Court Opinion

ID: 9786764
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:02:18.556765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:48.473620
License: Public Domain

KENNARD, J., Dissenting.
With a few well-established exceptions, the federal Constitution’s Fourth Amendment prohibits a warrantless search without probable cause, as determined by the totality of circumstances known to the officer conducting the search. Today, the majority’s unprecedented decision creates a new exception allowing warrantless vehicle searches when a motorist stopped for a minor traffic violation cannot produce either a driver’s license or the vehicle’s registration. This holding flies in the face of Knowles v. Iowa (1998) 525 U.S. 113 [119 S.Ct. 484, 142 L.Ed.2d 492], in which a unanimous United States Supreme Court refused to except from the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement a vehicle search incident to citing or ticketing the driver for a traffic offense.
The majority insists such warrantless searches are “limited” to areas within a car where identification documentation might reasonably be found. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 65.) Yet the facts of the two cases here suggest otherwise. In one case the officer reached behind and under a truck’s bench seat, and in the other the officer searched underneath the front passenger seat. The majority would go even further. It favors warrantless trunk searches for documentation when the officer has “specific information” that those documents “reasonably may be” found in the trunk. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 86, fn. 25.) The majority’s new rule may well result in limitless searches throughout a vehicle whenever a driver cannot produce the requisite documentation. Because the scope of these warrantless searches weakens the *92Fourth Amendment’s protection “against unreasonable searches and seizures,” I dissent.
I.
After granting review in these two cases, this court consolidated them to decide the validity of warrantless police searches of vehicles during routine traffic stops.
A. In re Arturo D.
Minor Arturo D. moved to suppress evidence seized during a search of the extended cab pickup truck he was driving on August 26, 1998.
Suisun City Police Officer Michael Rowe testified at the suppression hearing that while patrolling Highway 12 he stopped Arturo for speeding. When Officer Rowe asked Arturo for his driver’s license, Arturo said he did not have one, but he gave his full name, date of birth, and home address. Officer Rowe stated on direct examination that Arturo did not produce the registration for the truck. But on cross-examination, Rowe was not so sure, saying he could not recall whether Arturo had given him the truck’s registration, but that Arturo “might have.” Rowe remembered, however, that Arturo said the pickup truck did not belong to him. Rowe never suggested at the suppression hearing that he ever suspected the truck was stolen.
“Just to confirm that there was no identification on [Arturo] or in his vehicle,” Officer Rowe did a patdown search of Arturo, after which he searched the truck. Initially, Rowe reached in through the driver’s door and ran his hand under the front area of the driver’s seat, but finding nothing there he leaned into the area behind the driver’s seat and looked under that seat. There, Rowe saw a glass smoking pipe and a small blue box, which upon further examination proved to contain traces of a white powdery substance. Believing that the amount of the substance was “unusable,” Rowe intended only to cite Arturo for speeding and for driving without a license. Rowe explained that because Arturo was an unlicensed driver, Rowe could not release the truck to him, but had to have it towed. Arturo agreed to go with Rowe to the police station to telephone someone who could pick him up. At the station, Officer Rowe took a closer look at the seized blue box and uncovered a false bottom concealing a plastic baggie containing a usable quantity of methamphetamine.
In contending that the search of the truck did not violate the Fourth Amendment, the prosecution stated it was not seeking to justify the search as *93being “incident to the arrest” of Arturo, who was not under arrest at the time of the search of the truck. Rather, the prosecutor sought to uphold the search on the ground that Officer Rowe could properly search the truck for Arturo’s identification and the truck’s registration. The trial court agreed and denied Arturo’s suppression motion. On Arturo’s appeal, the Court of Appeal reversed.
B. People v. Hinger
Defendant Randall Hinger moved to suppress a wallet and its contents seized during a warrantless search of his car. At the suppression hearing, Officer Robert Skinner of the City of Orange Police Department testified that on August 20, 1997, he stopped Hinger for making an unsafe lane change. Hinger told the officer he did not have his driver’s license with him and did not have registration documentation for the car, which he was “in the process of purchasing.” Hinger gave the officer his name. Officer Skinner then contacted police dispatch personnel to ascertain whether Randall Hinger was a licensed driver and whether Hinger or someone else was the car’s registered owner.
