When California Highway Patrol officers stopped petitioner's
station wagon for proceeding erratically, they smelled marihuana
smoke as he opened the car door. In the ensuing search of the car,
the officers found in the luggage compartment two packages wrapped
in green opaque plastic. They then unwrapped the packages, both of
which contained bricks of marihuana. Petitioner was charged with
various drug offenses, and, after his pretrial motion to suppress
the evidence found when the packages were unwrapped was denied, he
was convicted. The California Court of Appeal affirmed, holding
that the warrantless opening of the packages was constitutionally
permissible, since any experienced observer could reasonably have
inferred from the appearance of the packages that they contained
bricks of marihuana.
Held: The judgment is reversed. Pp.
453 U. S.
423-29;
453 U. S.
429-436.
103 Cal. App. 3d
34,
162 Cal. Rptr.
780, reversed.
JUSTICE STEWART, joined by JUSTICE BRENNAN, JUSTICE WHITE, and
JUSTICE MARSHALL, concluded that the opening of the packages
without a search warrant violated the Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendments. Pp.
453 U. S.
423-429.
(a) A closed piece of luggage found in a lawfully searched car
is constitutionally protected to the same extent as are closed
pieces of luggage found anywhere else.
United States v.
Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1;
Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753. Pp.
453 U. S.
423-425.
(b) With respect to the constitutional protection to which a
closed container found in the lawful search of an automobile is
entitled, there is no distinction between containers, such as
suitcases, commonly used to transport "personal effects,"
i.e., property worn on or carried about the person or
having some intimate relation to the person, and flimsier
containers, such as cardboard boxes and plastic bags. Such a
distinction has no basis in the language or meaning of the Fourth
Amendment, which protects people and their effects, and protects
those effects whether they are "personal" or "impersonal." And
there are no objective criteria by which such a distinction could
be made. Pp.
453 U. S.
425-427.
(c) Unless a closed container found in an automobile is such
that
Page 453 U. S. 421
its contents may be said to be in plain view, those contents are
fully protected by the Fourth Amendment. Here, the evidence was
insufficient to justify an exception to the rule on the ground that
the contents of the packages in question could be inferred from
their outward appearance. To fall within such exception, a
container must so clearly announce its contents, whether by its
distinctive configuration, transparency, or otherwise, that its
contents are obvious to the observer. Pp.
453 U. S.
427-428.
JUSTICE POWELL concluded that petitioner had a reasonable
expectation of privacy in the opaquely wrapped and sealed package
in question. The Fourth Amendment requires a police officer to
obtain a warrant before searching a container that customarily
serves as a repository for personal effects or when, as here, the
circumstances indicate that the defendant has a reasonable
expectation that the contents will not be open to public scrutiny.
Pp.
453 U. S.
429-436.
STEWART, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered
an opinion, in which BRENNAN, WHITE, and MARSHALL, JJ., joined.
BURGER, C.J., concurred in the judgment. POWELL, J., filed an
opinion concurring in the judgment,
post, p.
453 U. S. 429.
BLACKMUN, J.,
post, p.
453 U. S. 436,
REHNQUIST, J.,
post, p.
453 U. S. 437,
and STEVENS, J.,
post, p.
453 U. S. 444,
filed dissenting opinions.
Page 453 U. S. 422
JUSTICE STEWART announced the judgment of the Court and
delivered an opinion, in which JUSTICE BRENNAN, JUSTICE WHITE, and
JUSTICE MARSHALL joined.
I
On the early morning of January 5, 1975, California Highway
Patrol officers stopped the petitioner's car -- a 1966 Chevrolet
station wagon -- because he had been driving erratically. He got
out of his vehicle and walked towards the patrol car. When one of
the officers asked him for his driver's license and the station
wagon's registration, he fumbled with his wallet. When the
petitioner opened the car door to get out the registration, the
officers smelled marihuana smoke. One of the officers patted down
the petitioner, and discovered a vial of liquid. The officer then
searched the passenger compartment of the car, and found marihuana
as well as equipment for using it.
After putting the petitioner in the patrol car, the officers
opened the tailgate of the station wagon, located a handle set
flush in the deck, and lifted it up to uncover a recessed luggage
compartment. In the compartment were a totebag and two packages
wrapped in green opaque plastic. [
Footnote 1] The police unwrapped the packages; each one
contained 15 pounds of marihuana.
The petitioner was charged with various drug offenses, his
pretrial motion to suppress the evidence found when the
Page 453 U. S. 423
packages were unwrapped was denied, and a jury convicted him. In
an unpublished opinion, the California Court of Appeal affirmed the
judgment in all relevant respects. This Court granted a writ of
certiorari, vacated the Court of Appeal's judgment, and remanded
the case for further consideration in light of
Arkansas v.
Sanders, 442 U. S. 753. 443
U.S. 903. On remand, the Court of Appeal again found the
warrantless opening of the packages constitutionally permissible,
since the trial court
"could reasonably [have] conclude[d] that the contents of the
packages could have been inferred from their outward appearance, so
that appellant could not have held a reasonable expectation of
privacy with respect to the contents."
103 Cal. App. 3d
34, 40,
162 Cal. Rptr.
780, 783. Because of continuing uncertainty as to whether
closed containers found during a lawful warrantless search of an
automobile may themselves be searched without a warrant, this Court
granted certiorari. 449 U.S. 1109.
II
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which is made
applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment,
establishes "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures." This Court has held that a search is
per se
unreasonable, and thus violates the Fourth Amendment, if the police
making the search have not first secured from a neutral magistrate
a warrant that satisfies the terms of the Warrant Clause of the
Fourth Amendment.
See, e.g., Katz v. United States,
389 U. S. 347,
389 U. S. 357;
Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S.
20,
269 U. S. 33.
Although t,he Court has identified some exceptions to this warrant
requirement, the Court has emphasized that these exceptions are
"few," "specifically established," and "well-delineated."
Katz
v. United States, supra, at
389 U. S.
357.
Among these exceptions is the so-called "automobile exception."
See Colorado v. Bannister, 449 U. S.
1. In
Carroll
Page 453 U. S. 424
v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, the
Court held that a search warrant is unnecessary
"where there is probable cause to search an automobile stopped
on the highway; the car is movable, the occupants are alerted, and
the car's contents may never be found again if a warrant must be
obtained."
Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42,
399 U. S. 51. In
recent years, we have twice been confronted with the suggestion
that this "automobile exception" somehow justifies the warrantless
search of a closed container found inside an automobile. Each time,
the Court has refused to accept the suggestion.
In
United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S.
1, the Government argued in part that luggage is
analogous to motor vehicles for Fourth Amendment purposes, and that
the "automobile exception" should thus be extended to encompass
closed pieces of luggage. The Court rejected the analogy and
insisted that the exception is confined to the special and possibly
unique circumstances which were the occasion of its genesis. First,
the Court said that "[o]ur treatment of automobiles has been based
in part on their inherent mobility, which often makes obtaining a
judicial warrant impracticable."
Id. at 12. While both
cars and luggage may be "mobile," luggage itself may be brought and
kept under the control of the police.
Second, the Court acknowledged that "inherent mobility" cannot
alone justify the automobile exception, since the Court has
sometimes approved warrantless searches in which the automobile's
mobility was irrelevant.
See Cady v. Dombrowski,
413 U. S. 433,
413 U. S.
441-442;
South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.
S. 364,
428 U. S. 367.
The automobile exception, the Court said, is thus also supported by
"the diminished expectation of privacy which surrounds the
automobile" and which arises from the facts that a car is used for
transportation, and not as a residence or a repository of personal
effects, that a car's occupants and contents travel in plain view,
and that automobiles are necessarily highly regulated by
government.
