One of yesterdays Supreme Court decisions

[The Nitely Blog]

I am usually not a cut and paster but thought that this court opinion was worth the effort. This is only a small portion of the lenghty case explaination and Supreme Court decision. You can read the entire thing at the U.S. Supreme Court website under opinions, "Arizona vs Gant." I think that this decision will effect the way we conduct ourselves out on the street on a day to day basis, that's my opinion anyway. Read, research and decide for yourselves. Take into account that this vehicle was parked on private property so I would assume that no impound of the vehicle took place. It would seem to me that an inventory search of the vehicle prior to impound would still be allowed. What do you all think.


SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 07–542
ARIZONA, PETITIONER v. RODNEY JOSEPH GANT
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF
ARIZONA
[April 21, 2009]
JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.
After Rodney Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended license, handcuffed, and locked in the back of apatrol car, police officers searched his car and discovered cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on the backseat. Because Gant could not have accessed his car to retrieve weapons or evidence at the time of the search, the Arizona Supreme Court held that the search-incident-to-arrest exception tothe Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, as definedin Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969), and applied to vehicle searches in New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), did not justify the search in this case. We agree with that conclusion.
Under Chimel, police may search incident to arrest only the space within an arrestee’s “‘immediate control,’” meaning “the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence.” 395 U. S., at 763. The safety and evidentiary justifications underlying
Chimel’s reaching-distance rule determine Belton’s scope. Accordingly, we hold that Belton does not authorize a vehicle search incident to a recent occupant’s arrest after the arrestee has been secured and cannot access the interior of the vehicle. Consistent with the holding in Thornton v. United States, 541 U. S. 615 (2004), and following the suggestion in JUSTICE SCALIA’s opinion concurring in the judgment in that case, id., at 632, we also conclude that circumstances unique to the automobile context justify a search incident to arrest when it is reasonable to believe that evidence of the offense of arrest might be found in the vehicle.

This just in...

"United States Stupreme Court rules that all Law Enforcment Officer positions to be unconstitutional and all must be disbanded by High Noon, June 2009. All duties will be transfered to Critical Intervention Service (CIS) and Wackenhut. Furthermore, both CIS and Wackenhut must continue to only 'oberve and report', and must not act in any official manner'. All investigations will be conducted by the Chief Justice himself. :cop: "

Reported by the (Onion _Copyright)2009.

That is incredible. What's next? Can we rule any more in favor of criminals? Guess you can haul all the contraband you want, get arrested for a minor traffic infraction and have the police impound your vehicle to keep your drugs, guns, and any other illegal incidentals in the trunk safe until you bond out. Can anyone say Road Trip?

Amazing, it will be interesting to see what our legal issues. Let the drug running begin, and everything else. And in todays economy it makes it that much worse for us. Be safe out there!! :cop:

Its amazing, over at scumbagaffairs.com all the criminals are talking about the same thing. Only their their threads are favoring the decision. "supreme" job in that decision. I am not surprised this is not getting more media attention. Can the average citizen really be in favor of something like this? I guess the people that make the important decisions are looking out for their best interest. I mean if teddy got a dui, we couldnt look in the trunk for the dead girl. oops. I guess its time to buy an impound lot and have a field day with all those vehicles brought in by the tow trucks.

We will get a legal update about this from the Sheriff's crack legal team in approximately 6 months. :devil:

[Cruel Truth]

OK, let's take a deep breath and stand back and examine this decision.

With no more information than is in the original post I tend to agree with the decision. :shock:

Searching a vehicle incident to a traffic arrest when the vehicle is parked on private property and the owner wants to leave it there and after the driver has been removed from the vehicle and cannot get back to it to obtain a weapon or destroy evidence would seem to require probable cause and a warrant.

We all know that the "inventory for impound" can be used to justify a search that would otherwise require a warrant, but that justification goes away when there is no impound.

We all also enjoy searching a vehicle and finding evidence of a crime and making an arrest on the spot. BUT... that same Constitution that protects the bad guys from overzealous police also protects US. You won't always be in your own jurisdiction. Even if you have nothing illegal in your car you would surely resent an illegal search of it.

:!:

I love it when I get to tell complainants, or the general public, why I can no longer do police work. I cite certain Supreme court cases.


Like the recent Supreme court case stating basically that we can not enforce the improper use of right away, to take panhandler's to jail. You should see their faces when I say the Supreme court gives them the right to do what they are doing, then I hand them one of my multiple copies of HCSO's legally bullentin. :shock:

Or when I tell them I can not do this, or that because the Supreme court said so. You should see their faces. I became resigned to the fact that the bad guys get away with most of their crimes. But the public has no idea. I LOVE IT when they say "You mean they can just get away with what they are doing?" And, with a straight face I say "Yes sir." while thinking with a smile,"welcome to OUR world"......

The worst part of all these liberal decisions is that we let them get away with it, unlike the criminals and thugs do. If a thug/criminal does not feel he was treated right or a bad decision was made, he, along with every member of his family of felons and the ever growing list of community activist groups, light up the media outlets, file countless false allegations against the officers involved and march straight to the Capital to be heard. Than the law enforcement agencies involved, like HCSO, quickly make knee jerk reactions and open up a huge investigation hoping to hang the officers involved in order to look good and please the community activists. Meanwhile, the courts continue to take the rights away from officers and make the job even more difficult and dangerous than it already is, and the law abiding citizens and officers DO NOTHING!

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If you go to a residence to serve an arrest warrant you can arrest for an additional offense that is in "open view" of where you are legally present. But, after taking the wanted person into custody if you haven't seen some other offense in open view then you can't make a general search of the house without a separate search warrant, based upon probable cause.

How do you see that as being so different from this decision about vehicles? If you have taken the suspect out of the car and into custody AND the car is not going to be impounded just WHY do you think you are entitled to search the car?

And if you have probable cause (not "mere suspicion") regarding an additional offense --- get a search warrant.

This was a narrowly drawn opinion for a particular circumstance. Let's don't get carried away saying that we can no longer do our job.

Does this sound familiar?

"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."

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