Opinion ID: 470276
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Applicability of the Automobile Exception

Text: 9 The District Court erred in holding that the police were duty bound to obtain a search warrant before searching the Datsun 280Z. The police knew that the car was owned by a third party who presumably had a set of keys. Thus, their only method of ensuring that the car would not be driven away, or that evidence would not be tampered with, would have been to post a guard nearby until a search warrant could be obtained, or to tow the car. Addressing a similar claim that the police must, whenever possible, immobilize a vehicle while they seek a search warrant instead of conducting an immediate warrantless search, the Supreme Court has held that: 10 arguably, only the lesser intrusion is permissible until the magistrate authorizes the greater. But which is the greater and which is the lesser intrusion is itself a debatable question and the answer may depend on a variety of circumstances. For constitutional purposes, we see no difference between on the one hand seizing and holding a car before presenting the probable cause issue to a magistrate and on the other hand carrying out an immediate search without a warrant. Given probable cause to search, either course is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. 11 Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 51-52, 90 S.Ct. 1975, 1981, 26 L.Ed.2d 419 (1970). 12 Caroline argues, nonetheless, that Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971), controls here. In Coolidge, a plurality of the Court held that a warrant was required before the police could search a car parked in the private driveway of the already arrested suspect. Critical to the Court's decision were several circumstances: the police had long been aware of the need for the search and thus had ample opportunity to obtain a warrant; the police had also posted two police guards at the house throughout the night, thereby barring access to the car. Thus, the Court concluded, none of the exigencies that normally give rise to the automobile exception were present: no alerted criminal bent on flight, no fleeing opportunity on an open highway after a hazardous chase, no contraband or stolen goods or weapons, no confederates waiting to move the evidence, not even the inconvenience of a special police detail to guard the immobilized automobile. Id. at 462 (emphasis added). Similarly, in United States v. Robinson, 533 F.2d 578 (D.C.Cir.1975) (en banc), this court expressed concern about whether the automobile exception justified a warrantless search of an unoccupied, parked and locked car, when the police had already eliminate[d] any realistic possibility of mobility by surrounding the car with a substantial number of officers. Id. at 581. 13 The facts of this case, however, are quite different from Coolidge and Robinson. Securing a warrant would have necessitated the police's posting a guard at the car or transporting the car to a compound, in order to ensure that the car's owner did not take the car or tamper with any evidence. Had the police chosen to go that route, as they did in Coolidge and Robinson, a warrantless search might not have been justified. But Chambers established that where the police do not commit themselves to guarding the vehicle, and where some exigency such as a realistic potential for mobility exists, the automobile exception applies. 1 The circumstances here thus clearly take this case out of Coolidge and Robinson, and place it squarely within the confines of Chambers. See generally Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 593, 94 S.Ct. 2464, 2470, 41 L.Ed.2d 325 (1974) (plurality opinion) (automobile exception applied where automobile was seized from a public place where access was not meaningfully restricted); United States v. McBee, 659 F.2d 1302 (5th Cir.1981) (exigent circumstance justified search of car used in bank robbery where fleeing bank robber had not been apprehended or even identified), cert. denied, 456 U.S. 949, 102 S.Ct. 2020, 72 L.Ed.2d 474 (1982); United States v. Evans, 481 F.2d 990, 994 (9th Cir.1973) (exigent circumstance existed since police could reasonably believe the evidence might evaporate through the efforts of Evans' girlfriend who owned and had a right to immediate possession of the vehicle); cf. United States v. Whitfield, 629 F.2d 136, 141 (D.C.Cir.1980) (with regard to car stopped in transit, exigency arises when the police are confronted with a motor vehicle, at least when it is in a public place and apparently in operating condition), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1086, 101 S.Ct. 875, 66 L.Ed.2d 812 (1981). Thus, if the police had probable cause to search the car, they were under no constitutional duty to obtain a warrant.