United States v. Chadwick, supra, at
433 U. S. 12-13.
No such diminished
Page 453 U. S. 425
expectation of privacy characterizes luggage; on the contrary,
luggage typically is a repository of personal effects, the contents
of closed pieces of luggage are hidden from view, and luggage is
not generally subject to state regulation.
In
Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.
S. 753, the State of Arkansas argued that the
"automobile exception" should be extended to allow the warrantless
search of everything found in an automobile during a lawful
warrantless search of the vehicle itself. The Court rejected this
argument for much the same reason it had rejected the Government's
argument in
Chadwick. Pointing out, first, that, "[o]nce
police have seized a suitcase, as they did here, the extent of its
mobility is in no way affected by the place from which it was
taken," the Court said that there generally "is no greater need for
warrantless searches of luggage taken from automobiles than of
luggage taken from other places." 442 U.S. at
442 U. S.
763-764. Second, the Court saw no reason to believe that
the privacy expectation in a closed piece of luggage taken from a
car is necessarily less than the privacy expectation in closed
pieces of luggage found elsewhere.
In the present case, the Court once again encounters the
argument -- made in the Government's brief as
amicus
curiae -- that the contents of a closed container carried in a
vehicle are somehow not fully protected by the Fourth Amendment.
But this argument is inconsistent with the Court's decisions in
Chadwick and
Sanders. Those cases made clear, if
it was not clear before, that a closed piece of luggage found in a
lawfully searched car is constitutionally protected to the same
extent as are closed pieces of luggage found anywhere else.
The respondent, however, proposes that the nature of a container
may diminish the constitutional protection to which it otherwise
would be entitled -- that the Fourth Amendment protects only
containers commonly used to transport "personal effects." By
personal effects, the respondent means property worn on or carried
about the person or having some intimate relation to the person. In
taking this position, the
Page 453 U. S. 426
respondent relies on numerous opinions that have drawn a
distinction between pieces of sturdy luggage, like suitcases, and
flimsier containers, like cardboard boxes.
Compare, e.g.,
United States v. Benson, 631 F.2d 1336 (CA8 180) (leather
totebag);
United States v. Miller, 608 F.2d 1089 (CA5
1979) (plastic portfolio);
United States v. Presler, 610
F.2d 1206 (CA4 1979) (briefcase);
United States v. Meier,
602 F.2d 253 (CA10 1979) (backpack);
United States v.
Johnson, 588 F.2d 147 (CA5 1979) (duffelbag);
United
States v. Stevie, 582 F.2d 1175 (CA8 1978),
with United
States v. Mannino, 635 F.2d 110 (CA2 1980) (plastic bag inside
paper bag);
United States v. Goshorn, 628 F.2d 697, 699
(CA1 1980) ("
[t]wo plastic bags, further in three brown paper
bags, further in two clear plastic bags'"); United States v.
Gooch, 603 F.2d 122 (CA10 1979) (plastic bag); United
State v. Mackey, 626 F.2d 684 (CA9 1980) (paper bag);
United States v. Neumann, 585 F.2d 355 (CA8 1978)
(cardboard box).
The respondent's argument cannot prevail for at least two
reasons. First, it has no basis in the language or meaning of the
Fourth Amendment. That Amendment protects people and their effects,
and it protects those effects whether they are "personal" or
"impersonal." The contents of Chadwick's footlocker and Sanders'
suitcase were immune from a warrantless search because they had
been placed within a closed, opaque container and because Chadwick
and Sanders had thereby reasonably "manifested an expectation that
the contents would remain free from public examination."
United
States v. Chadwick, supra, at
433 U. S. 11.
Once placed within such a container, a diary and a dishpan are
equally protected by the Fourth Amendment.
Second, even if one wished to import such a distinction into the
Fourth Amendment, it is difficult, if not impossible, to perceive
any objective criteria by which that task might be accomplished.
What one person may put into a suitcase, another may put into a
paper bag.
United States v. Ross,
Page 453 U. S. 427
210 U.S.App.D.C. 342, 655 F.2d 115 (1981) (en banc). And as the
disparate results in the decided cases indicate, no court, no
constable, no citizen, can sensibly be asked to distinguish the
relative "privacy interests" in a closed suitcase, briefcase,
portfolio, duffelbag, or box.
The respondent protests that footnote 13 of the
Sanders
opinion says that "[n]ot all containers and packages found by
police during the course of a search will deserve the full
protection of the Fourth Amendment." 442 U.S. at
442 U. S. 764,
n. 13. But the exceptions listed in the succeeding sentences of the
footnote are the very model of exceptions which prove the rule:
"Thus, some containers (for example a kit of burglar tools or a
gun case), by their very nature, cannot support any reasonable
expectation of privacy because their contents can be inferred from
their outward appearance. Similarly, in some cases, the contents of
a package will be open to 'plain view,' thereby obviating the need
for a warrant."
Id. at
442 U. S.
764-765, n. 13. The second of these exceptions obviously
refers to items in a container that is not closed. The first
exception is likewise little more than another variation of the
"plain view" exception, since, if the distinctive configuration of
a container proclaims its contents, the contents cannot fairly be
said to have been removed from a searching officer's view. The same
would be true, of course, if the container were transparent or
otherwise clearly revealed its contents. In short, the negative
implication of footnote 13 of the
Sanders opinion is that,
unless the container is such that its contents may be said to be in
plain view, those contents are fully protected by the Fourth
Amendment.
The California Court of Appeal believed that the packages in the
present case fell directly within the second exception described in
this footnote, since "[a]ny experienced observer could have
inferred from the appearance of the packages that they contained
bricks of marijuana." 103 Cal. App. 3d at 40, 162 Cal. Rptr. at
783. The only evidence the court
Page 453 U. S. 428
cited to support this proposition was the testimony of one of
the officers who arrested the petitioner. When asked whether there
was anything about "these two plastic wrapped green blocks which
attracted your attention," the officer replied, somewhat
obscurely:
"A. I had previous knowledge of transportation of such blocks.
Normally contraband is wrapped this way, merely hearsay. I had
never seen them before."
"Q. You had heard contraband was packaged this way?"
"A. Yes."
Id. at 40, n. 2, 162 Cal. Rptr. at 783, n. 4.
This vague testimony certainly did not establish that marihuana
is ordinarily "packaged this way." Expectations of privacy are
established by general social norms, and to fall within the second
exception of the footnote in question a container must so clearly
announce its contents, whether by its distinctive configuration,
its transparency, or otherwise, that its contents are obvious to an
observer. If indeed a green plastic wrapping reliably indicates
that a package could only contain marihuana, that fact was not
shown by the evidence of record in this case. [
Footnote 2]
Although the two bricks of marihuana were discovered during a
lawful search of the petitioner's car, they were inside a closed,
opaque container. We reaffirm today that such a container may not
be opened without a warrant, even if it is found during the course
of the lawful search of an automobile. Since the respondent does
not allege the presence of any circumstances that would constitute
a valid exception
Page 453 U. S. 429
to this general rule, [
Footnote
3] it is clear that the opening of the closed containers
without a search warrant violated the Fourth and Fourteenth
Amendments. Accordingly, the judgment of the California Court of
Appeal is reversed.
It is so ordered.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE concurs in the judgment.
[
Footnote 1]
A photograph was made of one of the packages, and it was later
described as follows:
"The package visible in the photograph is apparently wrapped or
boxed in an opaque material covered by an outer wrapping of
transparent, cellophane-type plastic. (The photograph is not in
color, and the 'green' plastic cannot be seen at all.) Both
wrappings are sealed on the outside with at least one strip of
opaque tape. As thus wrapped and sealed, the package roughly
resembles an oversized, extra-long cigar box with slightly rounded
corners and edges. It bears no legend or other written indicia
supporting any inference concerning its contents."
