Court Opinion

ID: 9430774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:32.916576+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:26.057340
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
with whom Justice Powell and Justice O’Connor join, concurring.
The Court today holds that police officers may open closed containers while conducting a routine inventory search of an impounded vehicle. I join the Court’s opinion, but write separately to underscore the importance of having such inventories conducted only pursuant to standardized police procedures. The underlying rationale for allowing an inventory exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant rule is that police officers are not vested with discretion to determine the scope of the inventory search. See South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 382-383 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring). This absence of discretion ensures that inventory searches will not be used as a purposeful and general means of discovering evidence of crime. Thus, it is permis*377sible for police officers to open closed containers in an inventory search only if they are following standard police procedures that mandate the opening of such containers in every impounded vehicle. As the Court emphasizes, the trial court in this case found that the Police Department’s standard procedures did mandate the opening of closed containers and the fisting of their contents. See ante, at 374, n. 6.