While awaiting that information, Officer Skinner asked Hinger, who had stepped out of the car, for permission to search the car. When Hinger refused to give consent, Officer Skinner said he would search anyway to look for registration and identification. Hinger replied that his wallet might be in the glove compartment, which was ajar. Officer Skinner opened the passenger door and reached into the glove compartment, but found no wallet, no identification, and no registration. Skinner then went to the driver’s side of the car, opened the door, and looked under the driver’s seat. Finding nothing, he returned to the passenger side, looked under the front seat, and saw a wallet. Inside the wallet were a check-cashing card bearing Hinger’s picture and a clear plastic baggie containing a white powdery substance resembling methamphetamine. Officer Skinner confirmed at the suppression hearing that Hinger was not under arrest until Skinner retrieved the wallet, opened it, and found the plastic baggie.
At the hearing, the prosecution argued that when a motorist stopped for a traffic infraction cannot produce a driver’s license or car registration, an officer is entitled “to look for identification and registration anywhere inside that vehicle.” The trial court agreed, and denied Hinger’s suppression motion. That ruling was upheld on appeal.
II.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits “unreasonable searches or seizures” by the police. A warrantless search is *94invalid “unless it falls within one of the narrow and well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement.” (Flippo v. West Virginia (1999) 528 U.S. 11, 13 [120 S.Ct. 7, 8, 145 L.Ed.2d 16]; see also Katz v. United States (1967) 389 U.S. 347, 357 [88 S.Ct. 507, 514-515, 19 L.Ed.2d 576].) Among those exceptions are the search of a person that is conducted incident to arrest (United States v. Robinson (1973) 414 U.S. 218, 234-235 [94 S.Ct. 467, 476-477, 38 L.Ed.2d 427]), the search of a car’s passenger compartment incident to the driver’s arrest (New York v. Belton (1981) 453 U.S. 454, 460 [101 S.Ct. 2860, 2864, 69 L.Ed.2d 768]), and the search of a car when there is probable cause to believe it contains contraband or evidence of a crime (Maryland v. Dyson (1999) 527 U.S. 465, 466 [119 S.Ct. 2013, 2014, 144 L.Ed.2d 442]; Carroll v. United States (1925) 267 U.S. 132, 153 [45 S.Ct. 280, 285, 69 L.Ed. 543, 39 A.L.R. 790]). Evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement is inadmissible at trial. (Mapp v. Ohio (1961) 367 U.S. 643, 655 [81 S.Ct. 1684, 1691-1692, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, 84 A.L.R.2d 933].)
Today, the majority holds that whenever a police officer detains a motorist for a traffic infraction and the motorist fails to produce a driver’s license or car registration, the officer may search those areas of the vehicle where such documentation “reasonably may be expected to be found.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 65.) This holding does not fit any of the narrow and well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement that the United States Supreme Court has recognized. Worse still, it directly conflicts with the high court’s unanimous decision in Knowles v. Iowa, supra, 525 U.S. 113 (Knowles).
Knowles concerned the validity of a search conducted under an Iowa statute allowing a police officer with “cause to believe” that a motorist had committed a traffic violation either to make an arrest and “immediately take the person before a magistrate,” or to “issu[e] a citation in lieu of arrest.” (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at p. 115 [119 S.Ct. at pp. 486-487].) Iowa law further provided that the officer’s decision to issue a citation instead of arresting the traffic offender did “ ‘not affect the officer’s authority to conduct an otherwise lawful search.’ ” (Ibid.) The officer who had cited Knowles for speeding searched the car and found “a bag of marijuana and a ‘pot pipe’ ” under the driver’s seat. (Id. at p. 114 [119 S.Ct. at p. 486].) The trial court, relying on the Iowa statute allowing a search incident to citation, denied Knowles’s suppression motion. The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the search, reasoning that “so long as the arresting officer had probable cause to make a custodial arrest, there need not in fact have been a custodial arrest” before the officer could search the car. (Id. at pp. 115-116 [119 S.Ct. at p. 487], italics added.)
