’s request. Arturo D.

involved two consolidated cases in which law enforcement 

officers had detained drivers for traffic infractions and the 

drivers could produce neither a driver’s license nor the vehicle’s 

registration in response to the officers’ requests. In one case, 

the officer entered the defendant’s truck and reached under the 

driver’s seat. The officer did not locate any relevant documents 

but did discover a box that later was found to contain 

methamphetamine. In the other case, the officer entered the 

defendant’s car and looked first in the glove compartment and 

then under the front passenger seat, finding a wallet that 

contained a baggie of methamphetamine. (Arturo D., at pp. 65–

67.)

Arturo D. upheld both searches. The opinion concluded 

that when a driver has been detained for a traffic infraction and 

fails to produce vehicle registration or personal identification 

documentation upon request, the Fourth Amendment “permits 

limited warrantless searches of areas within a vehicle where 

such documentation reasonably may be expected to be found.” 

(Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 65.)

Although Arturo D. upheld warrantless searches for both 

vehicle registration and personal identification, its reasoning 

focused primarily on the former rather than the latter. In 

explaining the basis for this exception to the Fourth 

Amendment’s warrant requirement, Arturo D. relied heavily on 

various California and out-of-state cases upholding warrantless 

searches of vehicles for the purpose of locating the vehicle 

registration. (Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 71 & fn. 7 [citing 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

7

People v. Webster (1991) 54 Cal.3d 411 and various Court of 

Appeal cases]; see also Arturo D., at p. 76, fn. 16 [citing 

additional out-of-state cases concerning searches for vehicle 

registration].)2 Arturo D. did not identify any prior cases, either 

from California or elsewhere, that had concluded the need to 

locate a driver’s license or other form of personal identification

could alone justify a warrantless search. But Arturo D. reasoned

that a similar balance of interests should yield the same result 

for both vehicle registration and personal identification 

searches. On the one hand, the state has an important interest 

in identifying drivers so that it can properly cite them for traffic 

violations. (Arturo D., at p. 67.) And on the other hand, drivers 

have a “reduced expectation of privacy while driving a vehicle 

on public thoroughfares.” (Id. at p. 68, citing New York v. Class

(1986) 475 U.S. 106, 112–113 (Class).) While officers have the 

power to arrest drivers who violate the Vehicle Code by failing 

to keep their licenses in their possession while driving, an arrest 

“in most circumstances would subject the driver to considerably 

greater intrusion.” (Arturo D., at p. 76, fn. 17.) Arturo D. 

concluded it is therefore permissible for the officer to search 

those areas of the vehicle in which the necessary documentation 

“reasonably may be expected to be found.” (Id. at p. 65; see also 

id. at pp. 78, 79, 84, 86.)3

 

2 The portion of Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60, upholding 

a search for registration documents is not at issue in this case.

3 The dissent would reconceptualize Arturo D. as applying 

only to “places in the vehicle where a driver, slowing to a halt, 

might quickly put or toss a wallet or similar container.” (Dis. 

opn. post, at p. 11; see id. at p. 10.) The standard this court 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

8

As Arturo D. acknowledged, the United States Supreme 

Court had previously held that the Fourth Amendment does not 

permit law enforcement to search the vehicle of a person who 

has been cited, but not arrested, for a traffic violation. (Knowles 

v. Iowa (1998) 525 U.S. 113 (Knowles).) Knowles had invalidated 

a vehicle search after the driver had been ticketed for speeding, 

a search conducted under what the court termed a putative 

“ ‘search incident to citation’ ” exception to the Fourth 

Amendment’s warrant requirement. (Knowles, at p. 115.) 

Knowles dismissed the state’s argument that “a ‘search incident 

to citation’ is justified because a suspect who is subject to a 

routine traffic stop may attempt to hide or destroy evidence 

related to his identity (e.g., a driver’s license or vehicle 

registration).” (Id. at p. 118.) “[I]f a police officer is not satisfied 

with the identification furnished by the driver,” the court 

responded, “this may be a basis for arresting him rather than 

merely issuing a citation.” (Ibid.)

Arturo D. acknowledged the high court’s guidance on this 

point but distinguished Knowles on the ground that the case 

concerned a full search of the entire vehicle “following the 

issuance of a traffic citation,” not a search for documentation 

“prior to issuing a traffic citation,” limited to the areas in which 

 

actually embraced, directly quoted in the text above, is 

considerably broader. It extends beyond places a driver might 

hide identification at the last second; it also includes other 

places where a driver, not trying to conceal identification, might 

“store” his or her identification as a matter of routine or habit. 

(Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 87.) Thus, containers in 

which identification might be expected to be kept are subject to 

search even if they could not have been accessed in the moments 

when the driver was being pulled over.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

9

such documentation might reasonably be found. (Arturo D., 

supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 76, fn. omitted.) Because the high court 

had never considered whether the Fourth Amendment permits 

warrantless traffic-stop searches for documentation, as opposed 

to contraband (Arturo D., at p. 79), Arturo D. rejected the

drivers’ arguments that Knowles foreclosed the recognition of 

such an exception to the warrant requirement. 

Arturo D. found reassurance in a second high court 

decision, Class, supra, 475 U.S. 106, in which the court had 

upheld a traffic-stop search for a Vehicle Identification Number 

(VIN) that had been covered by papers on the car’s dashboard. 

(Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at pp. 71–74; see Class, at pp. 116–

119.) Class had emphasized law enforcement’s important 

interest in tracking stolen vehicles and promoting highway 

safety, drivers’ decreased expectation of privacy when driving 

automobiles on public roads, and the relatively limited nature of 

the VIN search. (Class, at pp. 111–114, 118–119; see Arturo D.,

at p. 72.) Arturo D. concluded that this reasoning and approach 

was “not inconsistent” with approving a limited warrantless 

search for registration documents or driver identification. 

(Arturo D., at p. 73.)

Three justices dissented from Arturo D.’s traffic-stop 

identification-search holding. Although Justice Werdegar 

agreed with Arturo D.’s holding as to registration searches, she

argued that the logic of the identification-search exception 

would take officers not only into glove compartments and visors, 

but also into drivers’ pockets and purses. She saw no adequate 

justification for granting law enforcement such authority

whenever a driver who has committed a traffic infraction fails 

to produce a license upon request. (Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

10

at pp. 89–91 (conc. & dis. opn. of Werdegar, J.).) Justice 

Kennard, joined by Justice Brown, opined that granting officers 

such authority was inconsistent with Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. 

113. And despite the majority’s assurance that the 

identification-search authority was “limited”—and thus unlike 

the “full-scale” search invalidated in Knowles (Arturo D., at 

p. 75)—Justice Kennard opined that the exception “may well 

result in limitless searches throughout a vehicle whenever a 

driver cannot produce the requisite documentation.” (Arturo D.,

at p. 91 (dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).)

B.

In this case, police searched a driver’s purse after 

detaining her for a traffic violation. This is not a scenario 

squarely addressed in Arturo D. Although Justice Werdegar’s 

partial dissent had argued that this is where the logic of the 

identification-search rule would lead, the majority opinion 

neither responded to the point nor otherwise directly addressed 

the application of its rule to these circumstances.

Nevertheless, although Lopez briefly argues otherwise, 

there is no real question that the search in this case was 

conducted in accordance with Arturo D.’s general guidance. 

Officer Moe approached Lopez as she got out of her car and 

asked whether she had a driver’s license. Lopez concedes that 

by answering no, she admitted that she had committed, at a 

minimum, the traffic infraction of driving a car without physical 

possession of a license. (Veh. Code, § 12951, subd. (a).) That 

admission gave Officer Moe the authority to detain her for a 

reasonable period to determine whether to issue a traffic 

citation and to conduct the “ ‘ordinary inquiries incident to [the 

traffic] stop,’ ” which generally include verifying the driver’s 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

11

identity. (Rodriguez v. U.S. (2015) 575 U.S. ___, ___ [135 S.Ct. 

1609, 1615]; see U.S. v. Sharpe (1985) 470 U.S. 675, 683–686; cf. 

People v. McGaughran (1979) 25 Cal.3d 577, 585–587.)4 And 

under Arturo D., Lopez’s inability to produce a driver’s license

also gave Officer Moe the authority to search her vehicle for the 

license or other forms of personal identification.5

 

4 The temporary detention may sometimes also include a 

“determin[ation] whether there are outstanding warrants 

against the driver” (Rodriguez v. U.S., supra, 135 S.Ct. at 

p. 1615) and a criminal history check (U.S. v. Purcell (11th Cir. 

2001) 236 F.3d 1274, 1278), which is done by consulting an incar computer terminal or radioing dispatch (see, e.g., People v. 

McGaughran, supra, 25 Cal.3d at pp. 584–585, fn. 6; 4 LaFave, 

Search and Seizure (5th ed. 2012) § 9.3(c), pp. 511–513).

5 Lopez argues in passing that Arturo D. does not apply 

because the incident was a consensual encounter. This is a 

strange way to describe an interaction that ended with Lopez in 

handcuffs. True, the encounter did begin consensually, as the 

trial court found. But once Lopez indicated she had no license, 

the officer had grounds to detain Lopez and determine whether 

she indeed had been driving without a valid license. At that 

point, Arturo D. authorized a warrantless search for 

identification if Lopez could not produce any.

Lopez also takes a contradictory tack, urging she was 

already under arrest when the search was conducted and so only 

a search for weapons or evidence of the crime of arrest would 

have been permissible. (See Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at pp. 342–

344.) The record does not support this contention either. At the 

time of the search, Lopez had been temporarily detained to 

enable Officer Moe to investigate and process her traffic 

violation. The handcuffing did not transform the detention into 

an arrest. (People v. Celis (2004) 33 Cal.4th 667, 675 [“stopping 

a suspect at gunpoint, handcuffing him, and making him sit on 

the ground for a short period, as occurred here, do not convert a 

detention into an arrest”]; see ibid. [citing additional cases].)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

12

The search in this case does, as mentioned, differ from the 

searches at issue in Arturo D. in that it focused on the driver’s 

purse. But that the purse was within the scope of the officer’s 

search authority under Arturo D. is beyond reasonable dispute; 

a purse is, after all, “[t]he most ‘traditional repository’ of a 

driver’s license” for a certain class of drivers. (Arturo D., supra, 

27 Cal.4th at p. 90 (conc. & dis. opn. of Werdegar, J.).) Lopez

argues the search nonetheless violated Arturo D. because 

officers proceeded directly to searching her vehicle for 

identification instead of first asking her who she was, allowing 

her to retrieve identification herself, or arresting her. Arturo D., 

however, does not require officers to do any of these things. The 

rule adopted and applied in that case does not require officers to 

ask for oral identification before searching for physical 

documentation; to the contrary, Arturo D. upheld identification 

searches conducted even after each driver gave an officer 

truthful identifying information, including, in one case, his 

name, address, and date of birth. (Id. at pp. 65–66, 83–84.) Nor

does Arturo D. require officers to allow persons detained outside 

the vehicle to reach into the vehicle to retrieve identification

themselves—even where, as here, officers did not testify to 

particularized safety concerns. (Id. at pp. 84–85.) Finally,

Arturo D. pointedly held it was not unreasonable for law 

enforcement to search the vehicle for personal identification 

instead of either asking for the driver’s consent to search or 

arresting the driver if unsatisfied with the driver’s 

identification, as the high court had suggested in Knowles. 

