Opinion ID: 2975721
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Search of Black’s Vehicle

Text: We also hold that Offenbacher’s search of Black’s car did not violate Black’s Fourth Amendment rights, for this search was justified on two separate grounds: as a search incident to arrest and under the “automobile exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s Warrant Clause. The Supreme Court has explained that “when a [police officer] 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.” New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460 (1981). No. 06-6007 United States v. Black Page 11 Further, the search may precede a “formal arrest” so long as the officers had probable cause to arrest prior to the search and the arrest “followed quickly on the heels of the challenged search.” Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 111 (1980); see also United States v. Montgomery, 377 F.3d 582, 587-88 (6th Cir. 2004). Here, at the time that Offenbacher conducted the search, he and Ragland had (1) smelled a strong odor of alcohol coming from the vehicle; (2) discovered an unsealed, partly empty, bottle of alcohol in the car; and (3) learned that Black’s license was suspended. The officers thus had probable cause to arrest Black for driving while intoxicated, possessing an open alcoholic beverage container in an automobile,4 and driving with a suspended license. Furthermore, the record indicates that the officers handcuffed Black immediately after the gun was discovered in Black’s car — in other words, little time elapsed between the officers’ finding they had probable cause to arrest Black and their formal arrest of him. Therefore, Offenbacher’s search of the car was justified as a search incident to Black’s arrest. Alternatively, Offenbacher’s search of Black’s car was proper under the “automobile exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s Warrant Clause. Under this exception, first laid out in Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 155-56 (1925), a warrantless search of an automobile is permissible if the search is supported by probable cause. See also Maryland v. Dyson, 527 U.S. 465, 4 Tennessee law provides that “[n]o driver shall consume any alcoholic beverage or beer or possess an open container of alcoholic beverage or beer while operating a motor vehicle . . . .” Tenn. Code. Ann. § 55-10-416(a)(1). An “open container” is “any container containing alcoholic beverages or beer, the contents of which are immediately capable of being consumed or the seal of which has been broken.” Id. § 55-10-416(a)(2)(A). Open containers are also prohibited by the Knoxville City Code, which provides that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person to . . . [p]ossess an open container containing beer or alcoholic beverages, or consume beer or alcoholic beverages, on any public street, sidewalk, playground, school property, public park or recreational facility or public parking lot within the corporate limits of the city . . . .” Knoxville City Code § 4-1(b)(2). No. 06-6007 United States v. Black Page 12 466-67 (1999) (per curiam). Here, when Offenbacher searched Black’s car, Ragland had already smelled alcohol in the car and Black had retrieved an unsealed bottle of alcohol from the car. This gave Offenbacher probable cause to believe that there was additional evidence of a violation of the open container law (i.e., other bottles of alcohol) inside the car. Therefore, Offenbacher’s search of Black’s car did not violate the Fourth Amendment.