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether the search of Knowles’s car fit an exception to the warrant requirement *95similar to the one allowing a search of a person incident to arrest (United States v. Robinson, supra, 414 U.S. at pp. 234-235 [94 S.Ct. at pp. 476-477]), or a search of a car’s interior area incident to arresting its driver (New York v. Belton, supra, 453 U.S. at p. 460 [101 S.Ct. at p. 2864]). The court noted the “historical rationales” underlying the search-incident-to-arrest exceptions: (1) the need to disarm the person to be taken into custody, and (2) the need to preserve evidence. (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at p. 116 [119 S.Ct. at p. 487].) Neither, the court observed, is present when an officer searches a car incident to citing a person for a traffic violation. (Id. at p. 117 [119 S.Ct. at pp. 487-488].)
The high court noted that the “threat to officer safety from issuing a traffic citation” where the suspect is not being transported is “a good deal less than in the case of a custodial arrest.” (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at p. 117 [119 S.Ct. at p. 487].) Officers conducting routine traffic stops have “other, independent bases to search for weapons and protect themselves from danger,” such as ordering the driver and any passengers out of the car, performing a “ ‘patdown’ of a driver and any passengers upon reasonable suspicion that they may be armed and dangerous,” and conducting a limited search inside the car “upon reasonable suspicion that an occupant is dangerous and may gain immediate control of a weapon.” (Id. at pp. 117-118 [119 S.Ct. at p. 488].)
Turning to the second historical justification for the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the warrant requirement—the need to discover and preserve evidence—the court observed that “[o]nce Knowles was stopped for speeding and issued a citation, all the evidence necessary to prosecute that offense had been obtained.” (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S at p. 118 [119 S.Ct. at p. 488].) “No further evidence of excessive speed was going to be found either on the person of the offender or in the passenger compartment of the car.” (Ibid.)
In sum, because in the case of a traffic citation “the concern for officer safety is not present to the same extent [as with an arrest] and the concern for destruction or loss of evidence is not present at all,” the United States Supreme Court invalidated the search of Knowles’s car incident to a citation for speeding. (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at p. 119 [119 S.Ct. at p. 488].)
Unlike Iowa’s statutory scheme that was before the high court in Knowles, no California statute authorizes a police officer to search a car incident to a traffic citation. California’s statutory law is similar to Iowa’s, however, in granting police in most cases involving minor traffic offenses the discretion either to cite or arrest the driver. (See Veh. Code, §§ 40302, 40500.) And our *96statutory scheme requires a driver to carry a driver’s license and to have the car’s registration in the car. (Veh. Code, §§ 4462, subd. (a), 12951.) The failure to produce either upon the request of an officer is an infraction. (Veh. Code, § 40000.1; People v. Superior Court [Simon] (1972) 7 Cal.3d 186, 193-195 [101 Cal.Rptr. 837, 496 P.2d 1205].)
Today, the majority holds that when an officer detains a driver for a suspected traffic offense and the driver fails to produce a driver’s license or the vehicle’s registration, the officer, even though not intending to arrest the driver either for the traffic offense or for the failure to produce the required documentation, can nonetheless conduct a “limited warrantless search[]” for these documents “within a vehicle.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 65.) In doing so, the majority writes into California law essentially the same search-incident-to-citation authority that Iowa created by statute and that the United States Supreme Court rejected in Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. 113.
There, in responding to Iowa’s argument that car searches incident to issuing traffic citations could be justified because drivers “may attempt to hide or destroy” evidence of identity such as “a driver’s license or vehicle registration,” the high court pointed out that “if a police officer is not satisfied with the identification furnished by the driver, this may be a basis for arresting him rather than merely issuing a citation.” (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at p. 118 [119 S.Ct. at p. 487], italics added.) That option was available here too. That an arrest may require the expenditure of “considerable time and resources necessary to undertake a full stationhouse booking (with possible towing, impounding, and inventorying of a vehicle)” (maj. opn., ante, p. 76, fn. 17) is irrelevant under Knowles, given its observation that an officer dissatisfied with a driver’s proffered identification may arrest rather than merely cite the driver.