(Arturo D., at pp. 76–77, fn. 17; see Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at 

p. 118.)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

13

As the Court of Appeal correctly surmised, the central 

issue in this case is not whether the search of Lopez’s car was 

consistent with the guidance given in Arturo D. The issue, 

rather, is whether to continue to adhere to the rule of Arturo D., 

notwithstanding subsequent legal developments casting doubt 

on the validity of a categorical rule authorizing warrantless

vehicle searches whenever a driver stopped for a traffic 

infraction fails to produce a license or other satisfactory 

identification documents upon request.

III.

A.

Lopez’s primary argument concerns the effect of the 

United States Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in Gant, supra, 

556 U.S. 332, on which the trial court relied in invalidating the 

search of Lopez’s car. The Court of Appeal correctly held that 

Gant is not directly applicable here because it concerned a 

different exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant 

requirement. But Lopez contends that the reasoning of Gant 

nonetheless undermines the validity of the Arturo D.

identification-search exception.

The question in Gant concerned the scope of the exception 

governing vehicle searches incident to the arrest of the driver or 

another recent occupant. In Chimel v. California (1969) 395 

U.S. 752, 762–763, the court had held that law enforcement may 

conduct a warrantless search incident to a person’s arrest for 

certain safety or evidentiary reasons: specifically, to disarm the 

person or to prevent the person from destroying evidence. Some 

years later, in New York v. Belton (1981) 453 U.S. 454, the high 

court applied Chimel in the context of a vehicle stop. After 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

14

pulling a driver over for speeding, an officer discerned evidence 

of marijuana use in the vehicle. The officer ordered the 

occupants out of the car and arrested them for drug offenses, 

then searched the vehicle. The high court upheld the search 

under Chimel, holding that when an officer lawfully arrests a 

person who has recently occupied a car, the officer may “search 

the passenger compartment of that automobile” and any interior 

containers as areas “ ‘into which an arrestee might reach in 

order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m].’ ” (Belton, at 

p. 460, quoting Chimel, at p. 763.)

Belton was “[f]or years . . . widely understood to have set 

down a simple, bright-line rule” permitting vehicle “searches 

incident to arrests of recent occupants, regardless of whether 

the arrestee in any particular case was within reaching distance 

of the vehicle at the time of the search.” (Davis v. United States

(2011) 564 U.S. 229, 233.) This trend was exemplified by the 

facts of Thornton v. United States (2004) 541 U.S. 615

(Thornton), a case decided not long after our decision in Arturo 

D. In Thornton, the court upheld a Belton search for weapons 

or evidence even though the driver had exited the vehicle before 

the police encounter and was handcuffed and in the back of a 

patrol car at the time of the search. (Thornton, at pp. 617–618.) 

Rejecting a proposed rule that would limit Belton searches 

depending on whether police initiated contact with the suspect 

while he was still in the car or after, the majority opined that 

the “need for a clear rule, readily understood by police officers 

. . . justifies the sort of generalization which Belton enunciated.” 

(Thornton, at p. 623.) But a number of justices—collectively 

representing a majority of the court—expressed dissatisfaction 

with the broad scope of the Belton rule and how it had been 
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Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

15

applied in the lower courts. (See Thornton, at p. 624 (conc. opn. 

of O’Connor, J.); id. at pp. 625–632 (conc. opn. of Scalia, J., 

joined by Ginsburg, J.); id. at pp. 633–636 (dis. opn. of Stevens, 

J., joined by Souter, J.).)

The court revisited the issue in Gant and this time reached 

a different conclusion. The defendant in that case had been 

arrested for driving with a suspended license. While he was 

handcuffed in the back of a locked patrol car, police officers 

searched his vehicle and found drugs. The United States 

Supreme Court invalidated the search. The court held that a 

Belton search for weapons or destructible evidence is permitted 

only when an arrestee is actually capable of reaching the area 

to be searched. (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 343 & fn. 4.) 

Drawing on Justice Scalia’s Thornton concurrence, the court 

also allowed searches for evidence “ ‘relevant to the crime of 

arrest’ ”—a justification rooted in historical practice. (Gant, at 

p. 343, quoting Thornton, supra, 541 U.S. at p. 632 (conc. opn. of 

Scalia, J.).) But in Gant, as in most cases involving arrests for 

traffic violations, there was no chance of finding relevant 

evidence inside the car. (Gant, at p. 344; see Knowles, supra, 

525 U.S. at p. 118.)

The high court rejected the state’s argument that a 

broader, more categorical rule authorizing vehicle searches 

incident to arrest “correctly balances law enforcement interests, 

including the interest in a bright-line rule, with an arrestee’s 

limited privacy interest in his vehicle.” (Gant, supra, 556 U.S.

at p. 344.) On one side of the balance, the court noted, the 

argument “seriously undervalues the privacy interests at 

stake[:] Although we have recognized that a motorist’s privacy 

interest in his vehicle is less substantial than in his home, see
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Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

16

. . . Class, [supra,] 475 U.S. [at pp.] 112–113 . . . , the former 

interest is nevertheless important and deserving of 

constitutional protection, see Knowles, [supra,] 525 U.S.[] at 

p. 117. It is particularly significant that Belton searches 

authorize police officers to search not just the passenger 

compartment but every purse, briefcase, or other container 

within that space. A rule that gives police the power to conduct 

such a search whenever an individual is caught committing a 

traffic offense, when there is no basis for believing evidence of 

the offense might be found in the vehicle, creates a serious and 

recurring threat to the privacy of countless individuals. Indeed, 

the character of that threat implicates the central concern 

underlying the Fourth Amendment—the concern about giving 

police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among a 

person’s private effects.” (Gant, at pp. 344–345, fn. omitted.)

Turning to the law enforcement interests on the other side 

of the balance, the court found little to commend a rule that 

permits Belton searches regardless of the suspect’s ability to 

access the vehicle at the time of the search or the likelihood of 

finding offense-related evidence inside. “Construing Belton

broadly to allow vehicle searches incident to any arrest would 

serve no purpose except to provide a police entitlement, and it is 

anathema to the Fourth Amendment to permit a warrantless 

search on that basis.” (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 347.)

B.

In cutting back the prevailing understanding of 

permissible vehicle searches incident to arrest, Gant neither 

considered nor disapproved Arturo D.’s rule authorizing 

prearrest searches for driver identification. That is hardly 

surprising: as Arturo D. itself acknowledged, the high court has 
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Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

17

never approved a prearrest search for identification, either. 

(Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 79; see id. at p. 73.) Nor is 

that the end of our inquiry today.

It is important to remember that the question before us is 

a question of federal constitutional law, not one of state law. In 

matters of federal law, the United States Supreme Court has the 

final word; we operate as an intermediate court and not as a 

court of last resort. In such matters, although we recognize the 

importance of following precedent in our judicial system, we also 

recognize that our role in that system sometimes requires us to 

reevaluate our precedent in light of new guidance. “When 

emergent [United States] Supreme Court case law calls into 

question a prior opinion of another court, that court should 

pause to consider its likely significance before giving effect to an 

earlier decision.” (Carpenters Local Union No. 26 v. U.S. 

Fidelity & Guar. Co. (1st Cir. 2000) 215 F.3d 136, 141.) This is 

so even when the high court’s decision does not directly address 

the continuing validity of the rule in question; the high court’s 

guidance may nonetheless erode the analytical foundations of 

the old rule or make clear that the rule is substantially out of 

step with the broader body of relevant federal law. (See, e.g., 

People v. Anderson (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1104, 1138–1141; id. at 

p. 1141 [“it is our duty to reconsider” precedent when 

subsequent United States Supreme Court decisions cast doubt 

on our reading of that court’s earlier decisions]; see also, e.g., 

People v. Gallardo (2017) 4 Cal.5th 120, 134–135 [reconsidering 

precedent in light of reasoning of subsequent high court 

decisions].) Of necessity, then, we retain “the flexibility to 

consider emerging United States Supreme Court case law when 

considering earlier decisions on federal issues . . . even when the 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

18

newer cases have not directly overruled or superseded [our] 

prior cases.” (W.G. Clark Const. Co. v. Pacific Northwest 

Regional Council of Carpenters (2014) 180 Wn.2d 54, 66.)

Arturo D. itself had taken its cues from high court 

precedent concerning other types of vehicle searches, taking 

care to ensure the exception was “not inconsistent” with the 

reasoning and general approach of these cases. (Arturo D., 

supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 73.) In fashioning a new identificationsearch exception to the warrant requirement, Arturo D.

concluded, in light of then-available guidance, that the state’s 

interests in conducting such a search outweighed the degree of 

privacy intrusion. (See, e.g., Delaware v. Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. 

at p. 654.) The reasoning of Gant offers additional, highly 

relevant guidance not available at the time of Arturo D. Gant 

speaks clearly to the stakes on each side, and its reasoning calls 

for a reappraisal of the proper balance of interests to ensure 

consistency with the larger body of Fourth Amendment law.

On the privacy side of the scales, Gant cautions against 

“undervalu[ing] the privacy interests at stake” in the context of 

vehicle searches. (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at pp. 344–345.) The 

opinion in Arturo D. contained no discussion of the magnitude 

of the intrusion associated with a search for a driver’s license or 

other proof of identity. Arturo D. found reassurance in the high 

court’s reasoning in Class, which held that an officer did not act 

unreasonably in shifting papers on a dashboard to read the car’s 

VIN, without ever acknowledging the very different privacy 

implications of permitting officers to look through drivers’ 

wallets and purses for their personal identification. (See 

Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at pp. 71–74, discussing Class, 

supra, 475 U.S. 106.) Arturo D.’s discussion of privacy instead 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

19

was limited to citing high court authority for the proposition 

that drivers “have a reduced expectation of privacy while driving 

a vehicle on public thoroughfares.” (Arturo D., at p. 68, citing 

Class, at pp. 112–113.)

Gant reaffirms this proposition, but clarifies that while a 

“motorist’s privacy interest in his vehicle is less substantial than 

in his home [citation], the former interest is nevertheless 

important and deserving of constitutional protection.” (Gant,

supra, 556 U.S. at p. 345.) It then goes on to explain that a rule 

that permits police officers to search vehicles (and the purses 

and other containers therein) “whenever an individual is caught 

committing a traffic offense” is not only a “serious and recurring 

threat to . . . privacy,” but a threat that “implicates the central 

concern underlying the Fourth Amendment—the concern about 

giving police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will 

among a person’s private effects.” (Gant, at p. 345, fn. omitted.)

Although Gant addresses a different exception to the 

warrant requirement, its relevance here is hard to miss. The 

identification-search exception, after all, is also a rule that 

permits officers to search vehicles, including—especially 

including—purses, briefcases, and other personal effects 

contained therein. It applies “whenever an individual is caught 

committing a traffic offense” (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 345)—

even one that will simply result in a traffic ticket, and not an 

arrest as in Gant—and is unable to produce identification upon 

request. Where Arturo D. had contained no explicit 

acknowledgment of this incursion on privacy, Gant makes clear 

that this qualifies as a “serious” privacy threat that goes to the 

very core of the Fourth Amendment’s protections. (Gant, at 

p. 345.) Indeed, the intrusion on privacy in the Arturo D. setting 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

20

is arguably greater than the intrusion in Gant: While the 

privacy interests of an arrestee are necessarily diminished to 

some extent by the very fact of having been arrested (see, e.g., 

Riley v. California, supra, 573 U.S. at pp. 391–392), Arturo D.

applies to individuals who are merely detained for having 

committed a traffic violation. Such individuals have at least an 

equal, if not greater interest in officers not “rummag[ing] at will” 

through their belongings. (Gant, at p. 345.)