103 Cal. App. 3d
34, 44,
162 Cal. Rptr.
780, 785 (Rattigan, J., dissenting).
[
Footnote 2]
As Judge Rattigan wrote in his dissenting opinion in the
California Court of Appeal:
"For all that I see, it could contain books, stationery, canned
goods, or any number of other wholly innocuous items which might be
heavy in weight. In fact, it bears a remarkable resemblance to an
unlabeled carton of emergency highway flares that I bought from a
store shelf and have carried in the trunk of my own
automobile."
103 Cal. App. 3d at 44, 12 Cal. Rptr. at 785.
[
Footnote 3]
In particular, it is not argued that the opening of the packages
was incident to a lawful custodial arrest.
Cf. Chimel v.
California, 395 U. S. 752.
See Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753,
442 U. S. 764,
n. 11. Further, the respondent does not argue that the petitioner
consented to the opening of the packages.
JUSTICE POWELL concurring in the judgment.
The Court's judgment is justified, though not compelled, by the
Court's opinion in
Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.
S. 753 (1979). Accordingly, I join the judgment. As the
plurality today goes well beyond
Sanders or any other
prior case to establish a new "bright-line" rule, I cannot join its
opinion. [
Footnote 2/1] It would
require officers to obtain warrants in order to examine the
contents of insubstantial containers in which no one had a
reasonable expectation of privacy. The plurality's approach strains
the rationales of our prior cases and imposes substantial burdens
on law enforcement without vindicating any significant values of
privacy. I nevertheless concur in the judgment because the manner
in which the package at issue was carefully wrapped and sealed
evidenced petitioner's expectation of privacy in its contents. As
we have stressed
Page 453 U. S. 430
in prior decisions, a central purpose of the Fourth Amendment is
to safeguard reasonable expectations of privacy.
Having reached this decision on the facts of this case, I
recognize -- as the dissenting opinions find it easy to proclaim --
that the law of search and seizure with respect to automobiles is
intolerably confusing. The Court apparently cannot agree even on
what it has held previously, let alone on how these cases should be
decided. Much of this difficulty comes from the necessity of
applying the general command of the Fourth Amendment to
ever-varying facts; more may stem from the often unpalatable
consequences of the exclusionary rule, which spur the Court to
reduce its analysis to simple mechanical rules so that the
constable has a fighting chance not to blunder.
This case and
New York v. Belton, post, p.
453 U. S. 454,
decided today, involve three different Fourth Amendment questions
that arise in automobile cases: (A) the scope of the search
incident to arrest on the public highway; (B) whether officers must
obtain a warrant when they have probable cause to search a
particular container in which the suspect has a reasonable
expectation of privacy; and (C) the scope of the "automobile
exception" to the warrant requirement, which potentially includes
all areas of the car and containers found therein. These issues
frequently are intertwined, as the similar facts of these cases
suggest: both involve the stop of an automobile upon probable
cause, the arrest of the occupants, the search of the automobile,
and the search of a personal container found therein. Nonetheless,
the cases have been litigated and presented to us under entirely
different theories. Intelligent analysis cannot proceed unless the
issues are addressed separately. Viewing similar facts from
entirely different perspectives need not lead to identical
results.
A
I have joined the Court's opinion in
Belton because I
concluded that a "bright-line" rule was necessary in the quite
Page 453 U. S. 431
different circumstances addressed there. [
Footnote 2/2]
Belton, unlike this case,
concerns only the exception to the warrant requirement for a search
incident to arrest; contrary to JUSTICE STEVENS' implication,
post at
453 U. S. 444,
453 U. S.
447-448,
453 U. S. 451,
and n. 13, the courts below never found that the officer had
probable cause to search the automobile.
Belton presents
the volatile and fluid situation of an encounter between an
arresting officer and a suspect apprehended on the public highway.
While
Chimel v. California, 395 U.
S. 752 (1969), determines in principle the scope of a
warrantless search incident to arrest, practical necessity requires
that we allow an officer in these circumstances to secure
thoroughly the automobile without requiring him in haste and under
pressure to make close calculations about danger to himself or the
vulnerability of evidence.
Any "bright-line" rule does involve costs.
Belton
trades marginal privacy of containers within the passenger area of
an automobile for protection of the officer and of destructible
evidence. The balance of these interests strongly favors the
Court's rule. The occupants of an automobile enjoy only a limited
expectation of privacy in the interior of the automobile itself.
See Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.
S. 266,
413 U. S. 279
(1973) (POWELL, J., concurring). This limited interest is
diminished further when the occupants are placed under custodial
arrest.
Cf. United States v. Robinson, 414 U.
S. 218,
414 U. S. 237
(1973) (POWELL, J., concurring). Immediately preceding the arrest,
the passengers have complete control over the entire interior of
the automobile, and can place weapons or contraband into pockets or
other containers as the officer approaches. Thus, practically
speaking, it is difficult to justify varying degrees of protection
for the general interior of the car and for the various containers
found within. These
Page 453 U. S. 432
considerations do not apply to the trunk of the car, which is
not within the control of the passengers either immediately before
or during the process of arrest.
B
Although petitioner Robbins was arrested, this case was
litigated only on the question whether the officers needed a
warrant to open a sealed, opaquely wrapped container in the rear
compartment of a station wagon. The plurality treats this situation
as identical with that in
*United States v. Chadwick,
433 U. S. 1 (1977),
and
Sanders, supra, which addressed warrantless searches
of a double-locked footlocker and personal luggage, respectively.
Thus, the plurality's opinion in this case concerns itself
primarily with the kinds of containers requiring a warrant for
their search when police have probable cause to search them, and
where there has been no arrest. For reasons explained more fully
below, I will share the plurality's assumption that the police had
probable cause to search the container, rather than the automobile
generally. Viewing this as a "container case," I concur in the
judgment.
Chadwick and
Sanders require police to obtain
a warrant to search the contents of a container only when the
container is one that generally serves as a repository for personal
effects or that has been sealed in a manner manifesting a
reasonable expectation that the contents will not be open to public
scrutiny.
See Chadwick, supra, at
433 U. S. 13;
Sanders, 442 U.S. at
442 U. S. 764.
See, e. United States v. Mannino, 635 F.2d 110, 114 (CA2
1980);
United States v. Goshorn, 628 F.2d 697, 700-701
(CA1 1980);
United States v. Mackey, 626 F.2d 684, 687-688
(CA9 1980);
United States v. Ross, 210 U.S.App.D.C. 342,
356-362, 655 F.2d 1159, 1173-1179 (1981) (en banc) (Tamm, J.,
dissenting). This resembles in principle the inquiry courts must
undertake to determine whether a search violates the Fourth
Amendment rights of a complaining party.
See Rakas v.
Illinois, 439 U. S. 128
(1978);
id. at
439 U. S.
150-152 (POWELL, J.,
Page 453 U. S. 433
concurring). In each instance,
"[t]he ultimate question . . . is whether one's claim to privacy
from government intrusion is reasonable in light of the surrounding
circumstances."
Id. at
150 U. S. 152;
see Katz v. United States, 389 U.
S. 347 (1967).
The plurality's approach today departs from this basic concern
with interests in privacy, and adopts a mechanical requirement for
a warrant before police may search any closed container. Nothing in
Chadwick or
Sanders justifies this extreme
extension of the warrant requirement. Indeed, the Court in
Sanders explicitly foreclosed that reading:
"There will be difficulties in determining which parcels taken
from an automobile require a warrant for their search and which do
not. Our decision in this case means only that a warrant generally
is required before personal luggage can be searched, and that the
extent to which the Fourth Amendment applies to containers and
other parcels depends not at all upon whether they are seized from
an automobile."
442 U.S. at
442 U. S. 765,
n. 13.
