Court Opinion

ID: 9425322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:22.631943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:54.715654
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
with whom The Chief Justice joins, concurring.
The Court today permits a search for evidence without an arrest but under circumstances where probable cause for an arrest existed, where the officers had reasonable cause to believe that the evidence was on respondent’s person, and where that evidence was highly destructible. The Court, however, restricts the permissible quest to “the very limited search necessary to preserve the highly evanescent evidence they found under [respondent’s] fingernails.”
While I join the Court’s opinion, I do so with the understanding that what the Court says here applies only where no arrest has been made. Far different factors, in my view, govern the permissible scope of a search incident to a lawful arrest.