Supreme Court Will Rule on Vehicle Searches

[larrymeyer]

http://www.officer.com/online/articl...ion=6&id=40341

Supreme Court Will Rule on Vehicle Searches


Posted: Monday, February 25, 2008
Updated: February 25th, 2008 12:45 PM EDT


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The Associated Press



WASHINGTON --

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide when police without a warrant can search the vehicle of a person who is under arrest.

Rodney Joseph Gant was handcuffed, seated in the back of a patrol car and under police supervision when Tucson, Ariz., police officers searched his car.

A sharply divided Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the search violated the Constitution's Fourth Amendment. The state asking the U.S. high court to overturn that ruling.

The justices said they will hear the case next fall to decide whether officers must demonstrate a threat to their safety or the need to preserve evidence to justify a warrantless search in cases like Gant's.

Gant was arrested about 10 feet away from his parked car. When officers searched the car they found cocaine and drug paraphernalia.

The trial court said the evidence could be used against Gant, but Arizona appeals courts overturned the convictions because the officers already had secured the scene and thus faced no threat to their safety or concern about evidence being preserved.

The state said the ruling, if allowed to stand, would impose a "dangerous and unworkable test" that would complicate the daily lives of law enforcement officers.

The case is Arizona v. Gant, 07-542.

[headcase]

I hope they rule that there needs to be a warrant.

[ChamberedRound]

The state said the ruling, if allowed to stand, would impose a "dangerous and unworkable test" that would complicate the daily lives of law enforcement officers.

I can't stand how this statement implies that complicating the lives of LEOs should take precedence over our personal liberties as a whole. Just like any other job, if it were easy, it wouldn't be WORK. What's so hard about detaining a suspect under probable cause and getting a judge to sign a warrant PRIOR to searching property? Isn't the extra work worth protecting everyone's freedoms?

[Pa. Patriot]

Scary indeed.

The process is set up to protect the rights of the innocent.
"They" keep trying to change that by offering red herring arguments.
Everyone is all for making law enforcement easier, but not at expense of the rights of everyone... Sheesh!

[VariableFeedback]

The state said the ruling, if allowed to stand, would impose a "dangerous and unworkable test" that would complicate the daily lives of law enforcement officers.

So be it. Without an immediate danger to others or danger of destruction of evidence, what is the rational for allowing these searches? It probably would make the "daily lives of law enforcement officers" even easier if the fourth and fifth amendments were suspended, is that what they are going to argue for next?

This could be an interesting case to see how Roberts and Alito rule.

[jtkratzer]

Getting a warrant is only worth it to the police when they are the ones being investigated. I'd like to poll a large number of officers and ask them how they feel about the situation. Then after recording their answers, I'd like to ask them how they'd feel if they were being arrested for something and their car was the one being searched.

[Dave in PA]

I'd like to know the probable cause that resulted in the arrest in the first place. If it was drug related, they could've gotten a warrant to search the car anyway. If it wasn't and the car search was a fishing expedition, then they should've gotten a warrant first or the evidence thrown out.

Someone once said (long long ago) about our justice system: "It is better a guilty man go free once in a while than an innocent man spend even one day in jail"