While the plurality's blanket warrant requirement does not even
purport to protect any privacy interest, it would impose
substantial new burdens on law enforcement. Confronted with a cigar
box or a Dixie cup in the course of a probable cause search of an
automobile for narcotics, the conscientious policeman would be
required to take the object to a magistrate, fill out the
appropriate forms, await the decision, and finally obtain the
warrant. Suspects or vehicles normally will be detained while the
warrant is sought. This process may take hours, removing the
officer from his normal police duties. Expenditure of such time and
effort, drawn from the public's limited resources for detecting or
preventing crimes, is justified when it protects an individual's
reasonable privacy interests. In my view, the plurality's
requirement cannot be so justified. The aggregate burden of
procuring warrants whenever an officer has probable cause to search
the most trivial
Page 453 U. S. 434
container may be heavy, and will not be compensated by the
advancement of important Fourth Amendment values. The sole virtue
of the plurality's rule is simplicity. [
Footnote 2/3]
Page 453 U. S. 435
C
The dissenters argue, with some justice, that the controlling
question should be the scope of the automobile exception to the
warrant requirement. In their view, when the police have probable
cause to search an automobile, rather than only to search a
particular container that fortuitously is located in it, the
exigencies that allow the police to search the entire automobile
without a warrant support the warrantless search of every container
found therein.
See post at
453 U. S. 451,
and n. 13 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). This analysis is entirely
consistent with the holdings in
Chadwick and
Sanders, neither of which is an "automobile case," because
the police there had probable cause to search the double-locked
footlocker and the suitcase, respectively, before either came near
an automobile.
See Chadwick, 433 U.S. at
433 U. S. 11;
Sanders, 442 U.S. at
442 U. S. 761;
see also id. at
442 U. S. 766
(BURGER, C.J., concurring). Adoption of the dissenters' view would
require, however, rejection of a good deal of the reasoning in the
latter case.
Resolving this case by expanding the scope of the automobile
exception is attractive not so much for its logical virtue, but
because it may provide ground for agreement by a majority of the
presently fractured Court on an approach that would give more
specific guidance to police and courts in this recurring situation
-- one that has led to incessant litigation. I note, however, that
this benefit would not be realized fully, as courts may find
themselves deciding when probable cause ripened, or whether
suspicion focused on the container or on the car in which it
traveled.
The parties have not pressed this argument in this case, and it
is late in the Term for us to undertake
sua sponte
reconsideration of basic doctrines. Given these constraints, I
adhere to statements in
Sanders that the fact that the
container was seized from an automobile is irrelevant to the
question whether a warrant is needed to search its contents. Some
future case affording an opportunity for more thorough
consideration
Page 453 U. S. 436
of the basic principles at risk may offer some better, if more
radical, solution to the confusion that infects this benighted area
of the law. [
Footnote 2/4]
[
Footnote 2/1]
The plurality's "bright-line" rule would extend the Warrant
Clause of the Fourth Amendment to every "closed, opaque container,"
without regard to size, shape, or whether common experience would
suggest that the owner was asserting a privacy interest in the
contents. The plurality would exempt from the broad reach of its
rule only those "closed, opaque containers" where, because of shape
or some other characteristic, the "contents may be said to be in
plain view." In accordance with the plurality's usage, I use the
term "container" to include any and all packages, bags, boxes,
tins, bottles, and the like.
[
Footnote 2/2]
The one significant factual difference is that
Belton
involved only the passenger compartment (the "interior") of an
automobile, whereas this case involves search of the trunk.
[
Footnote 2/3]
The plurality overestimates the difficulties involved in
determining whether a party has a reasonable expectation of privacy
in a particular container. Many containers, such as personal
luggage, are "inevitably associated with the expectation of
privacy."
Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.
S. 753,
442 U. S. 762
(1979). Many others, varying from a plastic cup to the ubiquitous
brown paper grocery sack, consistently lack such an association. In
the middle are containers, such as cardboard boxes and laundry
bags, that may be used, although imperfectly, as repositories of
personal effects, but often are not. As to such containers, I would
adopt the view of Chief Judge Coffin:
"[W]e disagree that the mere possibility of such use leads to
the conclusion that such containers are 'inevitably' associated
with an expectation of privacy. The many and varied uses of these
containers that entail no expectation of privacy militate against
applying a presumption that a warrantless search of such a
container violates the Fourth Amendment."
United States v. Goshorn, 628 F.2d 697, 700 (CA1 1980).
When confronted with the claim that police should have obtained a
warrant before searching an ambiguous container, a court should
conduct a hearing to determine whether the defendant had manifested
a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the
container.
See id. at 701. Relevant to such an inquiry
should be the size, shape, material, and condition of t.he
exterior, the context within which it is discovered, and whether
the possessor had taken some significant precaution, such as
locking, securely sealing or binding the container, that indicates
desire to prevent the contents from being displayed upon simple
mischance. A prudent officer will err on the side of respecting
ambiguous assertions of privacy,
see Rakas v. Illinois,
439 U. S. 128,
439 U. S. 152,
n. 1 (1978) (POWELL, J., concurring), and a realistic court seldom
should second-guess the good faith judgment of the officer in the
field when the public consequently must suffer from the suppression
of probative evidence,
cf. Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.
S. 590,
422 U. S.
611-612 (1975) (POWELL, J., concurring).
In this case, petitioner, by securely wrapping and sealing his
package, had manifested a desire that the public not casually
observe the contents.
See ante at
453 U. S. 422,
n. 1. Our society's traditional respect for the privacy of locked
or sealed containers confirms the reasonableness of this
expectation.
See Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S.
727,
96 U. S. 733
(1878) (warrant required for postal inspectors to open sealed
packages sent through mail).
See also United States v. Van
Leeuwen, 397 U. S. 249
(1970).
[
Footnote 2/4]
We have an institutional responsibility not only to respect
stare decisis, but also to make every reasonable effort to
harmonize our views on constitutional questions of broad practical
application.
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, dissenting.
I must dissent for the reasons stated in my respective writings
in
United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S.
1,
433 U. S. 17
(1977), and
Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.
S. 753,
442 U. S. 768
(1979). I also agree with much of what JUSTICE REHNQUIST says,
post at
453 U. S.
439-443, in his dissenting opinion in the present case.
The anticipated confusion that
Chadwick and
Sanders spawned for the Nation's trial and appellate
courts is well illustrated by JUSTICE STEWART's listing,
ante at
453 U. S.
425-426, of cases decided by Federal Courts of Appeals
since
Chadwick was announced in 1977.
The decision in the present case at least has the merit of a
"bright-line" rule that should serve to eliminate the opaqueness
and to dissipate some of the confusion.
See 442 U.S. at
442 U. S.
771-772. Nonetheless, under today's holding, an
arresting officer will still be forced, despite a concededly lawful
search of the automobile, to go to the magistrate, whether near or
far, for the search warrant inevitably to be issued when the facts
are like those presented here. And only time will tell whether the
"test,"
ante at
453 U. S. 427
for determining whether a package's exterior "announce[s] its
contents" will lead to a new stream of litigation.
I continue to think the Court is in error, and that it would
have been better,
see 442 U.S. at
442 U. S.
772,
"to adopt a clear-cut rule to the effect that a warrant should
not be required to seize and search any personal property found in
an automobile that may, in turn, be seized and searched without a
warrant
Page 453 U. S. 437
pursuant to
Carroll [v. United States, 267 U. S.
132 (1925),] and
Chambers [v. Maroney,
399 U. S.
42 (1970)]."
JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting.
I have previously stated why I believe the so-called
"exclusionary rule" created by this Court imposes a burden out of
all proportion to the Fourth Amendment values which it seeks to
advance by seriously impeding the efforts of the national, state,
and local governments to apprehend and convict those who have
violated their laws.
