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Searches Following Arrest: The Implications of Arizona v. Gant
With the ruling in Arizona v. Gant, the Supreme Court has significantly narrowed the scope of permissible searches, thereby providing greater privacy protections for individuals.
June 11, 2009 /Coaching - Mentoring PR News/ -- Searches Following Arrest: The Implications of Arizona v. Gant
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The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects people from "unreasonable searches and seizures." However, since these four words were penned more than 200 years ago, jurists have been debating the precise boundaries of these protections.
Most recently, the Supreme Court reexamined these limits when deciding the case of Arizona v. Gant earlier this spring. With the ruling in Gant, the Supreme Court has significantly narrowed the scope of permissible searches, thereby providing greater privacy protections for individuals. However, it is important to note that this narrowed scope may be offset by other types of permissible searches -- and therefore the ultimate effects may not be as significant as might otherwise be expected.
The History of Search Incident to Arrest
To understand the issues in Gant and the ultimate effects of this ruling, it is necessary to understand the protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment. Generally the prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures prevents police officers from searching an individual without a warrant. In theory, a search without a warrant is unconstitutional. However, there are significant exceptions to this general rule, and if a search falls into one of the clearly delineated exceptions it is not necessarily unconstitutional.
One such exception, the exception at issue in Gant, regards searches performed incident to an arrest. When a police officer lawfully arrests someone, the officer is allowed to search that person and the area surrounding the person, generally known as the "reach and grab" area. This exception serves two purposes. First, the search protects the officer performing the arrest. The officer can check for weapons or potentially dangerous objects. Second, the search allows the officer to secure any evidence that could otherwise be destroyed.
Over time, the scope of this exception has been expanded. Nearly 30 years ago in New York v. Belton, the Supreme Court analyzed the permissible scope of this type of search in cases involving an automobile. In Belton, the Court held that police officers could search the vehicle's passenger compartment as part of the search incident to arrest.
This extension served the same purpose as the original exception supporting the search incident to arrest; by searching the passenger compartment, police officers can prevent the potential destruction of evidence and ensure that there are no weapons in the immediate vicinity of the person under arrest.
However, the extension granted the authority to search the passenger in every case, rather than just in those cases where it was justified because of these two concerns. Under the test outlined in Belton, a police officer could arrest a driver, have that person fully restrained in the back of a police car and still use the search incident to arrest exception to search the passenger compartment of a vehicle.
In Gant, the Court addressed this inconsistency and restricted the scope of a search incident to arrest involving an automobile. Rather than granting blanket authority to police officers to search the passenger compartment of a vehicle during an arrest involving an automobile, police officers may only perform these searches when the person being arrested might access the vehicle or when the vehicle contains evidence of the offense resulting in the arrest.
The Effects of Gant
This case has been hailed as a significant win for privacy rights advocates. By restricting the scope of searches incident to arrest involving automobiles to those situations where its usage is warranted, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the rights of individuals to be free from unreasonable searches.
However, as a practical matter, this ruling may not have a substantial effect. Search incident to arrest is just one of the permissible exceptions to the general rule that warrantless searches are unreasonable. In cases involving automobiles, another exception is likely to start to take precedence -- the inventory search.
When the police impound a vehicle they assume legal liability for the vehicle and its contents. To protect against potential lawsuits for missing contents, the police are allowed to examine the vehicle so that they can create an inventory. Given the more restrictive nature of search incident to arrest under Gant, it seems quite likely that police officers may turn to inventory searches to justify the search of a vehicle.
Accordingly, Gant may have little impact on the ultimate privacy protections for people who are arrested while in vehicles. Using the inventory search, police officers may be able to search anywhere they could have searched prior to Gant, as long as they choose to impound the vehicle.
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