The dissent suggests drivers’ privacy concerns are 

overblown because Arturo D. outlined a series of limits to the 

identification-search power. Among other things, Arturo D.

cautioned that the power is not to be used as a pretext to search 

for contraband and that the searches must be targeted to focus 

on the areas in which identification is likely to be found. (Dis. 

opn. post, at pp. 9–10.) As the dissent notes, these limitations 

were important to Arturo D.’s identification-search holding—

indeed, they were arguably crucial, given the high court’s 

disapproval of vehicle searches “ ‘incident to [traffic] citation’ ” 

in Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at page 118. But experience in the 

years since Arturo D. was decided has lent credence to Justice 

Kennard’s fear that its “new rule [might] well result in limitless 

searches throughout a vehicle” that are indistinguishable in 

effect from the kind of search disapproved in Knowles. (Arturo 

D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 91 (dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).) Arturo 

D. has been used as authority to uphold searches into purses, 

bags, center consoles, and glove compartments, under both 

driver and passenger seats, into backpacks in the bed of a truck, 

and up the sleeves of a jacket lying in the well behind the front 

seats of an SUV.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

21

None of this is surprising. As much as Arturo D.

attempted to cordon off the authority it granted from the fullscale vehicle searches disapproved in Knowles, the inevitable 

consequence of a categorical rule authorizing officers to look for 

identification in places where they might reasonably believe the 

identification is located, or where it might have been hidden, is 

that officers will look throughout the area “into which [the 

driver] might reach,” much as they would if they were 

conducting a vehicle search incident to arrest. (Chimel v. 

California, supra, 395 U.S. at p. 763.) Officers will naturally 

focus in particular on purses, wallets, briefcases, and other 

similar personal effects where identification is typically carried 

but the intrusion into privacy is also at its apex. And given an 

officer’s authority to seize any “ ‘evidence in plain view from a 

position where the officer has a right to be’ ” (Arturo D., supra, 

27 Cal.4th at p. 70), in practice the scope of the authority 

granted under Arturo D. has proved perilously close to the “fullscale search for contraband” we acknowledged was expressly 

prohibited by Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. 113 (Arturo D., at p. 86). 

The privacy interests at stake in such a regime are weighty—

certainly weightier than Arturo D. had recognized.

Although Gant speaks most clearly to the privacy side of 

the balance, it also offers by example important guidance about 

how to weigh the law enforcement interests on the other side of 

the scale. The justification for the search incident to arrest 

exception, Gant emphasized, is ultimately only to permit law 

enforcement to respond to particular safety or evidentiary 

concerns that may arise during the course of the arrest of a 

driver or recent occupant of a vehicle. (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at 

pp. 335, 347.) To ensure the scope of the exception did not 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

22

become “untether[ed]” from its justifications, Gant insisted that 

the exception be limited to the subset of arrests in which 

genuine safety or evidentiary concerns are present—that is, 

cases in which officers reasonably believed the arrestee could 

have accessed a weapon or destructible evidence in the car at 

the time of the search, or that evidence of the offense for which 

the person was arrested might be found in the car. (Id. at 

p. 343.) In other words, courts must pay close attention to the 

presence or absence of the circumstances that justify breaching 

a person’s privacy by searching a vehicle and the personal effects 

contained therein. (See also Riley v. California, supra, 573 U.S. 

at pp. 401–403 [confining any exception for warrantless 

cellphone searches to exigent circumstances or a like casespecific showing of police necessity].)

The justification for Arturo D.’s identification-search 

exception was the need to ensure that a law enforcement officer 

has the information necessary to issue a citation and notice to 

appear for a traffic infraction—despite drivers’ incentives to 

conceal that information, and notwithstanding safety concerns 

that might arise if officers were compelled to allow drivers to 

retrieve the relevant documents themselves. (Arturo D., supra, 

27 Cal.4th at pp. 67, 70, fn. 6, 79.) To give effect to these 

important interests, Arturo D. considered a limited warrantless 

search to be more reasonable than the alternative of subjecting 

the driver to full custodial arrest, which would impose 

substantially greater burdens on drivers and law enforcement 

alike. (Id. at p. 76, fn. 17.)

But Arturo D.’s discussion of the issue was not exhaustive. 

Indeed, experience and common sense suggest a range of options 

that are both less intrusive than a warrantless search and less 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

23

burdensome than a full custodial arrest. Closer attention to the 

presence or absence of circumstances justifying the invasion of 

privacy alters the appraisal of the law enforcement interests at 

stake: To the extent there are adequate alternative avenues for 

obtaining the information needed by law enforcement, the 

interest in searching a vehicle without a warrant necessarily 

carries less weight.

The first alternative is straightforward: an officer can ask 

questions. If a driver professes not to have a driver’s license or 

other identification, the officer can ask for identifying 

information such as the driver’s full name and its spelling, 

address, and date of birth. The answers need not be accepted at 

face value. Rather, they may be checked against Department of 

Motor Vehicles (DMV) records—just as driver’s licenses 

themselves are routinely checked against such records to verify 

the driver’s identity and the validity of the license. (See Gov. 

Code, §§ 15150–15167 [providing for statewide law enforcement 

telecommunications system]; Veh. Code, § 1810.5 [authorizing 

law enforcement telephone access to DMV records]; see also, 

e.g., People v. Boissard (1992) 5 Cal.App.4th 972, 978–979

[records check of individual who failed to produce identification 

at officer’s request]; see generally 4 LaFave, Search and Seizure,

supra, § 9.3(c), pp. 508–511 [noting that such records checks, 

which are typically conducted by computer or radio, are both 

routine and critical to the operation of any system of citation].) 

Similarly, the detainee’s size and physical appearance, such as 

height, weight, eye color, and hair color, may be subject to 

verification against such records. (See People v. Hunt (1990) 225 

Cal.App.3d 498, 503.) Officers may also check the name and 

address against the DMV’s registration record for the vehicle
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

24

and explore any discrepancies.6 Officers have discretion to 

accept such oral evidence of identity for purposes of issuing a 

citation if they determine the information to be sufficiently 

reliable. (People v. McKay (2002) 27 Cal.4th 601, 622 (McKay); 

Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 68, fn. 4.) If, instead, officers 

have reason to believe they have been lied to, they have other 

options at their disposal, as discussed below.7

 

6

It perhaps states the obvious to observe that 

telecommunications technology has advanced significantly since 

2002, when Arturo D. was decided, and will continue to evolve 

in ways that make remote verification of a detainee’s 

information and identity easier for law enforcement.

7

In addition, an officer can ask for and examine written 

forms of identification other than a driver’s license, such as a 

student identification or health insurance card. As we 

acknowledged in Arturo D., the Vehicle Code “permits an officer 

who plans to issue a Vehicle Code citation to accept ‘other 

satisfactory evidence of [the driver’s] identity.’ ” (Arturo D., 

supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 68, fn. 4, quoting Veh. Code, § 40302, 

subd. (a); cf., e.g., U.S. v. Zubia-Melendez (10th Cir. 2001) 263 

F.3d 1155, 1161; U.S. v. Reyes-Vencomo (D.N.M. 2012) 866 

F.Supp.2d 1304, 1338.)

And as case law demonstrates, in some circumstances, an 

officer may be personally acquainted with the driver or may be 

able to obtain adequate identifying information from others who 

are. (McKay, supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 622; see, e.g., U.S. v. Davis

(11th Cir. 2010) 598 F.3d 1259, 1261 [after detainee gave false 

name, bystanders supplied true name, which officer was then 

able to verify].)

In the absence of other satisfactory identification, an 

officer “may require the arrestee to place a right thumbprint” on 

a notice to appear. (Veh. Code, § 40500, subd. (a); accord, 

§§ 40303, subd. (a), 40504, subd. (a).)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

25

The officer may also seek the driver’s consent to search the 

vehicle for identification. (See Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973) 

412 U.S. 218, 219 [“a search that is conducted pursuant to 

consent” is a well-established exception to the warrant and 

probable cause requirements].) The driver can then decide 

whether to permit the officer to retrieve the identification, and 

if so, whether to limit the places within the vehicle where the 

officer may look for it.

The Attorney General, echoing a suggestion in Arturo D., 

dismisses the value of consent in this context; he suggests that 

any consented-to search might later be challenged as the 

product of coercion. (See Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 76, 

fn. 17.) Perhaps so, but we are unwilling to assume that every 

such challenge would necessarily have merit. “Police officers act 

in full accord with the law when they ask citizens for consent. 

It reinforces the rule of law for the citizen to advise the police of 

his or her wishes and for the police to act in reliance on that 

understanding. When this exchange takes place, it dispels 

inferences of coercion.” (United States v. Drayton (2002) 536 

U.S. 194, 207.) If an officer asks for permission to enter a car to 

retrieve the driver’s identification, we see no categorical reason 

why a driver may not validly consent to a full or limited search 

of the vehicle for that purpose, just as drivers regularly consent 

to other types of vehicle searches. (See, e.g., Florida v. Jimeno

(1991) 500 U.S. 248, 249–250 [detained driver validly consented

to search of his vehicle for narcotics]; People v. Grant (1990) 217 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

26

Cal.App.3d 1451, 1456–1462 [search of vehicle for identification 

valid based on consent].)8

Other established exceptions to the warrant requirement 

may also permit a vehicle search. For example, exigent 

circumstances may be shown based on the particular situation 

an officer faces. (U.S. v. Haley (8th Cir. 1978) 581 F.2d 723, 725–

726; see Riley v. California, supra, 573 U.S. at p. 402 [“Such 

exigencies could include the need to prevent the imminent 

destruction of evidence in individual cases, to pursue a fleeing 

suspect, and to assist persons who are seriously injured or are 

threatened with imminent injury . . . [¶] . . . The critical point is 

that . . . the exigent circumstances exception requires a court to 

examine whether an emergency justified a warrantless search 

in each particular case”].)

In circumstances where an officer believes he or she has 

been given false identification information, other exceptions 

may come into play. At that point, the officer is no longer solely 

concerned with issuing an enforceable traffic citation; lying to a 

police officer about one’s identity is a criminal offense 

punishable by imprisonment in county jail. (Pen. Code, § 148.9; 

Veh. Code, §§ 31, 40000.5.) Under the automobile exception to 

the warrant requirement, an officer may search a vehicle if the 

 

8 At oral argument, the Attorney General noted that the 

Supreme Court has placed limits on the extent to which a 

motorist may be implied to have consented to a search by virtue 

of choosing to drive on public roads. (See Birchfield v. North 

Dakota (2016) 579 U.S. ___, ___–___ [136 S.Ct. 2160, 2185–

2186].) We do not suggest consent could be implied here, only 

that express consent could be sought, and no reason appears as 

to why, if granted, it would be presumptively invalid.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

27

officer has probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime will 

be found inside. (E.g., United States v. Ross (1982) 456 U.S. 798, 

799.) Ordinarily, a driver’s license or other identification will 

supply no evidence of a traffic violation. (See State v. Scheer

(1989) 99 Or.App. 80, 83 [781 P.2d 859, 860].) But identification 

may well supply evidence of the crime of lying about one’s 

identity (see, e.g., State v. Fesler (1984) 68 Or.App. 609, 613 [685 

P.2d 1014, 1017]), and an officer may search a vehicle upon 

probable cause to believe evidence of such lying will be found 

therein (State v. Bauman (Minn.Ct.App. 1998) 586 N.W.2d 416, 

422). Relatedly, some out-of-state courts have upheld vehicle 

searches for identification under the search incident to arrest 

exception, which authorizes searching an arrestee’s vehicle for 

evidence relevant to his or her crime when an officer has reason 

“ ‘to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be 

found in the vehicle.’ ” (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 343; see 

Deemer v. State (Alaska Ct.App. 2010) 244 P.3d 69, 75 [search 

incident to arrest for lying to officer]; State v. Gordon (1991) 110 

Or.App. 242, 245–246 [821 P.2d 442, 443–444] [same]; Armstead 

v. Com. (2010) 56 Va.App. 569, 577 [695 S.E.2d 561] [same].)

