Source: https://www.johntfloyd.com/us-supreme-court-limits-vehicle-searches/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 06:43:04+00:00

Document:
The two officers that stopped the Cadillac approached the vehicle from different sides. One officer stopped at the driver’s side window while the other stopped at the rear passenger side of the vehicle. Both officers smelled a strong odor of marijuana and the officer at the driver’s side spotted an open bottle of tequila on the seat next to the driver.
At that point the officers had probable cause to arrest the driver for an open container violation. But they did not do so. Instead they instructed the driver to exit the vehicle. While the driver had not been arrested at this juncture, the two officers made a decision to search the vehicle based on the smell of marijuana.
“Is there anything in the vehicle we should know about?” one of the officers asked the man.
The driver replied that he had been smoking marijuana earlier.
At that point the driver was handcuffed and formally told that he was under arrest for the open container violation.
While one of the officers called for a backup unit and maintained control of the three vehicle occupants, the other officer conducted a search of the vehicle. The search discovered marijuana and an unlawful weapon in the driver’s side compartment of the vehicle.
But after being applied to vehicle searches, this warrantless search exception ultimately became a license for law enforcement officers stopping vehicles to conduct sweeping searches of these vehicles under every conceivable circumstance. And because both state and federal courts simply did not know how to apply the officer safety/preservation of evidence justifications to vehicle searches law enforcement officials sensed this judicial uncertainty and adopted the standard practice of conducting a warrantless search of every vehicle in which the driver was arrested.
Under this latest Supreme Court pronouncement, the search conducted by the officer in our hypothetical would not survive a motion to suppress the evidence seized during that search. The driver of the vehicle was under arrest at the time the officer commenced the search; therefore, he posed no threat to the officer’s personal safety or to the possible destruction of evidence.
With the driver of the vehicle secured and in custody, the arresting officers could have easily impounded the vehicle and secured a search warrant prior to searching it. The mere presence of an open container and the smell of “marijuana” once the defendant was under arrest did not establish any legitimate justification for a warrantless search. The officers at that point had ample time and opportunity to apply for, and secure, a valid vehicle search warrant.
This latest Supreme Court decision will certainly put a crimp in such programs like “Cops” where the police routinely conduct warrantless vehicle searches after they have the suspect in custody. Filming of these dramatic searches, which almost always produce drugs or drug paraphernalia, will now have to be staged at the police pound.
1/ Garcia v. State, 827 S.W.2d 937 (Tex.Crim.App. 1992).
2/ United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 421-22 (1981).
3/ United States v. Katz, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967).
4/ Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969).
6/New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 (1981).
8/ Arizona v. Gant, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009).
9/ Id., 173 L.Ed.2d at 491.
10/ Id., 173 L.Ed.2d at 496.

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