Opinion ID: 49619
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Search of Car

Text: Finally, we conclude that the officers’ warrantless search of Williams’s car, including the trunk, was valid, under the so-called “automobile exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. See Maryland v. Dyson, 527 U.S. 465, 466, 119 S. Ct. 2013, 2014 (1999). Under the automobile exception, warrantless searches of vehicles are permitted “‘[i]f a car is readily mobile and probable cause exists to believe it contains contraband . . . .’” Id. at 467, 119 S. Ct. at 2014 (citation omitted) (emphasis added). Williams does not dispute that the car was 10 readily mobile,3 but argues that the officers lacked probable cause. Here, there was probable cause to believe that the car contained contraband, based on Fisher’s statement that he observed Williams placing a shotgun in the car’s trunk and the live shotgun shell seen by Prinzi through the car’s window. Accordingly, the automobile exception applies here, and the search of Williams’s car was valid.4