9

The permissibility of such searches depends in the first 

instance on the existence of probable cause to believe that a 

particular driver is, in fact, lying about his or her identity. Thus, 

for example, in Armstead, the court explained that the officer 

 

9 The automobile exception and the “evidence relevant to 

the crime of arrest” exception overlap to some degree, but the 

former applies independent of any arrest. To the extent the 

latter exception is contingent on an arrest, we express no view 

whether any search may come before, or only after, the arrest. 

(Cf. People v. Macabeo (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1206, 1216–1219.)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

28

had probable cause to believe the driver was lying about his 

identity based on computer checks, notified the driver he was 

under arrest, and therefore could search the vehicle for evidence 

of the crime of providing false identity information. (Armstead

v. Com., supra, 695 S.E.2d at pp. 563–566 [upholding search

under Gant].) Arturo D., in contrast, had authorized a search 

any time a detainee is unable to supply identification—without 

any requirement that the officer have probable cause or even a 

reasonable suspicion that the detainee has lied about his or her 

identity.

10

 

When an officer has obtained satisfactory evidence of a

detainee’s identity, he or she may cite and release the detainee. 

(Pen. Code, § 853.5, subd. (a); Veh. Code, §§ 40303, 40500, 

40504; People v. Superior Court (Simon) (1972) 7 Cal.3d 186, 

199.)11 The officer also has discretion to release the suspect with 

 

10 In so doing, Arturo D. authorized a new sort of 

suspicionless search. The high court has long held that 

“[e]xceptions to the requirement of individualized suspicion are 

generally appropriate only where the privacy interests 

implicated by a search are minimal and where ‘other safeguards’ 

are available ‘to assure that the individual’s reasonable 

expectation of privacy is not “subject to the discretion of the 

official in the field.” ’ ” (New Jersey v. T. L. O. (1985) 469 U.S. 

325, 342, fn. 8, quoting Delaware v. Prouse, supra, 440 U.S. at 

pp. 654–655.) After Gant, the privacy interests implicated by 

identification searches cannot be dismissed as minimal. And 

the Attorney General has identified no “safeguards” that would 

limit an officer’s discretion to conduct such a search to facilitate 

writing a traffic citation.

11 Citation and release is employed in a wide range of 

nonvehicle circumstances, from jaywalking to fare evasion to 

cyclist moving violations, yet no one argues that failure to 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

29

a warning against committing future violations. (Pen. Code, 

§ 849, subd. (b)(1); People v. McGaughran, supra, 25 Cal.3d at 

p. 584.) And finally, if no other path seems prudent or 

permissible, the officer can arrest the detainee and take him or 

her to be booked into jail for the traffic violation. (Veh. Code, 

§ 40302; Atwater v. Lago Vista (2001) 532 U.S. 318, 323; 

Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at p. 118; McKay, supra, 27 Cal.4th at 

pp. 620–625.) In the end, arrest is one option—but it is certainly 

not the only alternative to a warrantless search.

12

 

produce identification upon request, without more, justifies a 

warrantless search through pockets or purses. The idea that, 

without authority for a warrantless identification search unique 

to this context, officers will be forced to issue unenforceable 

citations and “traffic laws can be flouted with impunity” (dis. 

opn. post, at p. 14), is a fiction; an arrestee is eligible for citation 

and release only when the arrestee is “able to convince the 

officer—either by exhibiting his driver’s license or by ‘other 

satisfactory evidence’—that the name he is signing on the 

written promise to appear corresponds to his true identity” 

(People v. Superior Court (Simon), supra, 7 Cal.3d at p. 201; see 

Veh. Code, § 40302, subd. (a)).

12 The dissent suggests that because custodial arrest is a 

possible outcome of such an encounter, authorizing officers to

perform a warrantless, suspicionless, nonconsensual search of 

the driver’s belongings actually “serves to protect [the] privacy 

interests” the Fourth Amendment was intended to safeguard. 

(Dis. opn. post, at p. 13.) This is a curious notion. In the absence 

of a categorical traffic-stop identification-search exception, both 

driver and officer would have precisely the same range of options 

for locating and producing identification; the only difference is 

that it would be up to the driver, not the officer, to decide 

whether to allow in whole or in part a search of the vehicle to 

supply the necessary identification. Stripping the driver of that 

choice cannot seriously be described as the option that better 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

30

The Fourth Amendment does not, of course, require law 

enforcement to employ the least intrusive means of achieving its 

objectives. (Board of Ed. of Independent School Dist. No. 92 of 

Pottawatomie Cty. v. Earls (2002) 536 U.S. 822, 837.) But the 

Fourth Amendment does require law enforcement to act 

reasonably. If, as Gant instructs, a substantial intrusion on 

personal privacy must be adequately justified by genuine need, 

the availability of so many alternative means for achieving law 

enforcement ends tends to undermine the notion that the 

intrusion is reasonable. (See Birchfield v. North Dakota, supra, 

579 U.S. at pp. ___–___ [136 S.Ct. at pp. 2184–2185] 

[warrantless blood test of person suspected of driving while 

intoxicated violates 4th Amend. because equally effective less 

intrusive alternative exists]; Delaware v. Prouse, supra, 440 

U.S. at p. 659 [striking down discretionary spot checks for 

driver’s licenses and registration in light of “the alternative 

mechanisms available, both those in use and those that might 

be adopted” to satisfy the government’s public safety interests].)

The dissent insists that warrantless identification 

searches are a necessary tool for coping with drivers who seek 

to deceive officers concerning their identity but who have left 

evidence of that deception in their vehicles. (Dis. opn. post, at 

pp. 4–7.) (For those who have not, any search would of course 

be futile.) This idea is belied by the great many cases in which 

officers have successfully ferreted out this sort of deception 

 

protects the constitutional right of the people to be secure in 

their persons and effects.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

31

through the ordinary investigative techniques we have already 

described.13 And, as we have already explained, officers who 

have probable cause to believe a driver is lying about his or her 

identity already have search options at their disposal in 

appropriate circumstances. (Ante, at pp. 26–28.) But the 

warrant exception we are asked to apply here is not limited to 

cases of deception; it applies to honest drivers and dishonest 

drivers alike. Indeed, it applies even when, as here, the driver 

has not so much as been given the chance to identify herself 

before having her vehicle, and the personal belongings 

contained therein, opened for official examination.

The dissent worries that in the absence of a categorical 

authorization to search, officers may not be able to achieve 

 

13 A small but representative sample includes: People v. 

Casarez (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 1173, 1178 (identification based 

on distinctive tattoos); Loveless v. State (2016) 337 Ga.App. 894, 

895 [789 S.E.2d 244, 245] (database search revealed driver had 

given false name; vehicle tag search revealed driver’s true 

identity; license search on vehicle’s registered owner provided 

driver’s photograph); State v. Cannady (Me. 2018) 190 A.3d 

1019, 1021 (officer transported driver to jail for fingerprinting 

after officer was unable to verify driver’s identity with name 

supplied and driver “had difficulty providing an address, phone 

number, and social security number”; driver confessed to true 

identity en route to jail); People v. Vasquez (2001) 465 Mich. 83, 

101–102 [631 N.W.2d 711, 722] (driver recognized by other 

officers during booking); State v. Ford (Mo.Ct.App.) 445 S.W.3d 

113, 117 (confession to true identity following record check and 

further questioning); cf. U.S. v. Pena-Montes (10th Cir. 2009) 

589 F.3d 1048, 1051 (database search revealed defendant had 

given false name and other identifying information; defendant’s 

true identity revealed through fingerprinting). 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

32

absolute certainty about the identity of some subset of traffic 

violators before issuing traffic tickets. (Dis. opn. post, at pp. 4–

9; see id. at p. 7 [driver may give sibling’s name], p. 8, fn. 5

[driver may conceal face with a tinted visor or niqab].) But the 

same is true under the dissent’s own proposed rule.

14

 In the end, 

the test for whether an exception should be recognized is not 

whether, in its absence, there might be some cost in effective 

enforcement of the traffic laws; it is, instead, whether the 

tradeoff to lower that risk is worth the coin in diminished 

privacy. The price of giving officers the “discretion to rummage 

at will among a person’s private effects” whenever that person 

has committed a traffic infraction is a high one. (Gant, supra, 

556 U.S. at p. 345, fn. omitted.) It is not a price we should lightly 

require California drivers to pay.

Here, Officer Moe had a tip that provided the driver’s 

name, and he was able to locate the driver because she pulled 

her car up in front of the address where dispatch informed him 

the vehicle was registered. He could have employed any one of 

several approaches to ascertain Lopez’s identity once she exited 

the car. But Officer Moe never so much as asked Lopez her 

name. Instead, after detaining Lopez for a suspected traffic 

infraction, the officer proceeded directly to searching the purse 

on the passenger’s seat. Under Gant, Officer Moe could not have 

searched Lopez’s vehicle if he had arrested her for unlicensed 

 

14 The dissent’s preferred rule would do nothing to assist in 

the apprehension of the wrongdoer who manages to slip his or 

her license into a crumpled fast-food bag (Arturo D., supra, 27 

Cal.4th at p. 86)—or, for that matter, who simply left his or her 

license at home.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

33

driving instead of simply detaining her.

15

 Searching Lopez’s 

vehicle for her personal identification before she was arrested 

was no less unreasonable.

C.

Although, as Lopez argues, Gant provides important 

guidance calling the identification-search exception into 

question, our consideration of the issue is not limited to that 

case. Careful examination of the practices in other jurisdictions 

reinforces our conclusion that the search at issue here was not 

reasonable under the circumstances.

As noted, Arturo D.’s identification-search rule was an 

outlier when the case was first decided: At the time Arturo D.

was handed down, neither the United States Supreme Court nor 

any other state embraced—or, so far as our research reveals, 

ever had embraced—a similar exception for traffic-stop 

identification searches. It remains an outlier today. Indeed, 17 

years after Arturo D. was decided, California still stands alone 

in authorizing warrantless vehicle searches for identification. 

 

15 The Attorney General argues in passing that the search 

here would have been permissible under Gant because Officer 

Moe had probable cause to arrest Lopez for driving without a 

license. But no reason appears to think evidence of that crime 

would be found in the car. (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 343 [“In 

many cases, as when a recent occupant is arrested for a traffic 

violation, there will be no reasonable basis to believe the vehicle 

contains relevant evidence”].) A license is not something police 

need to search for as evidence of driving without a license; at 

most, it might provide a defense to the charge. (State v. Scheer, 

supra, 781 P.2d at p. 860; see State v. Conn (2004) 278 Kan. 387, 

392–394 [99 P.3d 1108, 1112–1113]; State v. Lark (App.Div. 

1999) 319 N.J.Super. 618, 626–627 [726 A.2d 294, 298–299], 

affd. (2000) 163 N.J. 294 [748 A.2d 1103].)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

34

No federal or state court has seen fit to adopt the rule; some have 

expressly rejected it. This, too, lends force to the argument for 

reevaluating whether such searches are permitted by the 

Fourth Amendment. (See Moradi-Shalal v. Fireman’s Fund Ins. 