In trying to distinguish this case from Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. 113, the majority points out that the blanket rule it adopts today would authorize only a limited search for a driver’s license or vehicle registration in those areas of a car where such documents “reasonably may be expected to be found.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 65, italics added.) But the car searches here were far from “limited.”
With regard to the search of Arturo’s extended cab truck, Officer Rowe first looked under the front area of driver’s seat. Not finding identification documentation, he then leaned into the area behind the driver’s seat and reached underneath, finding a small blue box with a substance later determined to be methamphetamine.
With respect to the search of Hinger’s car, Officer Skinner first searched the glove compartment; then he looked under the driver’s seat; and finally he *97reached under the passenger seat where he found the wallet containing Hinger’s identification and the methamphetamine.
The majority describes each of these two warrantless vehicle searches incident to traffic stops as “limited” and thus proper. But such a search is no less broad than the full car search that the high court invalidated in Knowles where, after citing the driver for speeding, the officer searched under the driver’s seat and found “a bag of marijuana and a ‘pot pipe.’ ” (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at p. 114 [119 S.Ct. at p. 486].) The majority would also permit a warrantless trunk search for identification and registration documentation when the officer has “specific information” that those documents “reasonably may be” found in the trunk. (Maj. opn., ante, p. 86, fn. 25.) In this instance, too, the scope of such a search goes far beyond the search that the United States Supreme Court rejected in Knowles.
In yet another futile effort to distinguish its holding from the type of search prohibited in Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. 113, the majority stresses that Knowles involved a warrantless search “for contraband following the issuance of a traffic citation,” whereas here the warrantless searches were for “regulatory documentation, prior to issuing a traffic citation.” (Maj. opn., ante, p. 76, italics in maj. opn.) Why should this distinction matter at all? A search incident to a routine traffic stop when an officer has yet to decide either to arrest or merely cite a driver has even less justification than the search invalidated in Knowles conducted after the officer had cited the driver.
Nor should it matter, contrary to the majority’s suggestion at page 76, ante, that the search in Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. 113, was for “contraband” whereas here the searches were for “regulatory documentation.” Invalidating the search in Knowles, the high court expressly rejected Iowa’s contention that a blanket rule allowing car searches incident to traffic citations would be justified because drivers might conceal their “ ‘license[s] or vehicle registration[s].’ ” (See ante, p. 75, quoting Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at p. 118 [119 S.Ct. at p. 488].)
Ultimately the majority rests its holding on People v. Webster (1991) 54 Cal.3d 411 [285 Cal.Rptr. 31, 814 P.2d 1273] (Webster), which this court decided seven years before Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. 113. In Webster, four justices of this court signed the majority opinion that affirmed a judgment of death. I concurred in the judgment and wrote separately on an issue unrelated to the Fourth Amendment. (See Webster, supra, at pp. 468-470 (conc. & dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).)
In Webster, an officer stopped the defendant for speeding. The defendant denied owning the car, claiming it belonged to someone in the backseat, but *98then said that all five of his passengers were hitchhikers. A radio check revealed that the defendant had an outstanding warrant, and the officer arrested him. When the officer asked the passengers who owned the car, all five “shrugged or shook their heads.” (Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 429.) The officer then looked in the car’s “glove compartment and visor for registration papers.” (Ibid.)
Given the totality of circumstances known to the officer in Webster, he was amply justified in searching the car for registration. All six of the car’s occupants, including the driver, had denied that it was their car, and the officer had arrested the driver on an outstanding warrant, a fact that standing alone gave the officer cause to make an incidental search of the car’s passenger compartment: “[Wjhen a policeman 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, supra, 453 U.S. at p. 460 [101 S.Ct. at p. 2864], italics added, fn. omitted; see also United States v. Gonzalez (11th Cir. 1996) 71 F.3d 819, 826 [applying the Belton rule to uphold the search of a car’s glove compartment incident to its driver’s arrest on a warrant].)
The majority, however, seizes upon this sentence in Webster: “Within constitutional limits, such statutes [requiring drivers to carry licenses and vehicle registration in a car] authorize an officer to enter a stopped vehicle and conduct an immediate warrantless search for the required documents.” {Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 430, italics added.) The majority reads far too much into this isolated sentence from Webster.