See California v. Minjares,
443 U. S. 916
(1979) (REHNQUIST, J., joined by BURGER, C.J., dissenting from the
denial of a stay). I have in no way abandoned those views, but
believe that the plurality opinion of JUSTICE STEWART announcing
the judgment of the Court in the present case compounds the evils
of the "exclusionary rule" by engrafting subtleties into the
jurisprudence of the Fourth Amendment itself that are neither
required nor desirable under our previous decisions. As Justice
Harlan stated in his concurring opinion in
Coolidge v. New
Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443,
403 U. S.
490-491 (1971):
"State and federal law enforcement officers and prosecutorial
authorities must find quite intolerable the present state of
uncertainty, which extends even to such an everyday question as the
circumstances under which police may enter a man's property to
arrest him and seize a vehicle believed to have been used during
the commission of a crime."
"I would begin [the] process of reevaluation by overruling
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961), and
Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23 (1963). . . ."
"Until we face up to the basic constitutional mistakes of
Mapp and
Ker, no solid progress in setting things
straight in search and seizure law will, in my opinion, occur."
The 10 years which have intervened since Justice Harlan
Page 453 U. S. 438
made this statement have only tended to confirm its
correctness.
The harm caused by the exclusionary rule is compounded by the
judicially created preference for a warrant as indicating
satisfaction of the reasonableness requirement of the Fourth
Amendment. It is often forgotten that nothing in the Fourth
Amendment itself requires that searches be conducted pursuant to
warrants. The terms of the Amendment simply mandate that the people
be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that any
warrants which
may issue shall only issue upon probable
cause:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to
be seized."
Not only has historical study
"suggested that, in emphasizing the warrant requirement over the
reasonableness of the search, the Court has 'stood the fourth
amendment on its head' from a historical standpoint,"
Coolidge, supra, at
403 U. S. 492
(Harlan, J., concurring) (quoting T. Taylor, Two Studies in
Constitutional Interpretation 224 (1969)), but the Court has failed
to appreciate the impact of its decisions, not mandated by the
Fourth Amendment, on law enforcement. Courts, including this Court,
often make the rather casual assumption that police are not
substantially frustrated in their efforts to apprehend those whom
they have probable cause to arrest or to gather evidence of crime
when they have probable cause to search by the judicially created
preference for a warrant, apparently assuming that the typical case
is one in which an officer can make a quick half-mile ride to the
nearest precinct station in an urban area to obtain such a warrant.
See, e.g, Steagald v. United States, 451 U.
S. 204,
451 U. S. 222
(1981). But this casual assumption simply does not fit the
realities of sparsely populated "cow counties" located in some of
the Southern and Western States, where, at least
Page 453 U. S. 439
apocryphally, the number of cows exceed the number of people,
and the number of square miles in the county may exceed 10,000 and
the nearest magistrate may be 25 or even 50 miles away. The great
virtue of the opinion in
Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S.
25 (1949), was that it made allowance for these vast
diversities between States; unfortunately, such an approach to the
Fourth Amendment in the true spirit of federalism was, as Justice
Harlan observed, rejected in
Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.
S. 643 (1961).
Recent developments have cast further doubt on the emphasis on a
warrant as opposed to the reasonableness of the search. In
Shadwick v. City of Tampa, 407 U.
S. 345 (1972), the Court ruled that clerks of the
Municipal Court of the city of Tampa, Fla., not trained in the law,
are "neutral and detached magistrates" who may issue warrants which
satisfy the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment. And in
Franks v. Delaware, 438 U. S. 154
(1978), the Court held that a defendant can go behind a warrant and
attack its validity on a motion to suppress. In emphasizing the
warrant requirement, the Court has therefore not only erected an
edifice without solid foundation, but also one with little
substance.
Even aside from these general observations on the warrant
requirement, the case we decide today falls within what has been
and should continue to be an exception to that requirement -- the
automobile exception. In
Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.
S. 433,
413 U. S.
439-440 (1973), we explained that one class of cases
which constitutes
"at least a partial exception to this general rule [of requiring
a warrant] is automobile searches. Although vehicles are 'effects'
within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment, 'for the purposes of
the Fourth Amendment, there is a constitutional difference between
houses and cars."
Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42,
399 U. S. 52
(1970).
See Carroll v. United States, 267 U.
S. 132,
267 U. S.
153-154 (1925).
We also stated in
Cady:
"[T]he application of Fourth Amendment standards, originally
intended to restrict only the Federal Government,
Page 453 U. S. 440
to the States presents some difficulty when searches of
automobiles are involved. The contact with vehicles by federal law
enforcement officers usually, if not always. involves the detection
or investigation of crimes unrelated to the operation of a vehicle.
Cases such as
Carroll v. United States, supra, and
Brinegar v United States, 338 U. S.
160 (1949), illustrate the typical situations in which
federal officials come into contact with and search vehicles. In
both cases, members of a special federal unit charged with
enforcing a particular federal criminal statute stopped and
searched a vehicle when they had probable cause to believe that the
operator was violating that statute."
"As a result of our federal system of government, however, state
and local police officers, unlike federal officers, have much more
contact with vehicles for reasons related to the operation of
vehicles themselves. All States require vehicles to be registered
and operators to be licensed. States and localities have enacted
extensive and detailed codes regulating the condition and manner in
which motor vehicles may be operated on public streets and
highways."
Id. at
413 U. S.
440-441.
I would not draw from the language of either
Cady or of
South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.
S. 364 (1976), the conclusion which the plurality draws
today that
"'inherent mobility' cannot alone justify the automobile
exception, since the Court has sometimes approved warrantless
searches in which the automobile's mobility was irrelevant."
Ante at
453 U. S. 424.
Logically, it seems to me that the conclusion to be drawn from
Cady and
Opperman is that one need not
demonstrate that a particular automobile was capable of being
moved, but that automobiles
as a class are inherently
mobile, and a defendant seeking to suppress evidence obtained from
an automobile should not be heard to say that this particular
automobile had broken down, was in a parking lot under the
supervision
Page 453 U. S. 441
of the police, or the like. Thus, I continue to adhere to the
view expressed by JUSTICE BLACKMUN:
"If 'contraband goods concealed and illegally transported in an
automobile or other vehicle may be searched for without a warrant,'
Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S.
132,
267 U. S. 153 (1925), then,
in my view, luggage and similar containers found in an automobile
may be searched for contraband without a warrant. The luggage, like
the automobile transporting it, is mobile. And the expectation of
privacy in a suitcase found in the car is probably not
significantly greater than the expectation of privacy in a locked
glove compartment."
"
* * * *"
"In my view, it would be better to adopt a clear-cut rule to the
effect that a warrant should not be required to seize and search
any personal property found in an automobile that may, in turn, be
seized and searched without a warrant pursuant to
Carroll
and
Chambers."
Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753,
442 U. S. 769,
442 U. S. 772
(1979) (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting). The proper application of the
automobile exception would uphold the search conducted by the
California Highway Patrol officers in this case inasmuch as the
plurality acknowledges that the officers could constitutionally
open the tailgate of the station wagon and then open the car's
luggage compartment.
Ante at
453 U. S.
428.
The plurality, however, concludes that the opening of the two
plastic garbage bags which the officers found in the luggage
compartment is unconstitutional. In so doing, the plurality relies
on its earlier decision in
Arkansas v. Sanders, supra, and
rejects the argument that the search of the garbage bags should, at
a minimum, fall within the exception noted in footnote 13 of the
Sanders opinion. There, the Court had explained:
"Not all containers and packages found by police during
Page 453 U. S. 442
the course of a search will deserve the full protection of the
Fourth Amendment. Thus, some containers (for example, a kit of
burglar tools or a gun case), by their very nature, cannot support
any reasonable expectation of privacy, because their contents can
be inferred from their outward appearance. Similarly, in some
cases, the contents of a package will be open to 'plain view,'
thereby obviating the need for a warrant.