Companies (1988) 46 Cal.3d 287, 298 [reconsidering precedent 

when the “the clear consensus of . . . out-of-state cases” suggests 

it falls well outside the mainstream].)

Arturo D. did rely on a handful of federal appellate 

decisions in support of its holding. (Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 

at p. 76, fn. 16.) In particular, Arturo D. relied on a Ninth 

Circuit case, United States v. Brown (9th Cir. 1972) 470 F.2d 

1120, 1122, and cases that preceded or relied on Brown

(Kendrick v. Nelson (9th Cir. 1971) 448 F.2d 25, 27–28 and U.S. 

v. $109,179 in U.S. Currency (9th Cir. 2000) 228 F.3d 1080, 

1088, fn. 47). But none of these cases involved license or 

identification searches, and so none supports the identificationsearch exception fashioned in Arturo D.16

 Nor has the situation 

changed since we decided Arturo D. A search of post-2002 

federal cases reveals none that approve the license-search 

exception we adopted in Arturo D. What little authority there 

is supports the contrary rule. (See, e.g., Crock v. City/Town 

(W.D.Pa., Dec. 3, 2010, Civ. A. No. 2:09-426) 2010 U.S.Dist.

 

16 Even as far as they go, these decisions have not been free 

from controversy. Brown has been described by a leading 

commentator as flatly “in error” when compared with the full 

body of Fourth Amendment law. (5 LaFave, Search and Seizure 

(5th ed. 2012) § 10.8(a), p. 401, fn. 33.) Rather, according to 

LaFave, “[s]earch of the car should be permitted only when the 

failure to produce the registration and the other relevant 

circumstances establish probable cause that the car is stolen.” 

(Ibid.)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

35

Lexis 136442, *18–*25 [failure to provide valid, current 

identification does not justify warrantless vehicle search]; 

United States v. Osborne (E.D.Tenn., May 25, 2007, No. 3:06-

CR-110) 2007 U.S.Dist. Lexis 38558, *12, *17 [after suspect 

detained and handcuffed, unreasonable to search vehicle for 

evidence of identity instead of asking suspect his name in order 

to perform records check].)

A similar story emerges when examining the treatment of 

warrantless vehicle searches in our sister states. It appears no 

other state has seen fit to vest its police with the power to 

conduct warrantless searches for licenses or identification. As 

with federal cases, Arturo D. cited a handful of state court cases 

from elsewhere in support of its holding, but all involved 

searches for vehicle registration, not a license or identification. 

(See Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 76, fn. 16.) A search 

through the reported decisions in other states has located none

that approve a warrantless traffic-stop vehicle search, without 

consent or probable cause, for a driver’s license or identification.

Perhaps particularly instructive in this vein is the 

experience of New Jersey—a state which, like California, has 

recognized an exception for warrantless vehicle searches to 

locate registration and proof of insurance documentation. (E.g., 

State v. Keaton (2015) 222 N.J. 438, 448–449 [119 A.3d 906]; see 

State v. Bauder (2007) 181 Vt. 392, 407, fn. 8 [924 A.2d 38, 51, 

fn. 8] [highlighting New Jersey and California as the two 

principal jurisdictions permitting warrantless vehicle searches 

for documents].) Indeed, New Jersey appears to be the first 

state to have carved out such an exception. (See State v. Boykin

(1967) 50 N.J. 73, 77 [232 A.2d 141].) But, tellingly, New Jersey 

has not permitted the warrantless search of a vehicle, in the 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

36

absence of consent or probable cause, solely to locate a driver’s 

license or identification.

In State v. Lark, supra, 726 A.2d 294, a driver stopped for 

driving without a front license plate asserted he had a license 

but was unable to provide it, and a computer search of the name 

he gave produced no matches. Even so, “the investigating police 

officer violated defendant’s rights under the Fourth Amendment 

of the United States Constitution [and the state Constitution] 

when, following a motor vehicle stop for a minor traffic violation, 

he opened the door of defendant’s vehicle to search for proof of 

defendant’s identity without probable cause” to think 

contraband was located therein or other criminal activity 

ongoing. (Lark, at p. 296.) Although the intrusion was 

“minimal,” no warrantless search for a license or proof of 

identity was permitted. (Id. at p. 297.) No recognized exception 

to the probable cause requirement supported the search, nor 

was the passenger compartment accessible to the driver after he 

had been removed and detained. The crime of driving without 

a license was complete; a search for a license or identification 

could not supply additional evidence of that crime. (Id. at 

pp. 298–299.)

The New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously affirmed, 

“substantially for the reasons expressed” in the intermediate 

court’s opinion. (State v. Lark (2000) 163 N.J. 294, 296 [748 A.2d 

1103, 1104].) The Supreme Court stressed the presence of 

alternatives that rendered a warrantless search unnecessary 

and thus unjustifiable: in response to a driver’s failure to 

identify himself truthfully, an officer could detain the driver for 

further questioning and ultimately make a custodial arrest. 

(Ibid.) What the officer could not do, however, was search the 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

37

vehicle for identification absent some other existing exception to 

the warrant requirement. (Ibid.; see State v. Carty (App.Div. 

2000) 332 N.J.Super. 200, 204 [753 A.2d 149, 151] [a “driver’s 

inability to produce credentials . . . , without more, does not 

justify a search of the vehicle”].)

Last year, the New Jersey Supreme Court revisited its 

driving credentials exception. (See State v. Terry (N.J. 2018) 179 

A.3d 378.) And while a sharply divided court reaffirmed the 

state’s exception for proof-of-ownership searches, the majority 

distinguished State v. Lark, supra, 726 A.2d 294, as involving a 

different (and insufficient) rationale for a warrantless search. 

(Terry, at pp. 393–394; see id. at pp. 400–401 (dis. opn. of 

Rabner, C. J.) [arguing for three justices that Lark’s logic ought 

to foreclose a registration search as well].)17 

Appellate courts in other states have agreed as well. (See, 

e.g., Commonwealth v. Pacheco (2001) 51 Mass.App.Ct. 736, 

740–743 [need to establish suspect’s identity does not justify 

warrantless vehicle search]; id. at p. 742 [to accept as sufficient 

the asserted “need for absolute certainty of the identification of 

the person arrested would be to sanction a principle having no 

apparent stopping place and could risk the possibility of a 

general exploratory search for evidence of criminal activity”]; 

State v. Green (1991) 103 N.C.App. 38, 41–45 [404 S.E.2d 363] 

[vehicle search for identification documents of driver stopped for 

weaving violates 4th Amend.]; State v. Smith (1986) 82 Or.App. 

 

17 Indeed, virtually the only point of agreement among all 

the justices was that the Fourth Amendment does not permit a 

warrantless vehicle search solely for identification.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

38

636, 639–640 [729 P.2d 10] [warrantless vehicle search for 

identification unlawful].)

Casting the net slightly more broadly, we have identified 

limited authority allowing a warrantless search of a person solely 

for evidence of his or her identity. (State v. Flynn (1979) 92 

Wis.2d 427, 441–448 [285 N.W.2d 710] [officer justified in 

removing and examining wallet of suspect who refuses to identify

himself].) Other states, however, have not sanctioned similar 

searches. (People v. Williams (1975) 63 Mich.App. 398, 400–404 

[234 N.W.2d 541] [officer can request identification, but seizure 

of wallet to examine suspect’s driver’s license violates 4th 

Amend.]; State v. Varnado (Minn. 1998) 582 N.W.2d 886 

[warrantless frisk of driver after she failed to produce a license 

not within any exception to the warrant requirement]; State v. 

Webber (1997) 141 N.H. 817, 820 [694 A.2d 970] [refusing to 

create an “ ‘identification search’ exception” to the warrant 

requirement under the state Constitution]; State v. Scheer, supra,

781 P.2d at p. 860 [search of driver who fails to present license in 

order to find license unlawful]; Baldwin v. State (Tex.Crim.App. 

2009) 278 S.W.3d 367, 372 [during investigative detention, officer 

may ask for identification but may not “search a defendant’s 

person to obtain or confirm his identity”]; Jones v. Com. (2010) 

279 Va. 665, 672 [691 S.E.2d 801] [seizure of driver’s wallet to 

examine for identification, even after the driver denies having 

any, violates 4th Amend.]; 4 LaFave, Search and Seizure, supra,

§ 9.6(g), p. 944 [expressing “considerable doubt” about 

Wisconsin’s rule and noting the absence of other authority 

nationally that would support it]; see id. at pp. 943–945.) And the 

case-specific rationales the Wisconsin Supreme Court offered for 

approving such a search in Flynn—a burglary suspect stopped in 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

39

the wee hours who repeatedly refused to give his name and whom 

the officer had no other means of identifying—have limited 

relevance in the context of a garden-variety traffic stop.

18

In sum, California remains in a distinct minority—indeed, 

a minority of one—when it comes to approving a warrantless 

vehicle search solely for personal identification. “Although 

holdings from other states are not controlling, and we remain free 

to steer a contrary course,” this is a case in which “the near 

unanimity” of out-of-state authority “indicates we should 

question the advisability of continued allegiance to our minority 

approach.” (Moradi-Shalal v. Fireman’s Fund Ins. Companies, 

supra, 46 Cal.3d at p. 298.) This is particularly true given the 

nature of the issue before us. It is noteworthy that the vehicle 

search for a driver’s license anywhere “such documentation 

reasonably may be expected to be found” (Arturo D., supra, 27 

Cal.4th at p. 65) is authority the police of this state did without 

for quite some time after the invention of the automobile. But it 

is especially telling that the police of all other states appear to do 

without that authority to this day, despite facing much the same 

need to identify traffic violators for purposes of issuing citations. 

 

18 The Court of Appeal decision in People v. Loudermilk

(1987) 195 Cal.App.3d 996 also does not suggest general 

authority to search for identification. The court approved an 

officer examining a wallet found in a patdown for weapons, but 

only because the suspect first “lied to the officer and himself 

created the confusion as to his own identity” by falsely stating 

he had no identification. (Id. at p. 1004.) The court 

“emphasize[d] that we do not hold that a suspect may be 

detained and searched merely because he either refused to 

identify himself or refused to produce proof of identification.” 

(Ibid.)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

40

To reaffirm the exception now would leave California out of step 

not only with United States Supreme Court precedent, but also 

with every other jurisdiction in the nation.

IV.

Reconsidering the scope of Arturo D. is not a task we 

undertake lightly. Adherence to precedent is always “ ‘the 

preferred course because it promotes the evenhanded, 

predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, 

fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual 

and perceived integrity of the judicial process.’ ” (Johnson v. 

Department of Justice (2015) 60 Cal.4th 871, 879, quoting Payne 

v. Tennessee (1991) 501 U.S. 808, 827.) It is also “ ‘ “usually the 

wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the 

applicable rule of law be settled than it be settled right.” ’ ” 

(Johnson, at p. 879, quoting Payne, at p. 827.)

But after considering both further guidance from the United 

States Supreme Court and the practices of every other state in 

the nation, we conclude the time has come to correct a 

misperception of the constraints of the Fourth Amendment in this 

context. We recognize that law enforcement agencies have 

crafted policies in reliance on Arturo D., and our decision today 

will require them to adopt a different approach in scenarios like 

the one presented here. But inasmuch as subsequent legal 

developments have called the validity of the traffic-stop 

identification-search exception into question, the change in 

approach is warranted. 