As the qualifying phrase “[w]ithin constitutional limits” suggests, Webster recognized that an officer’s mere desire to secure license or registration documents from a motorist would be insufficient by itself to qualify as an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. (Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d at p. 430.) And when read in the context of the facts of that case, the sentence stands for this unremarkable proposition: When an officer has arrested a car’s driver and is determining whether to impound the car or release it to one of its passengers, and no occupant of the car claims to know who owns the car, the officer is justified to search for evidence of ownership in the “glove compartment and visor” of what apparently is an abandoned car. (Id. at p. 429.) The Webster language at issue does not support the majority’s far broader rule that whenever a traffic violator cannot produce either a driver’s license or car registration, the officer, without making an *99arrest, can conduct a full search of the car for identifying documentation.1 Furthermore, such a rule is contrary to Knowles, in which the United States Supreme Court refused to authorize warrantless vehicle searches when the driver has “merely” been cited but not arrested. (Knowles, supra, 525 U.S. at pp. 118-119 [119 S.Ct. at pp. 488-489].)
m.
Unlike the majority, I would not adopt a blanket rule permitting police to make a warrantless search of a car for identification documentation or vehicle registration anytime a driver cannot produce these documents. Instead, I would evaluate car searches by applying established law, which permits a warrantless search of a car only if it falls within one of the “narrow *100and well-delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement” specified by the United States Supreme Court. (Flippo v. West Virginia, supra, 528 U.S. at p. 13 [120 S.Ct. at p. 8].) Among these exceptions is the rule permitting police officers to search a car when they have probable cause to believe it contains contraband or evidence of a crime. (Maryland v. Dyson, supra, 527 U.S. at p. 466 [119 S.Ct. at pp. 2013-2014].) Probable cause is evaluated on a case-by-case basis, applying a “totality of the circumstances” test. (See United States v. Arvizu (2002) 534 U.S. 266, 273 [122 S.Ct. 744, 750, 151 L.Ed.2d 740]; United States v. Sokolow (1989) 490 U.S. 1, 8 [109 S.Ct. 1581, 1585-1586, 104 L.Ed.2d 1].) This standard takes into account an officer’s common sense and experience to determine whether there is “a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found.” (Illinois v. Gates (1983) 462 U.S. 213, 238 [103 S.Ct. 2317, 2332, 76 L.Ed.2d 527].) Here, the prosecution failed to justify the searches on this or any other well-delineated exception to the warrant requirement.
In each case, the officer stopped the driver for a traffic infraction. Arturo D. admitted he was an unlicensed driver, but he gave the officer his name, address, and birth date. With respect to Hinger, he could not produce either his driver’s license or the car’s registration, but he told the officer his name and said he was in the process of buying the car. The officer then placed a radio call to police dispatch personnel to verify Hinger’s identity and to ascertain whether he owned the car. In each case, had the officer been dissatisfied with the proof of identity offered, he could have arrested the driver (see Veh. Code, § 40302, subd. (a)) and, incident to such an arrest, could have searched the vehicle’s interior (New York v. Belton, supra, 453 U.S. at p. 460 [101 S.Ct. at p. 2864]). In each case, however, the officer testified at the suppression hearing that at the time he undertook the vehicle search, he had no intent to arrest the driver. Furthermore, in each case the prosecution sought to justify the search on the single ground that whenever a driver cannot produce statutorily required documentation, the officer has the right to search for it inside the car. The prosecution neither advanced nor developed a record to support any other theory. (See Green v. Superior Court (1985) 40 Cal.3d 126, 137-138 [219 Cal.Rptr. 186, 707 P.2d 248] [on issues of search and seizure, prosecution is generally precluded from advancing new theory on appeal].) Under these circumstances, the prosecution failed to carry its burden of establishing probable cause or some other exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement for each search, and the suppression motions in both cases should have been granted.