See Harris v. United
States, 390 U. S. 234,
390 U. S.
236 (1968) (per curiam)."
442 U.S. at
442 U. S.
764-765, n. 13.
It seems to me that the search conducted by the Highway Patrol
officers falls squarely within the above exception. This is
revealed by an examination of the events which prompted the search
of the luggage compartment in the first place -- events which are
conspicuously absent from the recitation of the facts in the
plurality opinion. Prior to opening the tailgate of the car, the
Highway Patrol officers had already discovered marihuana in the
passenger compartment of the car. While the officers were
retrieving this marihuana and other drug paraphernalia from the
front of the car, petitioner stated: "What you are looking for is
in the back." Only then did an officer open the luggage compartment
of the station wagon and discover the two plastic garbage bags
being used to wrap the blocks of marihuana. One of the officers
then testified that he was aware that contraband was often wrapped
in this fashion -- a fact of which all those who watch the evening
news are surely well aware. Given these factors, particularly the
petitioner's statement, it seems to me that petitioner could have
no reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the garbage
bags. Surely, given all the circumstances, the contents of the
garbage bags "could be inferred from their outward appearance."
The present case aptly illustrates the problems inherent in the
Fourth Amendment analysis adopted by the Court in the past two
decades. Rather than apply the automobile exception
Page 453 U. S. 443
to a situation such as the present one, the Court in
United
States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1 (1977),
and
Sanders, supra, attempted to limit that exception so
as not to include certain, but not all, containers found within an
automobile. Apparently, the plurality today decides that
distinguishing between containers found in a car is too difficult a
task, and accordingly denudes the language found in footnote 13 of
Sanders of most of its meaning. It does so evidently in
search of a workable rule to govern automobile searches. I seek
such a workable rule as well, but, unlike the plurality, I feel
that such a rule cannot be found as long as the Court continues in
the direction in which it is headed. Instead, I would return to the
rationale of
Carroll and
Chambers and hold that a
warrant should not be required to seize and search any personal
property found in an automobile that may, in turn, be
constitutionally seized and searched without a warrant. I would not
abandon this reasonably "bright line" in search of another.
But I think that probably any search for "bright lines" short of
overruling
Mapp v. Ohio is apt to be illusory. Our entire
profession is trained to attack "bright lines" the way hounds
attack foxes. Acceptance by the courts of arguments that one thing
is the "functional equivalent" of the other, for example, soon
breaks down what might have been a bright line into a blurry
impressionistic pattern.
If city court clerks who are not trained in the law satisfy the
warrant requirement of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, and if
a defendant may attack the validity of a warrant on a motion to
suppress, it seems to me that little is lost in the way of the
"core values" of the Fourth Amendment, as made applicable to the
States by the Fourteenth, if
Mapp v. Ohio is overruled.
This will not establish a bright line except to the extent that it
makes clear that the exclusionary rule is not applicable to the
States. And it will leave to the Federal Government, with its
generally more highly trained law enforcement personnel, the
problems of wrestling with this
Page 453 U. S. 444
Court's twisting and turning as it makes decisional law applying
the Fourth Amendment, rather than forcing the 50 States, with their
widely varying conditions and greater traditional responsibility
for prevention of serious crime, to engage in the burdensome and
frequently futile efforts which are necessary to predict the
"correct" result in a particular case.
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
It is quite clear to most of us that this case and
New York
v. Belton, post, p.
453 U. S. 454,
should be decided in the same way. [
Footnote 3/1] Both cases involve automobile searches. In
both cases, the automobiles had been lawfully stopped on the
highway, the occupants had been lawfully arrested, and the officers
had probable cause to believe that the vehicles contained
contraband. In my opinion, the "automobile exception" to the
warrant requirement therefore provided each officer the authority
to make a thorough search of the vehicle -- including the glove
compartment, the trunk, and any containers in the vehicle that
might reasonably contain the contraband.
Such was the state of the law prior to the Court's discursive
writing in
Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.
S. 753. [
Footnote 3/2]
Because --
Page 453 U. S. 445
as THE CHIEF JUSTICE cogently demonstrated in his separate
opinion in
Sanders -- the actual holdings in both
Sanders and
United State v. Chadwick,
433 U. S. 1, are
entirely consistent with that view of the law, I would apply it in
this case.
Sanders and
Chadwick are both plainly
distinguishable from this case, because neither case truly involved
the automobile exception. [
Footnote
3/3] In
Chadwick, federal
Page 453 U. S. 446
narcotic agents had probable cause to search a footlocker which
was seized immediately after being placed in the trunk of a car. In
Sanders, the officers had probable cause to believe a
particular piece of luggage contained contraband before it was
placed in the trunk of a taxicab. The officers, however, had no
reason to search the vehicle in either case, and no right to arrest
the driver in
Sanders. The issue in
Chadwick and
Sanders would have been exactly the same if the officers
had apprehended the suspects before they placed the footlocker in
the trunk of the car in
Chadwick or before they hailed the
taxi in
Sanders. [
Footnote
3/4] The officers' duty to obtain a warrant in both cases could
not be evaded by simply waiting until the luggage was placed in a
vehicle.
I therefore believe that neither
Sanders nor
Chadwick precludes application of the automobile exception
to authorize
Page 453 U. S. 447
searches of containers found in cars that police have probable
cause to search. Moreover, neither the law as it had developed
before
Sanders nor the holding in
Sanders
requires the Court to draw distinctions among different kinds of
containers. JUSTICE BLACKMUN is surely correct in his forceful
demonstration that the Fourth Amendment cannot differentiate
between "an orange crate, a lunch bucket, an attache case, a
duffelbag, a cardboard box, a backpack, a totebag, and a paper
bag."
Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. at
442 U. S. 772
(dissenting opinion). Except for the author of the
Sanders
dictum, [
Footnote 3/5] all Members
of the Court wisely avoid the pitfalls of such an approach;
unfortunately, however, instead of adhering to the simple view
that, when a warrantless search is within the automobile exception,
the entire vehicle may be searched, the Court today simultaneously
moves too far in opposite directions in these two cases. In
Robbins v. California, the plurality and JUSTICE POWELL
forbid a reasonable search of a container found in the functional
equivalent of a trunk, and in
New York v. Belton, the
Court authorizes unreasonable searches of vehicles and containers
without probable cause to believe that contraband will be found. I
disagree with both of these new approaches, and would decide both
cases by a consistent application of the automobile exception.
I
Although a routine application of the automobile exception would
provide an adequate basis for upholding the search in this case,
the plurality instead quixotically concludes that, notwithstanding
an officer's probable cause to believe that
Page 453 U. S. 448
there is marihuana in a recessed luggage compartment in a
station wagon, a green opaque plastic covering provides the
contraband with a mantle of constitutional protection. Instead of
repudiating the unnecessarily broad dictum that it employed in
Sanders -- a course the Court recognized as necessary in
other cases this Term [
Footnote
3/6] -- the plurality engages in an unprecedented and
unnecessary narrowing of the automobile exception.
In
Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S.
42, the Court reaffirmed the automobile exception
established a half century earlier in
Carroll v. United
States, 267 U. S. 132, and
upheld the warrantless search of an automobile on probable cause.
[
Footnote 3/7] The "exception"
recognized in
Carroll and
Chambers, however,
applies merely to the requirement that police seek a warrant from a
magistrate before conducting a search of places or thing protected
by the Fourth Amendment. The scope of
Page 453 U. S. 449
any search that is within the exception should be just as broad
as a magistrate could authorize by warrant if he were on the scene;
the automobile exception to the warrant requirement therefore
justifies neither more nor less than could a magistrate's warrant.