On this point, too, Gant is instructive. In reaching its 

conclusion, Gant pointed to the “checkered history” of the law in 

the area of searches incident to arrest—the multiple shifts in 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

41

direction the court’s doctrine had undergone over the last 80 

years. (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 350.) Indeed, Gant itself 

represented a substantial shift in the prevailing understanding of 

the Belton rule, and the high court acknowledged the decision 

would require substantial revisions to police practice. But Gant

held this was an insufficient reason to avoid reexamining a rule 

that had proved, over time, to result in “routine constitutional 

violations.” (Gant, at p. 351.) Here, too, it must be acknowledged 

that the field of vehicle searches is one that has been the subject 

of considerable retilling over the years. Given this history, 

reliance interests have less force. And here, too, we conclude that 

the reliance interests at stake cannot justify continuation of a 

practice that results in recurring and unwarranted invasions of 

individual privacy. (See id. at pp. 350–351.)

19

For these reasons, we now hold the Fourth Amendment 

does not contain an exception to the warrant requirement for 

searches to locate a driver’s identification following a traffic 

 

19 The dissent urges that “[s]tare decisis alone should cause 

the court to” adhere to a precedent at odds with United States 

Supreme Court guidance and that finds no support anywhere 

else in the nation. (Dis. opn. post, at p. 1.) “But the policy [of 

stare decisis] is just that—a policy—and it admits of exceptions 

in rare and appropriate cases,” including in the face of a “ ‘tide 

of critical or contrary authority from other jurisdictions.’ ” 

(Samara v. Matar (2018) 5 Cal.5th 322, 336; see In re Jaime P.

(2006) 40 Cal.4th 128, 133 [“reexamination of precedent may 

become necessary when subsequent developments indicate an 

earlier decision was unsound, or has become ripe for 

reconsideration”].) For reasons already explained, this is the 

rare case in which we consider it not only appropriate, but 

important, to correct an apparent misconception of the 

constraints imposed by the Fourth Amendment in this context.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Opinion of the Court by Kruger, J.

42

stop. To the extent it created such an exception, In re Arturo D., 

supra, 27 Cal.4th 60, is overruled and should no longer be 

followed.

V.

Although the warrantless search of Lopez’s vehicle 

violated the Fourth Amendment, the Attorney General argues

the trial court should nevertheless have denied Lopez’s motion 

to suppress the fruits of the search because the officer acted in 

good faith based on the existing state of the law. (See, e.g., 

People v. Macabeo, supra, 1 Cal.5th at p. 1220.) Lopez, in turn, 

contends that the People have forfeited any such argument. 

Because the Court of Appeal did not have occasion to consider 

the issue, we express no views on it.

The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed, and this 

case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with 

this opinion.

KRUGER, J.

We Concur:

LIU, J.

CUÉLLAR, J.

GROBAN, J.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

S238627

Dissenting Opinion by Justice Chin

The majority today overrules our decision in In re 

Arturo D. (2002) 27 Cal.4th 60 (Arturo D.), which applied the 

Fourth Amendment of the federal Constitution to uphold a 

limited vehicle search. The majority does so first by giving 

Arturo D. an unnecessarily expansive reading that makes the 

decision into an easy target and then by claiming that Arturo D.

is inconsistent with the high court’s intervening decision in 

Arizona v. Gant (2009) 556 U.S. 332 (Gant). But Gant is a case 

that addressed a different issue and that did not change the 

applicable constitutional standard in any way. In brief, the 

majority sets up a straw man and then knocks it down, relying 

on a decision that is not on point.

Stare decisis alone should cause the court to reaffirm 

Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60. “It is, of course, a fundamental 

jurisprudential policy that prior applicable precedent usually 

must be followed even though the case, if considered anew, 

might be decided differently by the current justices. This policy, 

known as the doctrine of stare decisis, ‘is based on the 

assumption that certainty, predictability and stability in the law 

are the major objectives of the legal system; i.e., that parties 

should be able to regulate their conduct and enter into 

relationships with reasonable assurance of the governing rules 

of law.’ ” (Moradi-Shalal v. Fireman’s Fund Ins. Companies

(1988) 46 Cal.3d 287, 296.) Thus, the failure of a court to adhere 

to its precedents undermines the court’s credibility as a judicial 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

2

body. But even if we were writing on a blank slate, there are 

sound reasons supporting our holding in Arturo D., reasons that 

should lead us to adopt the same rule today.

Therefore, I dissent.1

I.

The Fourth Amendment provides: “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.” (U.S. Const., 

4th Amend.) The Amendment by its terms protects only against 

“unreasonable searches and seizures” (italics added), and its 

warrant requirement is therefore not absolute. (See Brigham 

City v. Stuart (2006) 547 U.S. 398, 403.) Instead, application of 

the prohibition against unreasonable searches requires a 

balancing of individual and governmental interests: “[T]here 

can be no ready test for determining reasonableness [under the 

Fourth Amendment] other than by balancing the need to search 

against the invasion which the search entails.” (Camara v. 

Municipal Court (1967) 387 U.S. 523, 536–537; accord, Riley v. 

California (2014) 573 U.S. 373, 385–386; Georgia v. Randolph

(2006) 547 U.S. 103, 114–115; New York v. Class (1986) 475 U.S. 

106, 116; New Jersey v. T. L. O. (1985) 469 U.S. 325, 337; 

 

1

I would reaffirm our core holding in Arturo D., supra, 27 

Cal.4th 60. I note in passing, however, that a footnote in 

Arturo D. suggests an alternative basis for upholding the search 

at issue in this case. (Id. at p. 87, fn. 28.)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

3

Michigan v. Long (1983) 463 U.S. 1032, 1046; Terry v. Ohio

(1968) 392 U.S. 1, 21.)

Consistent with that balancing approach, the high court 

has recognized many situations in which an entry and/or search 

without a warrant is reasonable and does not violate the Fourth 

Amendment. (See, e.g., Kentucky v. King (2011) 563 U.S. 452 

[entry and search to prevent imminent destruction of evidence]; 

Gant, supra, 556 U.S. 332 [search of areas of vehicle accessible 

to recent occupant who has been arrested; holding of Belton, 

infra, narrowed]; Brigham City v. Stuart, supra, 547 U.S. 398 

[entry based on rendering emergency aid or protection]; 

Colorado v. Bertine (1987) 479 U.S. 367 [inventory search of 

impounded vehicle]; United States v. Ross (1982) 456 U.S. 798 

[search of containers within vehicle with probable cause to 

believe vehicle contains evidence of crime]; New York v. Belton

(1981) 453 U.S. 454 (Belton) [search of passenger compartment 

of vehicle incident to arrest of occupant]; United States v. 

Santana (1976) 427 U.S. 38 [entry in hot pursuit of fleeing 

suspect]; United States v. Robinson (1973) 414 U.S. 218 [search 

incident to arrest]; Cady v. Dombrowski (1973) 413 U.S. 433 

[vehicle search while officers are performing community 

caretaking functions unrelated to criminal investigation]; 

Chimel v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 752 [search incident to 

arrest; rule narrowed to area immediately accessible to 

arrestee]; Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1 [frisk search based on 

reasonable suspicion of criminal act and reasonable belief 

person might be armed]; Carroll v. United States (1925) 267 U.S. 

132 [search of vehicle with probable cause to believe vehicle 

contains evidence of crime].) The high court has also made clear 

that a person has a lesser expectation of privacy in a vehicle 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

4

than in a residence, although the privacy rights in a vehicle are 

not insubstantial. (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 345; Knowles v. 

Iowa (1998) 525 U.S. 113, 117 (Knowles); New York v. Class, 

supra, 475 U.S. at pp. 112–113; Caldwell v. Lewis (1974) 417 

U.S. 583, 590–591; Cady v. Dombrowski, supra, 413 U.S. at pp. 

441–442.) In Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60, a case involving a 

limited search of a vehicle, this court recognized one more 

situation in which it is reasonable for law enforcement officers 

to proceed without first obtaining a warrant.

II.

Case law throughout the country establishes that a driver 

who is being pulled over for a traffic violation and who hopes to 

conceal his or her identity (and thus evade responsibility for the 

violation) will sometimes, while slowing to a halt, hide a wallet 

under the seat or elsewhere in the vehicle and then give law 

enforcement officers a false name.2 Because this method of 

 

2 We cited numerous such cases in Arturo D., supra, at 

pages 80 to 81. (See, e.g., Mallett v. Bowersox (8th Cir. 1998) 

160 F.3d 456, 457 [“Before Trooper Froemsdorf approached the 

vehicle, [driver Jerome] Mallett hid his wallet and identification 

under the front seat. When Trooper Froemsdorf arrived at the 

side of the vehicle and requested Mallett’s driver’s license, 

Mallett replied that he did not have his license with him and 

falsely claimed to be Anthony Mallett, who is actually petitioner 

Jerome Mallett’s brother.”]; State v. Mitzlaff (Wn. 1995) 907 

P.2d 328, 329 [“[After a traffic stop,] Deputy Heinze contacted 

the driver of the pickup truck, Jerry Mitzlaff, who at first 

provided false identification. . . . After Mitzlaff failed field 

sobriety tests, Heinze arrested him for driving under the 

influence. [¶] . . . [¶] Under the driver’s seat, Heinze found 

a . . . wallet containing Mitzlaff’s true identification.”].) Indeed, 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

5

 

we could have cited many more. (See, e.g., Chest v. State

(Ind.Ct.App. 2009) 922 N.E.2d 621, 622–623 [“[After a traffic 

stop,] Officer Reynolds . . . asked [Marcus] Chest for his driver’s 

license and registration. Chest replied he had forgotten his 

license at home. . . . [¶] . . . Officer Reynolds then handcuffed 

Chest and secured him in the back seat of the police car. . . . At 

the trial, Officer Reynolds testified that in his experience, 

suspects who refuse to provide identification have often hidden 

their driver’s license ‘. . . somewhere in the vehicle.’ . . . Officer 

Reynolds looked under the seat and discovered Chest’s wallet, 

including his driver’s license.”]; People v. Washington (Aug. 7, 

2007, F049975) [nonpub. opn.] [“[After a traffic stop,] [a]ppellant 

handed Sergeant Marmolejo a driver’s license bearing the name 

of Glenn Bernard Washington. However, the photograph on the 

license did not resemble appellant. . . . [¶] Officers arrested 

appellant for possession of a fraudulent driver’s license. . . . [¶] 

Police searched the Jeep and found a wallet with appellant’s 

identification under the driver’s seat.”]; State v. Lee

(Tenn.Crim.App. Jan. 9, 2004, No. M2003-01077-CCA-R3-CD) 

2004 WL 49108, p. *1 [“The defendant, who was driving, told 

Deputy Terns that he did not have a driver’s license and gave 

Terns a false name. Upon conducting a search, Deputy Terns 

found a wallet under the driver’s seat containing what appeared 

to be a Department of Safety receipt with the defendant’s name 

on it.”]; State v. Vandergriff (Wn.Ct.App. June 1, 1999, No. 

16619-8-III) 1999 WL 360568, p. *1 [“The deputy requested a 

driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance. Mr. 

Vandergriff responded that he had none of those documents. 

