Is it reasonable to believe that the car an impaired driver is operating contains evidence of the DWI? That’s the question law enforcement officers must answer in a post-Gant world before searching the vehicle recently operated by a defendant arrested for DWI and secured outside the vehicle. Review. The United States Supreme Court held in Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009), that, when a defendant is arrested, the vehicle he recently occupied may be searched incident to his arrest only if one of two circumstances exists: (1) the defendant is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment of the car at the time of the search; or (2) it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. Before Gant, the Supreme Court’s holding in New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981), was widely understood to allow a vehicle search incident to the arrest of a recent occupant even if there was no possibility the arrestee could gain access to the vehicle at the time of the search and no basis to believe that evidence of the crime of arrest would be found in the vehicle. The North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Mbacke, 365 N.C. 403 (2012), equated Gant’s “reasonable to believe” standard with the reasonable suspicion required to conduct a brief investigatory stop pursuant to Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Thus, when investigators have a reasonable and articulable basis to believe that evidence of the offense of arrest [...]
Faculty Coordinators