If a magistrate issued a search warrant for an automobile, and
officers, in conducting the search authorized by the warrant,
discovered a suitcase in the car, they surely would not need to
return to the magistrate for another warrant before searching the
suitcase. [
Footnote 3/8] The fact
that the marihuana found in petitioner's car was wrapped in opaque
green plastic does not take the search out of the automobile
exception. [
Footnote 3/9]
Accordingly, the search conducted here was proper, and the judgment
of the California Court of Appeal should be affirmed.
II
In
Belton, post, p.
453 U. S. 454,
instead of relying on the automobile exception to uphold the search
of respondent's jacket pocket, the Court takes an extraordinarily
dangerous detour to reach the same result by adopting an admittedly
new rationale applicable
Page 453 U. S. 450
to every "lawful custodial arrest" of the occupant of an
automobile.
The Court's careful and repeated use of the term "lawful
custodial arrest" [
Footnote 3/10]
seems to imply that a significant distinction between custodial
arrests and ordinary arrests exists. I am familiar with the
distinction between a "stop,"
see, e.g., Terry v. Ohio,
392 U. S. 1, and an
"arrest," but I am not familiar with any difference between
custodial arrests and any other kind of arrest. It is, of course,
true that persons apprehended for traffic violations are frequently
not required to accompany the arresting officer to the police
station before they are permitted to leave on their own
recognizance or by using their driver's licenses as a form of bond.
It is also possible that state law or local regulations may in some
cases prohibit police officers from taking persons into custody for
violation of minor traffic laws. As a matter of constitutional law,
however, any person lawfully arrested for the pettiest misdemeanor
may be temporarily placed in custody. [
Footnote 3/11] Indeed,
Page 453 U. S. 451
as the Court has repeatedly held, every arrest is a seizure of
the person within the meaning of the Forth Amendment. The rule of
constitutional law the Court fashions today therefore potentially
applies to every arrest of every occupant of an automobile.
[
Footnote 3/12]
After the vehicle in which respondent was riding was stopped,
the officer smelled marihuana, and thereby acquired probable cause
to believe that the vehicle contained contraband. [
Footnote 3/13] A thorough search of the car was
therefore reasonable. But if there were no reason to believe that
anything more than a traffic violation had occurred, I should think
it palpably unreasonable to require the driver of a car to open
Page 453 U. S. 452
his briefcase or his luggage for inspection by the officer.
[
Footnote 3/14] The driver so
compelled, however, could make no constitutional objection to a
decision by the officer to take the driver into custody, and
thereby obtain justification for a search of the entire interior of
the vehicle. Indeed, under the Court's new rule, the arresting
officer may find reason to follow that procedure whenever he sees
an interesting looking briefcase or package in a vehicle that has
been stopped for a traffic violation. That decision by a police
officer will therefore provide the constitutional predicate for
broader vehicle searches than any neutral magistrate could
authorize by issuing a warrant.
The Court's reasoning, which will lead to a massive broadening
of the automobile exception, is particularly unfortunate because
that reasoning is not necessary to the decision. By taking the
giant step of permitting searches in the absence of probable cause,
the Court misses the shorter step of relying on the automobile
exception to uphold the search. [
Footnote 3/15] By taking this shorter step, the Court
could have adhered to the fundamental distinction between a search
that a magistrate
Page 453 U. S. 453
could authorize because it is based on probable cause, and one
that is not so justified under that standard. Although I am
persuaded that the Court has reached the right result, its opinion
misconstrues the Fourth Amendment.
Because I do not regard the dictum in
Sanders as a
correct statement of the law, because the holding of that case is
not applicable in either
Robbins or
Belton, and
because the search in both cases was supported by probable cause
and falls within the automobile exception, I respectfully dissent
in
Robbins and concur in the judgment in
Belton.
[
Footnote 3/1]
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, JUSTICE REHNQUIST, and I would uphold the
searches in both cases; JUSTICE BRENNAN, JUSTICE WHITE, and JUSTICE
MARSHALL would invalidate both searches. Only THE CHIEF JUSTICE,
JUSTICE STEWART, and JUSTICE POWELL reach the curious conclusion
that a citizen has a greater privacy interest in a package of
marihuana enclosed in a plastic wrapper than in the pocket of a
leather jacket.
[
Footnote 3/2]
Prior to the Court's decision in
United States v.
Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, courts
routinely relied on the automobile exception to uphold the search
of a container found in a car. The court in
United State v.
Soriano, 497 F.2d 147, 149 (CA5 1974), cited
Chambers v.
Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, and
stated:
"And though it is true that the Court spoke of an automobile,
while we treat of containers in or just removed from one, the
principle is not different. The officer who arrested Soriano and
his companions indisputably had probable cause to believe that the
vehicle contained contraband, a circumstance justifying the initial
incursion into the trunk. Under established law in this circuit and
elsewhere, this justification encompassed the search of containers
in the vehicle which could reasonably be employed in the illicit
carriage of the contraband."
See also United States v. Anderson, 500 F.2d 1311, 1315
(CA5 1974);
United States v. Evans, 481 F.2d 990, 993-994
(CA9 1973). Indeed, in many cases, it apparently never occurred to
defendants challenging the validity of automobile searches or the
courts considering such challenges that a search of a suitcase or
other container located in an automobile presented a different
question than the search of the car itself.
See, e.g., United
States v. Bowman, 487 F.2d 1229 (CA10 1973);
United States
v. Garner, 451 F.2d 167 (CA6 1971);
United States v.
Chapman, 474 F.2d 300 (CA5 1973),
cert. denied, 414
U.S. 835;
State v. Hearn, 340 So.
2d 1365 (La.1976);
State v. Lee, 113 N.H. 313, 307
A.2d 827 (1973);
cf. State v. Warren, 283 So.
2d 740 (La.1973). Even after
Chadwick was decided,
courts continued to apply the automobile exception to uphold
searches of containers found in cars and rejected the argument that
Chadwick constituted a limitation on the automobile
exception.
See United States v. Milhollan, 599 F.2d 518,
525-527 (CA3 1979),
cert. denied, 444 U.
S. 909;
United States v. Finnegan, 568 F.2d
637, 641 (CA9 1977);
United States v. Ochs, 595 F.2d 1247
(CA2 1979),
cert. denied, 444 U.S. 955.
But see United
States v. Johnson, 588 F.2d 147, 15152, and n. 6 (CA5 1979)
(repudiating
United States v. Soriano, supra).
[
Footnote 3/3]
As THE CHIEF JUSTICE pointed out in his opinion concurring in
the judgment in
Sanders:
"The breadth of the Court's opinion and its repeated references
to the 'automobile' from which respondent's suitcase was seized at
the time of his arrest, however, might lead the reader to believe
-- as the dissenters apparently do -- that this case involves the
'automobile' exception to the warrant requirement.
See
ante at
442 U. S. 762-765, and n.
14. It does not. Here, as in
Chadwick, it was the luggage
being transported by respondent at the time of the arrest, not the
automobile in which it was being carried, that was the suspected
locus of the contraband. The relationship between the automobile
and the contraband was purely coincidental, as in
Chadwick. The fact that the suitcase was resting in the
trunk of the automobile at the time of respondent's arrest does not
turn this into an 'automobile' exception case. The Court need say
no more."
"This case simply does not present the question of whether a
warrant is required before opening luggage when the police have
probable cause to believe contraband is located
somewhere
in the vehicle, but when they do not know whether, for example, it
is inside a piece of luggage in the trunk, in the glove
compartment, or concealed in some part of the car's structure."
442 U.S. at
442 U. S.
767.
[
Footnote 3/4]
Again, as pointed out by THE CHIEF JUSTICE:
"Because the police officers had probable cause to believe that
respondent's green suitcase contained marihuana before it was
placed in the trunk of the taxicab, their duty to obtain a search
warrant before opening it is clear under
United States v.
Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1 (1977). The essence of
our holding in
Chadwick is that there is a legitimate
expectation of privacy in the contents of a trunk or suitcase
accompanying or being carried by a person; that expectation of
privacy is not diminished simply because the owner's arrest occurs
in a public place. Whether arrested in a hotel lobby, an airport, a
railroad terminal, or on a public street, as here, the owner has
the right to expect that the contents of his luggage will not,
without his consent, be exposed on demand of the police."
Id. at
442 U. S.
766-767.
[
Footnote 3/5]
See POWELL, J., concurring in the judgment,
ante p.
453 U. S. 429.
If containers can be classified on the basis of the owner's
expectations of privacy,
see ibid., it would seem rather
clear to me that brick of marihuana wrapped in green plastic would
fall in the nonprivate category. I doubt if many dealers in this
substance would be very comfortable carrying around such packages
in plain view.
[
Footnote 3/6]
Compare McDaniel v. Sanchez, 452 U.
S. 130,
with East Carroll Parish School Board v.
Marshall, 424 U. S. 636;
see especially STEWART, J., dissenting in
McDaniel,
supra, at
452 U. S. 154;
see also Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.
S. 594,
452 U. S. 609
(STEWART, J., dissenting);
id. at
452 U. S. 606
(STEVENS, J., concurring).
[
Footnote 3/7]
The
Chambers Court indicated that the automobile
exception is a recognition of the fact that searches of automobiles
generally involve exigent circumstances:
"In enforcing the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against
unreasonable searches and seizures, the Court has insisted upon
probable cause as a minimum requirement for a reasonable search
permitted by the Constitution. As a general rule, it has also
required the judgment of a magistrate on the probable cause issue
and the issuance of a warrant before a search is made. Only in
exigent circumstances will the judgment of the police as to
probable cause serve as a sufficient authorization for a search.
Carroll, supra, holds a search warrant unnecessary where
there is probable cause to search an automobile stopped on the
highway; the car is movable, the occupants are alerted, and the
car's contents may never be found again if a warrant must be
obtained. Hence, an immediate search is constitutionally
permissible."
399 U.S. at
399 U. S. 51.
The
Chambers Court held that, if a car could be searched
on the scene of an arrest, it could also be searched after being
taken to the station house.
[
Footnote 3/8]
Similarly, if a magistrate issues a warrant for the search of a
house, police executing that warrant clearly need not obtain a
separate warrant for the search of a suitcase found in the house,
so long as the things to be seized could reasonably be found in
such a suitcase.
[
Footnote 3/9]
Of course, a proper application of the automobile exception will
uphold a search of a container located in a car only if the police
have probable cause to search the entire car. If, as in
Sanders, the police have probable cause only as to a
suitcase, and not as to the entire car, then the automobile
exception is inapplicable and a warrant is required unless some
other exigency exists. Thus police would not be able to avoid a
warrant requirement simply by waiting for the suspect to place an
object in a car and then invoking the automobile exception. If,
however, the occupants of a car have an opportunity to take
contraband out of a suitcase and secrete it somewhere else in a
car,
see Sanders, 442 U.S. at
442 U. S. 768,
442 U. S. 770,
n. 3 (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting), then I would conclude that police
have probable cause to search the entire car, including the
suitcase, without a warrant.
[
Footnote 3/10]
See post at
453 U. S. 455,
453 U. S. 458,
453 U. S. 459,
453 U. S. 460,
453 U.S. 461,
453 U. S. 462,
453 U. S. 463,
and the quotation from
United States v. Robinson,
414 U. S. 218,
post at
453 U.S.
461.
[
Footnote 3/11]
JUSTICE STEWART apparently believes that the Fourth and
Fourteenth Amendments might provide some impediment to police
taking a defendant into custody for violation of a "minor traffic
offense."
See Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U.
S. 260,
414 U. S. 266
(STEWART, J. concurring). Although I agree that a police officer's
authority to restrain an individual's liberty should be limited in
the context of stops for routine traffic violations,
see
Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U. S. 106,
434 U. S. 115
(STEVENS, J., dissenting), the Court has not directly considered
the question whether
"there are some constitutional limits upon the use of 'custodial
arrests' as the means for invoking the criminal process when
relatively minor offenses are involved."
See 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 5.2, p. 290
(1978);
see also id. § 5.1, pp. 256-260, § 5.2, pp.
281-291. To the extent that the Court has considered the scope of
an officer's authority in making routine traffic stops, the Court
has not imposed constitutional restrictions on that authority.
See Pennsylvania v. Mimms, supra; United States v. Robinson,
supra; Gustafson v. Florida, supra. Thus, the Court may be
assuming that its new rule will be limited by a constitutional
restriction that does not exist.
[
Footnote 3/12]
After today, the driver of a vehicle stopped for a minor traffic
violation must look to state law for protection from unreasonable
searches. Such protection may come from two sources. Statutory law
may provide some protection. Legislatures in some States permit
officers to take traffic violators into custody only for certain
violations.
See, e.g., Mich.Comp.Laws §§ 257.727-257.728
(1979). In some States, however, the police officer has the
discretion to make a "custodial arrest" for violation of any motor
vehicle law.
See, e.g., Iowa Code §§ 321.482, 321.485
(1980); Kan.Stat.Ann. § 8-2105 (1975).
See also
Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann., Art. 6701d, §§ 147-153 (Vernon 1977);
Wallace v. State, 467
S.W.2d 608, 609-610 (Tex.Crim.App.1971);
Tores v.
State, 518
S.W.2d 378 (Tex.Crim.App.1975) (officer may take driver into
custody for any traffic offense except speeding). Additionally, the
failure to produce a satisfactory bond will often justify
"detention and custodial arrest."
People v. Mathis, 55
Ill.App.3d 680, 684, 371 N.E.2d 245, 249 (1977).
See also
Y. Kamisar, W. LaFave, J. Israel, Modern Criminal Procedure 402, n.
a (Supp. 4th ed.1980). Given the incomplete protection afforded by
statutory law, drivers in many States will have to persuade state
supreme courts to interpret their state constitution's equivalent
to the Fourth Amendment to prohibit the unreasonable searches
permitted by the Court here.
[
Footnote 3/13]
The conclusion that the officers had probable cause to search
the car is supported by
Robbins, in which the plurality
seems to assume the existence of probable cause on the basis of
similar facts.
Cf. United States v. Bowman, 487 F.2d 1229,
1231 (CA10 1973);
United States v. Campos, 471 F.2d 296
(CA9 1972).
[
Footnote 3/14]
It would seem equally unreasonable to require a driver to open
the trunk of his car, which the Court would not permit, and to
require a driver to open luggage located in the back of a station
wagon, which would be permissible under the Court's rule. The Court
attempts to justify the search in
Belton on the basis of
the officer's safety, but JUSTICE BRENNAN, dissenting,
post at
453 U. S.
466-469, has forcefully demonstrated the inadequacy of
that rationale.
[
Footnote 3/15]
It is true that the State, in
Belton, did not argue
that the automobile exception justified the search of respondent's
jacket pocket. Nevertheless, just as the admission of a piece of
evidence will be affirmed if any valid reason for admission existed
-- even if the one relied upon by the trial judge was not valid --
I would uphold the admission of this evidence if any theory
justifying the search is valid. This is particularly appropriate
given the State's understandable reluctance to argue an issue that
many courts have considered to be foreclosed by
Sanders.
See, e.g., United States v. Riles, 630 F.2d 364 (CA5
1980);
United States v. MacKay, 606 F.2d 264 (CA9 1979);
State v. Jenkins, 619 P.2d 108
(Haw.1980).