When asked his name, Mr. Vandergriff then gave his brother’s 

name . . . . [¶] The deputy then placed Mr. Vandergriff under 

arrest for driving without a valid driver’s license. . . . The 

deputy then . . . searched the car. He discovered a wallet under 

the driver’s seat containing identification for Mr. Vandergriff.”]; 

U.S. v. Milton (6th Cir. Mar. 10, 1995, Nos. 93-1812 & 93-1876) 

1995 WL 106131, p. *1 [“After stopping the vehicle, Sergeant 

Sitar asked the driver of the car for his license. The driver 

refused, and identified himself as Derek Johnson. Other 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

6

evading responsibility for a traffic violation poses such a 

persistent problem, it is to that extent reasonable for law 

enforcement officers to take measured steps to ensure that our 

traffic laws are duly enforced. Therefore, our decision in 

Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60, recognized a narrow exception 

to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. If a law 

enforcement officer pulls over a vehicle for a traffic violation and 

the driver, when asked, is unable to produce identification 

documents,3 despite state law requiring drivers to carry such 

documentation (see Veh. Code, §§ 12500, 12951), or if the driver 

produces documents that appear to be false or to belong to 

 

passengers in the vehicle, however, identified the driver as Day 

Day or Ade Milton, as did occupants of the house at which the 

car had stopped. A wallet found under the driver’s seat 

contained Milton’s identification.”]; State v. Gordon (Or.Ct.App. 

1991) 821 P.2d 442, 442–443 [“[After a traffic stop, Officer] 

Olson . . . asked for identification, and defendant produced from 

a wallet six pieces of identification for a ‘Clark Blakely.’ Olson 

asked if he was Clark Blakley. Defendant said that he was not 

and that his name was Kirk Gordon. Olson then asked him for 

some identification to prove that he was Kirk Gordon. 

Defendant looked into his wallet, but could not find any 

identification. . . . [¶] Olson testified that . . . it was his 

experience that persons trying to hide their identity will often 

put their wallets underneath the seat.”].) Several of these 

decisions are not published in the official reports of the states in 

which they were decided, but we may nonetheless take judicial 

notice of their fact statements without contravening California 

Rules of Court, rule 8.1115. (See People v. Hill (1998) 17 Cal.4th 

800, 847, fn. 9.)

3 Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60, also authorized a limited 

search for vehicle registration documentation. That aspect of 

the decision is not at issue here.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

7

different person, then a limited search of places in the vehicle 

where the driver may have hidden a wallet while slowing to a 

halt is reasonable. That was correct when we decided Arturo D., 

and it is correct today.

If, after being pulled over for a traffic violation, a driver 

gives a false name and declines to provide adequate proof of 

identity, what options does an officer have? If the officer writes 

a traffic citation using the false name that the driver has 

provided and then allows the driver to go, the driver has 

successfully gamed the system, because the citation will 

eventually be dismissed. Of course, the officer can question the 

driver for details about his or her identity and check those 

details against state records that are available to the officer, but 

that approach might not adequately identify the driver, 

particularly if—as uncooperative drivers frequently do—the 

driver gives the name of a brother or sister.4 The officer can also 

ask the driver to consent to a search, but the driver, who may 

have just hidden or refused to provide identification documents, 

will be unlikely to grant such consent. So, what more practical 

options does the officer have?

First, the officer can require the driver to place a 

thumbprint on the notice to appear, and the officer can accept 

 

4

In some cases, the officer’s questioning of the driver about 

his or her identity may demonstrate that the driver has lied to 

the officer in violation of Vehicle Code section 31 (giving false 

information to a peace officer), Penal Code section 148.9 (giving 

false identity to a peace officer), and perhaps in violation of 

Penal Code section 530.5 (false personation). The officer may 

then arrest the driver and search the vehicle for evidence of 

those violations, including evidence of correct identity. (Gant, 

supra, 556 U.S. at pp. 343–344.)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

8

that thumbprint as “satisfactory evidence” of identity. (Veh. 

Code, §§ 40302, subd. (a), 40500, subd. (a); see § 40504.) The 

thumbprint can later be used to track down the driver and hold 

him or her accountable for the traffic violation. The problem, 

however, with the thumbprint solution is that the driver might 

refuse to give it. (See Pen. Code, § 853.5, subd. (a) [“Only if the 

arrestee refuses to sign a written promise, has no satisfactory 

identification, or refuses to provide a thumbprint or fingerprint 

may the arrestee be taken into custody.”].) Moreover, even if the 

driver agrees to give a thumbprint, the thumbprint is not 

necessarily a satisfactory substitute for documentary 

identification. For example, a matching thumbprint might not 

be found in the database of the Department of Motor Vehicles.5

Second, the officer can make a custodial arrest of the 

driver for failure to carry a driver’s license. (Veh. Code, §§ 

 

5

It might be supposed that with advances in technology, the 

officer can use face recognition software to identify the driver, 

assuming the Department of Motor Vehicles has access to a 

database containing an image of the driver’s face along with 

accurate identifying information. But a driver is not obligated 

to expose his or her face to the officer. It might happen, for 

example, that a driver refuses to remove a motorcycle helmet 

that has a tinted visor or that a driver is wearing niqab for 

religious reasons. Moreover, there is at present no statutory 

authorization for the use of face recognition software to identify 

drivers who have committed traffic violations, and the possible 

constitutional questions that such a methodology would raise 

remain unresolved. (Cf. People v. Gray (2014) 58 Cal.4th 901, 

905 [defendant stipulated that the photographic evidence 

recorded by a red light camera proved that he was the driver of 

the car that allegedly failed to stop at the red traffic signal; the 

use of face recognition software was not at issue].)
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

9

12500, 12951, 40302; People v. McKay (2002) 27 Cal.4th 601, 

618, 625.) The officer can then search the person of the driver 

incident to that arrest. (United States v. Robinson, supra, 414 

U.S. 218.) Moreover, if the vehicle is illegally parked and no 

passenger in the vehicle is authorized to drive the vehicle, the 

officer can impound the vehicle and conduct a comprehensive 

inventory search. (Colorado v. Bertine, supra, 479 U.S. 367.) 

Thus, by arresting the driver, the officer can (in many cases) 

search both the driver and the vehicle. Of course, if the driver 

has hidden identification documents, that search will likely 

result in their discovery.6

The second of these options would entail significant 

burden, and the officer might not choose to pursue it, but if the 

driver refuses to give an adequate thumbprint, the officer has it 

as an alternative.

In light of the foregoing, our decision in Arturo D.

recognized a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment’s 

warrant requirement, giving officers a third, considerably less 

intrusive option as compared to the option of custodial arrest. 

When an officer detains a driver for a traffic violation, and the 

driver declines to provide identification documents, the officer 

does not contravene Fourth Amendment protections by 

conducting a limited search of places in the vehicle where such 

 

6

In this case, defendant’s vehicle was not illegally parked, 

and therefore an arrest of defendant for driving without a 

driver’s license would not have permitted the officers to 

impound the vehicle. But the majority addresses the general 

validity of Arturo D. It does not limit its holding to cases like 

this one in which the vehicle is legally parked at the time of the 

search.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

10

documentation reasonably may be expected to be found. 

(Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 78.) Contrary to the 

majority’s view, an Arturo D. search is not “perilously close to 

the ‘full-scale search for contraband’ we acknowledged was 

expressly prohibited by Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. 113.” (Maj. 

opn., ante, p. 21.) Actually, we cabined the search in several 

important ways. The search may not be pretextual (Arturo D., 

at pp. 78, 86), which means of course that it must be limited to 

searching for identification documents and that it must 

terminate when those documents are found. We also said that 

“the prospective reach of a driver in relation to the location 

searched is a factor that can be considered in evaluating the 

reasonableness of the search.” (Id. at p. 82.) In addition, our 

strongly emphasized concern about drivers who put or toss a 

wallet under the front seat in an effort to conceal identity (see 

id., at pp. 79–82) served to narrowly circumscribe the scope of 

the search we were authorizing. We clearly had in mind places 

that a driver might easily access during the moments while he 

or she, having been signaled by an officer to stop, is slowing to a 

halt,7 and even then we said that we were not “condon[ing] 

 

7 The majority asserts that the rule we adopted in Arturo D.

was not limited to places that a driver might easily access while 

slowing to a halt. Instead, the majority argues that our holding 

was broader, allowing officers to search any places in the vehicle 

where identification documents “ ‘reasonably may be expected 

to be found.’ ” (See maj. opn., ante, p. 7, quoting Arturo D., 

supra, 27 Cal.4th at p. 78.) But any statement of a holding is 

necessarily summary in nature, and it must be construed in 

light of the opinion’s facts and reasoning. Indeed, that is exactly 

what the high court did in Gant, when it construed Belton’s 

holding narrowly, relying on Belton’s facts and reasoning. (See 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

11

searches for required documentation of ‘virtually all areas in the 

physical proximity of the driver.’ ” (Id. at p. 84.) We noted, for 

example, that “an officer may not search in containers or 

locations in which such documents are not reasonably expected 

to be found,” and we gave as illustrations of that limitation a 

“crumpled fast-food bag under [the] seat” and an “enclosed ‘rear 

interior compartment.’ ” (Id. at p. 86, fn. omitted.) Finally, we 

“emphasize[d]” that we were not “condon[ing] the equivalent of 

the full-scale search for contraband prohibited by the high court 

in Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. 113.” (Arturo D., at p. 86.) In short, 

a search under Arturo D. is limited in both scope and objective, 

and it must terminate as soon as the officer has located 

identification.

The facts of this case aptly illustrate the effective and 

limited application of Arturo D.’s rule. Defendant’s car was 

searched only after she admitted that she did not have a driver’s 

license but that “ ‘there might be identification in the vehicle.’ ” 

Having been so advised, the officers were entitled to protect 

their own safety by retrieving the identification themselves 

rather than permitting defendant to do so. (Arturo D., supra, 27 

Cal.4th at p. 87, fn. 28.) One of the officers noticed an object on 

the front passenger seat that looked like a purse, and he seized 

it. The other officer opened the purse, “[l]ooking for . . . 

identification,” which he found. The officer discovered the 

 

Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at pp. 339–341, 343–344.) In Arturo D., 

we emphasized the problem of drivers who conceal identification 

documents from police after being signaled to stop (see id. at pp. 

79–82), and our holding should be construed accordingly. 

Instead, the majority reads Arturo D. unnecessarily broadly, 

thus making it an easier target for criticism.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

12

methamphetamine while searching for the identification 

documents, and no broader search of the purse or car occurred.

If law enforcement officers have applied our decision in 

Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60, more broadly than its facts and 

reasoning warrant (see maj. opn., ante, pp. 20–21), then it is the 

task of reviewing courts to apply the decision correctly and 

invalidate those searches, but we need not construe Arturo D. to 

be something it is not and then reject it on that ground. An 

officer conducting a search for identification documents in 

accordance with Arturo D. may only examine places in the 

vehicle where a driver, slowing to a halt, might quickly put or 

toss a wallet or similar container. The officer may not open any 

closed containers other than those, such as a wallet, that 

typically contain identification documents, and because the 

search may not be pretextual, the officer may only examine the 

contents of a wallet (or comparable container) to the extent 

necessary to determine the driver’s identity. There are 

relatively few places where a driver can hide a wallet while 

pulling to the side of the road during a traffic stop, and therefore 

the search we approved in Arturo D. is narrowly circumscribed. 

That limited search reflects an appropriate balancing of the 

relevant interests, and it is consistent with present-day views of 

the Fourth Amendment.

