[Infowarrior] - SCOTUS Limits Searches of Suspect's Car After Arrest

[Richard Forno]

Interesting split on the court, I think.  ---rf


High Court Limits Searches of Suspect's Car After Arrest

By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 2:10 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR2009042102125_pf.html

The Supreme Court today sharply limited the power of police to search  
a suspect's car after making an arrest, acknowledging that the  
decision changes a rule that law enforcement has relied on for nearly  
30 years.

In a decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens, an unusual five- 
member majority said police may search a vehicle without a warrant  
only when the suspect could reach for a weapon or try to destroy  
evidence or when it is "reasonable to believe" there is evidence in  
the car supporting the crime at hand.

The court noted that law enforcement for years has interpreted the  
court's rulings on warrantless car searches to mean that officers may  
search the passenger compartment of a vehicle as part of a lawful  
arrest of a suspect. But Stevens said that was a misreading of the  
court's decision in New York v. Belton in 1981.

"Blind adherence to Belton's faulty assumption would authorize myriad  
unconstitutional searches," Stevens said, adding that the court's  
tradition of honoring past decisions did not bind it to continue such  
a view of the law.

"The doctrine of stare decisis does not require us to approve routine  
constitutional violations."

Stevens was joined by two of his most liberal colleagues -- Justices  
David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- and two of his most  
conservative -- Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The decision overturned a three-year prison sentence for Arizonan  
Rodney Gant, who had been convicted of cocaine possession. Police  
found the drug in a search of his car, following his arrest for  
driving with a suspended license. Gant had already walked away from  
his car when he was arrested, and he sat handcuffed a distance away  
while police searched his car.

"Police could not reasonably have believed either that Gant could have  
accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the  
offense for which he was arrested might have been found therein,"  
Stevens wrote.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the four dissenters, said the  
court's insistence that its precedents had been misinterpreted was  
simply a cover for getting rid of a decision with which it disagreed.

He said the replacement of what had been an easy-to-understand "bright  
line" rule for police "is virtually certain to confuse law enforcement  
officers and judges for some time to come."

The court's new rules will endanger arresting officers, he said, and  
"cause the suppression of evidence gathered in many searches carried  
out in good-faith reliance on well-settled case law."

He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices  
Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer.

The case is Arizona v. Gant.