New Search Rules

Expect a Legal Bulletin on this one shortly.

• The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a ruling that modifies the search incident to arrest doctrine, rejecting a broad reading of New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981). In Arizona v. Gant, — U.S. —, 2009 WL 1045962, the Court overturned the search incident to arrest of Rodney Gant’s car after Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended license, handcuffed and secured in the back of a patrol car. With several officers at the scene, officers found cocaine in Gant’s car during the search incident to the driver license arrest.

  The Court held that a search of the passenger compartment of a vehicle following an arrest is allowed “only if [1] the arrestee is within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search or [2] it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. When these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee's vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant or show that another exception to the warrant requirement applies.”

Some details will need to be hammered out and interpreted, but what we're reading is that once you remove a subject from anything that he could possibly reach in the vehicle, the vehicle becomes off limits to a certain extent, especially in the case of traffic law violations.

Be aware that something may have changed. We aren't sure this is an earth-shattering change, but it's another procedural hurdle to clear.