Of course, the officer also has the option of making a 

custodial arrest and then searching the person of the driver and, 

depending on the circumstances, searching the vehicle, too.8 

 

8 The high court in Knowles expressly discussed the 

possibility of a driver concealing identification documents (i.e., 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

13

But a search of the driver’s person incident to a custodial arrest 

of the driver is certainly more intrusive than the limited search 

of the driver’s vehicle that we approved in Arturo D. (see, e.g., 

Wyoming v. Houghton (1999) 526 U.S. 295, 303), and a 

comprehensive inventory search of a vehicle (in a case in which 

the vehicle must be impounded after the driver’s arrest) is also 

more intrusive than the Arturo D. search. Therefore, far from 

encroaching on the privacy interests of drivers, the holding of 

Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60, serves to protect those privacy 

interests while still allowing officers to achieve the important 

purpose of adequately identifying the driver before issuing a 

citation. If the Fourth Amendment permits the greater 

intrusion of a custodial arrest and a full search of the person 

(and perhaps the vehicle), then it should also permit the lesser 

intrusion of no arrest and a limited search of just a few places 

within the vehicle.9

 

the problem we addressed in Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60), 

and the court proposed custodial arrest of the driver as one way 

of addressing that problem. (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at p. 118.) 

But the court did not state that, in such circumstances, a very 

limited search of the vehicle for a hidden wallet was 

unconstitutional. At issue in Knowles was a “full-blown” search 

incident to a citation that had already been issued (id. at p. 115), 

not a limited search for identification to facilitate the issuance 

of a citation. On that ground, our opinion in Arturo D.

reasonably distinguished Knowles. (Arturo D., at p. 76.)

9 The majority rejects this reasoning, but it focuses its 

attention solely on the search of the vehicle (which would not 

necessarily result from an arrest of the driver) and ignores the 

inherently more intrusive search of the driver’s person (which 

would almost certainly result from an arrest of the driver). (See 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

14

As noted, the Fourth Amendment requires courts to weigh 

the relevant individual and governmental interests. (See, e.g., 

Camara v. Municipal Court, supra, 387 U.S. at pp. 536–537.) In 

the circumstances presented in Arturo D., “the need to search” 

(Camara v. Municipal Court, at p. 537) is great. The officer 

needs to identify the driver to ensure that the driver is held 

accountable. Indeed, if law enforcement officers are prevented 

from issuing enforceable citations, then the traffic laws can be 

flouted with impunity, risking the lives of innocent people who 

use the public thoroughfares. By contrast, “the invasion which 

the search entails” (id. at p. 537) is relatively minor, especially 

when compared to the alternative that would follow from a 

custodial arrest.10 The very limited search we approved in 

 

maj. opn., ante, p. 29, fn. 12.) There can be no doubt that an 

arrest, followed by a search of one’s person and booking at a local 

police station, is more intrusive than having a police officer look 

under the front seats of one’s car (and in similar places) for a 

concealed wallet or purse. At oral argument, the Attorney 

General made the same point. When asked what the biggest 

danger would be if the court accepted defendant’s argument, the 

Attorney General said: “[That] more persons who are guilty of 

mere infractions will be arrested and that the increased 

intrusions associated with arrest — embarrassing possible 

future admissions, being put in a cell with strangers accused of 

crime — will increase.” Among those “increased intrusions,” the 

Attorney General might also have mentioned a full search of the 

driver’s person and, depending on the circumstances, a full 

search of the vehicle (instead of the limited search that 

Arturo D. approved).

10 The majority opinion criticizes our opinion in Arturo D. for 

not adequately discussing the magnitude of the intrusion on 

privacy that was at issue. (Maj. opn., ante, pp. 18–19.) The issue 

before us is not whether, with the aid of hindsight, Arturo D. is 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

15

Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60, involves some trespass upon a 

person’s privacy—it permits the search of areas within a vehicle 

that are accessible to a driver who might be hiding identification 

documents while slowing to a halt—but the search we approved 

does not “giv[e] police officers unbridled discretion to rummage 

at will among a person’s private effects.” (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. 

at p. 345.) Thus, it does not match the comprehensive vehicle 

search approved in Belton, supra, 453 U.S. 454, and disapproved 

in Gant. The Arturo D. search is reasonable in that it is 

narrowly constrained, and it allows the officer to find the 

appropriate identification documents, confirm the driver’s 

identity, issue any appropriate citations, and release the driver 

without a custodial arrest and the more intrusive search that 

would ensue therefrom.

III.

Even though our decision in Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 

60, is consistent with the high court’s intervening decision in 

Gant, supra, 556 U.S. 332, the majority asserts that Gant casts 

doubt on Arturo D., justifying our reconsideration of that 

decision. (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 16–33.) It does not. Gant is 

simply not on point.

Gant addressed the search-incident-to-arrest exception to 

the warrant requirement. In Belton, supra, 453 U.S. 454, the 

high court had upheld a search of the passenger compartment 

of a vehicle incident to the arrest of the vehicle’s recent 

occupant. (Id. at p. 460.) Gant read Belton narrowly, limiting 

Belton’s holding to situations in which “the arrestee is within 

 

written in the manner the majority would prefer. Rather, the 

issue is whether it is correct.
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

16

reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of 

the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains 

evidence of the offense of arrest.” (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 

351.) The court said that a broader reading of Belton “would . . . 

untether the rule from the justifications underlying the . . . 

exception” (Gant, at p. 343), which the court identified as officer 

safety and the preservation of evidence (id. at pp. 338–339).

Our decision in Arturo D. did not rely on Belton, supra, 453 

U.S. 454, or on the rationale of a search incident to an arrest. In 

fact, Arturo D. only cited Belton once, in passing, in the context 

of describing the basis of the lower court’s decision in Knowles, 

supra, 525 U.S. 113. Thus, the high court’s narrow reading of

Belton in Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at page 351, had no effect on 

Arturo D. Rather, Arturo D. recognized a different exception to 

the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, applying the 

balancing test that traditionally governs constitutional review 

of warrantless searches. (Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th at pp. 83–

84.) As noted, the Arturo D. exception is reasonable in light of 

the frequency with which drivers hide identification documents, 

the strong need to enforce traffic laws and thus maintain road 

safety, and the narrowly circumscribed nature of the search that 

we approved, which avoided the necessity of arresting the driver 

and conducting a more intrusive search.

In Gant, supra, 556 U.S. 332, the high court did not 

repudiate the balancing test that we applied in Arturo D., supra, 

27 Cal.4th at pages 83 to 84. On the contrary, it applied the 

balancing test. (Gant, at pp. 344–347.) Gant made only two 

points that might possibly be relevant to the question of 

Arturo D.’s continuing validity. First, Gant noted that the 

courts sometimes undervalue the privacy interests that a person 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

17

has in a vehicle. (Gant, at pp. 344–345.) In this regard, the high 

court noted in particular the undesirable possibility of police 

searching “every purse, briefcase, or other container” in the 

vehicle’s passenger compartment. (Id. at p. 345.) The court was 

“concern[ed] about giving police officers unbridled discretion to 

rummage at will among a person’s private effects.” (Ibid.) 

Second, Gant reiterated the unremarkable rule that any 

exception to the warrant requirement must be tethered to the 

justifications that support it. (Id. at p. 343.)

As to the concern about “undervalu[ing]” privacy interests 

at issue in vehicular searches and the risk of “unbridled . . . 

rummag[ing]” through “every purse, briefcase, or other 

container” (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at pp. 344–345), our decision 

in Arturo D. did not take lightly the privacy concerns that the 

dissenting justices in that case emphasized, and the search 

Arturo D. approved does not come close to an “unbridled . . . 

rummag[ing]” every time a driver declines to provide proof of 

identification. On the contrary, we expressly disapproved the 

search of any container the officer might find. (Arturo D., supra, 

27 Cal.4th at p. 86.) It is true that an Arturo D. search might 

involve the opening and search of a closed wallet or purse, but 

the wallet or purse would have to be found in a place where the 

driver might have put or tossed it while slowing to a halt, and 

the officer would only be permitted to examine its contents to 

the extent necessary to locate identifying documents. Arturo D.

expressly rejected the assertion that officers could rummage 

about at will. (Ibid.)

Regarding Gant’s rule that an exception to the warrant 

requirement must be tethered to the justifications that support 

it (Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 343), this rule is nothing new, and 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

18

therefore it does not justify reconsideration of Arturo D., supra, 

27 Cal.4th 60. In fact, the rationale of the high court’s decision 

in Knowles—a case we discussed at length in Arturo D. (id. at 

pp. 74–76)—was that the justifications that supported an 

exception to the warrant requirement for a search incident to an 

arrest do not support an exception for a search incident to the 

issuance of a citation. (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at pp. 116–

118.) Asserting that an exception must be tethered to the 

justifications that support it is merely another way of saying 

that the exception must be reasonable (reasonable both as a 

general matter and in the specific manner of its application). 

Putting the question in terms of the balancing of individual and 

governmental interests, one could say that Gant merely made 

the obvious point that the government has no interest in an 

exception to the warrant requirement that is not tethered in 

some way to the justifications offered in its defense. (Gant, at p. 

347.) But the exception we recognized in Arturo D. is very much 

tethered to the justifications that support it. The search that we 

authorized in Arturo D. is a limited one that encroaches only a 

relatively small amount on privacy interests, and it is closely 

tethered to the governmental interest in identifying the 

offending driver in the least intrusive way, so the driver can be 

held accountable for his or her traffic violation and the safety of 

the public thoroughfares can be preserved. 

In summary, Gant addressed a different issue than the 

issue we addressed in Arturo D., and it changed nothing as 

regards the relevant standards that apply under the Fourth 
PEOPLE v. LOPEZ

Chin, J., dissenting

19

Amendment. Nonetheless, the majority uses it as a basis for 

ignoring stare decisis.11

I respectfully dissent.

CHIN, J.

We Concur:

CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J.

CORRIGAN, J.

 

11 The majority also relies on the assertion that other states 

have not adopted the exception to the warrant requirement that 

we recognized in Arturo D., supra, 27 Cal.4th 60. (See maj. opn., 

ante, pp. 33–40.) Considering that Gant’s significant narrowing 

of Belton, supra, 453 U.S. 454, is only a decade old, it is probably 

too early to tell if states will follow Arturo D. now that unbridled 

vehicle searches incident to an arrest of an occupant cannot be 

upheld. (See Gant, supra, 556 U.S. at p. 351.) But even if the 

majority is correct that Arturo D. stands alone, we need not 

overrule it on that account. Rather, if there is a split of 

authority, then it is appropriate for the high court to grant a 

writ of certiorari and resolve the question.
See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court.

Name of Opinion People v. Lopez

_______________________________________________________________________________

Unpublished Opinion

Original Appeal

Original Proceeding

Review Granted XXX 4 Cal.App.5th 815

Rehearing Granted

_______________________________________________________________________________

Opinion No. S238627

Date Filed: November 25, 2019

_______________________________________________________________________________

Court: Superior

County: Yolo

Judge: Samuel T. McAdam

_______________________________________________________________________________

Counsel:

Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant 

Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Joshua A. Klein, Deputy State 

Solicitor General, Catherine Chatman, Rachelle A. Newcomb, R. Todd Marshall and Larenda R. 

Delaini, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Appellant.

Solomon Wollack, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Respondent.

Emily A. Rehm, Michael M. Epstein and Rachel E. Vanlandingham as Amici Curiae on behalf of 

Defendant and Respondent.
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion):

R. Todd Marshall

Deputy Attorney General

Office of the Attorney General

1300 I Street

Sacramento, CA 95814

(916) 210-7747

Solomon Wollack

P.O. Box 23933

Pleasant Hill, CA 94523

(925) 671-2501