The Supreme Court decided Arizona v. Gant yesterday. The opinion is available here, and a news article about the case is here. It's a pretty significant Fourth Amendment case, so let's unpack it a little bit, and please excuse the long post. When an officer lawfully arrests a suspect, the officer may search the suspect incident to the arrest. Such a search is justified (1) to protect the officer from any weapon that might be accessible to the suspect, and (2) to prevent the suspect from destroying evidence. See Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969). In New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981), the Court held that when an officer arrests the occupant of a motor vehicle, the officer may search the entire passenger compartment of the vehicle, including any containers therein, incident to the arrest, so long as the search is reasonably contemporaneous with the arrest. In Thornton v. United States, 541 U.S. 615 (2004), the Court extended the Belton rule to allow the search of the entire passenger compartment of a vehicle upon the arrest of a person who exited the vehicle shortly before being arrested. Gant dramatically limits, or perhaps substantially overrules, Belton and Thornton. The basic facts of Gant -- with some simplification -- are as follows. The police received reports of drug activity at a particular residence. They went to investigate, knocked on the door, and Mr. Gant answered. He identified himself and indicated that the owner of the premises was not there, but [...]
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