Opinion ID: 874795
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The search of Frederick's car violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments as interpreted in Gant.

Text: As stated, Frederick asserts that because he had been handcuffed and placed in the back of the patrol car at the time Officer Cullen and his canine partner searched his truck, he could not have posed a danger that he would either reach for a weapon or destroy evidence, and thus the search did not fall within the search incident to arrest exception to the warrant requirement as recently defined in Gant. The State concedes that under Gant, the search was indeed illegal. Prior to the release of Gant, the district court in its written order denying Frederick's motion to suppress relied upon New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), and Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615, 124 S.Ct. 2127, 158 L.Ed.2d 905 (2004), to hold that the search did fall within the search incident to arrest exception. While the Fourth Amendment generally requires a warrant in order to conduct a search, there are certain exigencies that excuse compliance with the warrant requirement. Belton, 453 U.S. at 457, 101 S.Ct. at 2862, 69 L.Ed.2d at 773. Specifically, the Supreme Court in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), held that a lawful custodial arrest creates a situation which justifies a contemporaneous search without a warrant of the person arrested and the immediately surrounding area because of the need to remove any weapons that [the arrestee] might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape and the need to prevent the concealment or destruction of evidence. Id. at 763, 89 S.Ct. at 2040, 23 L.Ed.2d at 694. In Belton, the Court noted that the scope of this exception to the warrant requirement as described in Chimel was difficult for law enforcement officers to apply in cases involving the lawful arrest of the occupants of an automobile. Belton, 453 U.S. at 459, 101 S.Ct. at 2863, 69 L.Ed.2d at 774. Thus, the Belton Court, in an apparent attempt to create a bright-line rule, held that when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile. Id. at 460, 101 S.Ct. at 2864, 69 L.Ed.2d at 775 (footnotes omitted). In Thornton, the Supreme Court considered whether the rule from Belton applies even when an officer first makes contact with the person arrested after that person has left the vehicle. In that case, police began to follow a car driven by Thornton because it did not have valid license tags, but before officers could pull him over, Thornton drove into a parking lot, parked, and exited the car. Thornton, 541 U.S. at 617-18, 124 S.Ct. at 2129, 158 L.Ed.2d at 910-11. An officer then accosted Thornton, patted him down, and discovered illegal drugs on his person. Id. at 618, 124 S.Ct. at 2129, 158 L.Ed.2d at 911. The officer arrested Thornton, handcuffed him, and placed him in the back of the patrol car. Id. The officer then searched Thornton's car and discovered a handgun. Id. A jury convicted Thornton of federal drug and weapons charges, and he appealed, challenging the district court's denial of his motion to suppress the firearm as the fruit of an unconstitutional search. Id. The Court upheld the search as valid, stating that an officer may search the passenger compartment of a car incident to the lawful arrest of one of its occupants or of a recent occupant who has a temporal or spatial relationship to the car at the time of the arrest and search, and that that relationship does not turn on whether [the arrestee] was inside or outside the car at the moment that the officer first initiated contact with him. Id. at 622, 124 S.Ct. at 2132-33, 158 L.Ed.2d at 914. In Gant, the Supreme Court revisited the rule from Belton. The Court first noted that its opinion in Belton has been widely understood to allow a vehicle search incident to the arrest of a recent occupant even if there is no possibility that the arrestee could gain access to the vehicle at the time of the search. A majority of the Court then held: Under this broad reading of Belton, a vehicle search would be authorized incident to every arrest of a recent occupant notwithstanding that in most cases the vehicle's passenger compartment will not be within the arrestee's reach at the time of the search. To read Belton as authorizing a vehicle search incident to every recent occupant's arrest would thus untether the rule from the justifications underlying the Chimel exceptiona result clearly incompatible with our statement in Belton that it in no way alters the fundamental principles established in the Chimel case regarding the basic scope of searches incident to lawful custodial arrests. 453 U.S. [at 460, n. 3, 101 S.Ct. at 2864, n. 3, 69 L.Ed.2d at 775, n. 3]. Accordingly, we reject this reading of Belton and hold that the Chimel rationale authorizes police to search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search. Although it does not follow from Chimel, we also conclude that circumstances unique to the vehicle context justify a search incident to a lawful arrest when it is reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle. Thornton, 541 U.S. [at 632, 124 S.Ct. at 2137, 158 L.Ed.2d at 920], (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment). 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. But in others, including Belton and Thornton, the offense of arrest will supply a basis for searching the passenger compartment of an arrestee's vehicle and any containers therein. Neither the possibility of access nor the likelihood of discovering offense-related evidence authorized the search in this case. Unlike in Belton, which involved a single officer confronted with four unsecured arrestees, the five officers in this case outnumbered the three arrestees, all of whom had been handcuffed and secured in separate patrol cars before the officers searched Gant's car. Under those circumstances, Gant clearly was not within reaching distance of his car at the time of the search. An evidentiary basis for the search was also lacking in this case. Whereas Belton and Thornton were arrested for drug offenses, Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended license-an offense for which police could not expect to find evidence in the passenger compartment of Gant's car. Because police could not reasonably have believed either that Gant could have accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he was arrested might have been found therein, the search in this case was unreasonable. Gant, 556 U.S. at ___, 129 S.Ct. at 1719, 173 L.Ed.2d at 496 (citations and footnotes omitted). The majority restated its holding thus: Police may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's arrest only if the arrestee is within 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. When these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee's vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant or show that another exception to the warrant requirement applies. Id. at ___ _ ___, 129 S.Ct. at at 1723-24, 173 L.Ed.2d at 501. In the instant case, Frederick was not within reaching distance of the passenger compartment of his truck at the time Officer Cullen searched it, nor was it reasonable to believe the truck contained evidence of the offense for which Frederick was arrested failure to appear. Therefore, we hold that, pursuant to Gant, Officer Cullen's warrantless search of Frederick's truck was unreasonable and in violation of the Fourth Amendment.