Opinion ID: 1688769
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Heading: United States Supreme Court Jurisprudence

Text: As we are required to follow the United States Supreme Court's interpretations of the Fourth Amendment, [1] it is important at the outset to analyze the limited occasions upon which the United States Supreme Court has spoken regarding the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. There are three principal cases which impact the question presented here. In 1925, Chief Justice Taft penned the opinion of the Court in Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925). Faced with a situation in which federal prohibition agents had stopped and searched the automobile of suspected bootleggers without a warrant, the Court held: [T]he true rule is that if the search and seizure without a warrant are made upon probable cause, that is, upon a belief, reasonably arising out of circumstances known to the seizing officer, that an automobile or other vehicle contains that which by law is subject to seizure and destruction, the search and seizure are valid. Id. at 149, 45 S.Ct. 280. With this opinion, the Court created what has become known as the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. The Court concluded that because probable cause existed, the government agents could search behind the upholstering of the seats for contraband. Id. at 136, 45 S.Ct. 280. As the opinion did little to elaborate upon the scope and limitations upon the exception, [2] the actual definition of the exception remained extraordinarily unclear. Probably the most important decision of the United States Supreme Court for guidance in the instant action is United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S.Ct. 2157, 72 L.Ed.2d 572 (1982). First, the Court established there the scope of the Carroll automobile exception to the warrant requirement. The Court stated, The scope of a warrantless search based on probable cause is no narrowerand no broader than the scope of a search authorized by a warrant supported by probable cause. Id. at 823, 102 S.Ct. 2157. Indeed, the scope of a warrantless search of a car is defined by the object of the search and the places in which there is probable cause to believe that it may be found. Id. at 824, 102 S.Ct. 2157. Thus, the crux of the Ross holding was that it is the extent of the law enforcement officer's probable cause in each particular situation that defines the permissible magnitude of the warrantless search. After defining the scope of the automobile exception in the broad fashion described above, Justice Stevens specifically addressed two seemingly recurrent factual scenarios within the Ross opinion. First, he spoke to the situation in which law enforcement officers have probable cause to search a specific item or container, which is eventually placed within an automobile. In this setting, [p]robable cause to believe that a container placed in the trunk of a taxi contains contraband or evidence does not justify a search of the entire cab. Id. Thus, when probable cause only concerns one specific item and the police know where that item is within the automobile, their warrantless search cannot extend to other areas of the car. The second facet of the Ross opinion addresses the situation in which more generalized probable cause to search an automobile is possessed by the police. In this type of situation, the police do not know where the contraband is contained within the car, but they only have probable cause to believe that it is within the confines of the vehicle. Faced with this situation, the Court stated that [i]f probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies the search of every part of the vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the search. Id. at 825, 102 S.Ct. 2157. Finally, in 1991 the Supreme Court further refined the law in this area with its decision in California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 111 S.Ct. 1982, 114 L.Ed.2d 619 (1991). The Court reaffirmed the first facet of Ross by holding that where police officers knew that contraband had been placed in the trunk of a vehicle, while they could open the container within which the contraband had been secreted, their probable cause to search for that contraband did not extend beyond the trunk area to the rest of the vehicle. See id. at 580, 102 S.Ct. 2157. Specifically, the Court stated that [t]he facts in the record reveal that the police did not have probable cause to believe that contraband was hidden in any other part of the automobile and a search of the entire vehicle would have been without probable cause and unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Id. However, nowhere in the opinion did the Court restrict the other component of its prior Ross holding. [3] Thus, we conclude that the legitimate scope of the power of police officers to search an entire automobile, based upon the Ross generalized probable cause to do so, was not altered by the United States Supreme Court's Acevedo opinion.