Opinion ID: 1917628
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Harris and Staten

Text: Years later, in United States v. Harris, [48] this court applied Belton to a situation in which police officers stopped a car for running a red light. After discovering that the driver did not possess a valid driver's license, the officers arrested him for that offense, searched and handcuffed him, and locked him in the police cruiser. [49] The two passengers were then ordered out of the car. [50] As the front passenger began to step out of the car, one of the officers saw a handgun at the passenger's feet. The officers looked further and found a bag containing ammunition on the floorboard between the passenger's legs. [51] After the front passenger, Harris, had been indicted for weapons offenses, the motions judge granted his motion to suppress, ruling that the officers had no basis for searching the vehicle after [the driver's] arrest for a traffic violation, nor did the officers reasonably fear for their safety. [52] Furthermore, the search had come well after the arrest of the driver and was therefore not contemporaneous with `potentially threatening circumstances confronting the officer.' [53] We reversed, relying on Belton and an earlier decision of this court, Staten v. United States, [54] where we had affirmed a conviction for weapons offenses based on a search of an automobile's glove compartment after the driver (arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol) and two passengers had been removed from the vehicle. None of the three was sequestered in a patrol car before the search. Harris focused primarily on the contemporaneous incident language in Belton [55] while Staten dealt mainly with the passenger's contention that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the glove compartment where the gun was found. Each, therefore, was what we shall call a pure Belton case in that both concerned searches and seizures of evidence before all occupants of the car had been removed and secured; as in Belton, the risk to police safety and loss of evidence had not entirely abated at the time of the search.