Court Opinion

ID: 9788696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:16:01.722868+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:16.056944
License: Public Domain

Maupin, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The majority correctly concludes under this court’s Hamisch decisions1 that the district court improperly applied New York v. Belton.2 However, consistent with my dissent in Barrios-Lomeli v. State,3 I would adopt Belton as the rule in Nevada and dispense with the exigent circumstances prong for warrantless searches of automobiles incident to lawful arrest. Belton, provides a bright-line guidance for police conduct, simply that police may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle incident to a lawful custodial arrest. As the Belton Court noted:
[T]he protection of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments “can only be realized if the police are acting under a set of rules which, in most instances, makes it possible to reach a correct determination beforehand as to whether an invasion of privacy is justified in the interest of law enforcement.’ ’4
Notwithstanding my belief that this court should adopt Belton, I reach the same result as the majority. The district court properly ruled that the evidence seized from Camacho’s vehicle was admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine.

 State v. Harnisch, 113 Nev. 214, 931 P.2d 1359 (1997), clarified on rehearing, 114 Nev. 225, 954 P.2d 1180 (1998).

 453 U.S. 454 (1981).

 113 Nev. 952, 959, 944 P.2d 791, 795 (1997) (Maupin, J., dissenting), rehearing denied, 114 Nev. 779, 961 P.2d 750 (1998).

 Belton, 453 U.S. at 458 (quoting Wayne R. LaFave, "Case-By-Case Adjudication” Versus “Standardized Procedures”: The Robinson Dilemma, 1974 Sup. Ct. Rev. 127, 142).