Conclusion
Who among us can ever forget the horrendous events of September 11, 2001, when our nation suffered the most destructive terrorist assault in our *101history? As this opinion is being written, our nation is undergoing a painful recovery from the devastating physical and psychological effects of that day. One part of this recovery process has been an effort to devise and implement more effective methods of law enforcement to protect the security of our citizens and our institutions. Another and equally important part of this process must be a rediscovery of and rededication to the principles upon which our nation was founded and which have made it a true beacon of liberty throughout the world.
One principle, so basic to our personal liberty, is the prohibition that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution places on unreasonable searches and seizures. In determining whether a search is “unreasonable,” a court must adhere to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court articulating the meaning of that word in a similar case. Virtually identical to the two cases here is the high court’s unanimous decision in Knowles v. Iowa, supra, 525 U.S. 113. There, the court held that when a police officer has stopped a motorist for a routine traffic violation, and the officer has not arrested the motorist, the officer may not rummage through the vehicle.
Today’s majority decision does nothing to enhance our security and does much to erode our Fourth Amendment rights. Under California law, an officer making a routine stop for a traffic violation may arrest a motorist who fails to produce proof of identity and, within the limitations of the Fourth Amendment, may search the vehicle incident to the arrest. Given this ability, there is no justification for the warrantless, nonconsensual search of a car’s interior when the officer has made no arrest and the officer lacks probable cause to believe that the car contains contraband. In announcing a blanket rule authorizing such searches, the majority disregards the high court’s decision in Knowles and chips away at one of the fundamental freedoms guaranteed by our federal Constitution.
Brown, J., concurred.

Nor does Webster, supra, 54 Cal.3d at page 431, support a narrower rule, urged by the concurring and dissenting opinion, allowing a warrantless search for a car’s registration documents (but not the driver’s license) in “the glove compartment and visor,” which the opinion describes as “traditional locations within a vehicle where drivers normally keep registration documents.” (Conc. & dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., ante, at p. 89.) The search for registration documents was justified in Webster only because all six of the car’s occupants claimed not to know who owned the car, an uncommon situation, not present here, that negated the existence of a reasonable expectation of privacy.
The concurring and dissenting opinion also relies on the United States Supreme Court’s five-to-four decision in New York v. Class (1986) 475 U.S. 106 [106 S.Ct. 960, 89 L.Ed.2d 81] (Class) upholding a limited warrantless vehicle search that the concurring and dissenting opinion claims is “not much different” from the search at issue here. (Conc. & dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., ante, at p. 89.) Not so.
In Class, an officer looking for the vehicle identification number (VIN) of a car that had been stopped for a traffic violation, and not finding it on the left doorjamb, moved some papers on the dashboard that covered the VIN. In upholding this search, the high court noted “the lack of a reasonable expectation of privacy in the VIN” because federal law required that the VIN be displayed either on the left doorjamb (for cars built before 1969) or on a part of the dashboard visible through the windshield (for cars built later). (Class, supra, 475 U.S. at p. 119 [106 S.Ct. at p. 968].) Here, by contrast, no federal law (or state law either) requires that registration documents be kept behind the visor or in the glove compartment, and thus California drivers have not relinquished their expectations of privacy in these locations. The high court in Class also stressed that the officer in that case “did not root about the interior” and “did not reach into any compartments.” (Id. at p. 118 [106 S.Ct. at p. 968].) Here, however, the concurring and dissenting opinion would authorize officers searching for registration documents to enter a car, to reach behind the visor and into the glove compartment, and to inspect any documents they might find in those locations, an invasion considerably more extensive than that approved in Class.
The concurring and dissenting opinion construes Vehicle Code section 2805, subdivision (a), which states that police may “inspect the title or registration of vehicles, in order to establish . . . rightful ownership,” as authorizing vehicle searches for those documents behind the visor and in the glove compartment. (See conc. & dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., ante, at pp. 88-89.) I disagree with that interpretation. By its terms, the statute only permits an officer to inspect the documents, not to conduct a warrantless search for them. Warrantless searches of a car’s interior are not only unauthorized, but also unnecessary. From outside a car, an officer may see the VIN on the dashboard of any car made since 1969, and from the VIN the officer may readily determine the car’s ownership and registration.