Fourth Amendment Home Arrest Search Incident: Why Gant's New Vehicle Rules Should Supersede Chimel. Importing Gant's limited scope and gathering evidence at home is the logical extension of the modern incident search to arrest doctrine.
Fourth Amendment Reasonableness
The Court values the protections of the Fourth Amendment so highly that it accepted the sentence.
Search and Seizure
Through precedent, the Fourth Amendment has evolved from separate "constitutionally protected" areas into a broader jurisdiction designed to protect general expectations of privacy. Until this case, the constitutionally protected areas to which the Fourth Amendment applied consisted exclusively of a man's house, documents, person, and belongings.
Reasonableness
The home is a man's castle and has routinely had the greatest constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. A warrant is required to enter a man's house and conduct a search, except for house arrest.
Warrants and Warrant Exceptions
When a person is lawfully arrested, the police do not need to obtain a warrant to search the person or the area in which the arrest was made. If the person is in a public setting or in a vehicle, the police can investigate the incident until a lawful arrest is made without any warrant.
Probable Cause
If there is a search warrant, the police are allowed to search within the parameters of the warrant, which can be the entire apartment. Because of the importance the Fourth Amendment places on a man's home, law enforcement may enter a home without some form of warrant only in exigent circumstances.
Exclusionary Rule
Search Incident to Arrest
It also looks at the two eras of search incident to arrest doctrine and distinguishes them in cases that support an earlier evidence-gathering ability versus modern cases that emphasize reaching distance rules. Search incident to legal arrest has three categories; an arrest in a public place, an arrest at a suspect's home and an arrest in a vehicle.
Early Era Evidence Gathering
Weeks v. United States found that precedent uniformly holds that a police officer has the right to investigate an incident in order to make an arrest. The investigation must be concurrent with the arrest in order to be considered an investigation-to-arrest event. The right of law enforcement to search a person upon arrest has always been recognized in the United States and England.
The search is valid because of the arrest, but the next ambiguity that the Court clarifies is the scope given to the police. However, it is also recognized that police are looking for evidence of the crime along the way.
Modern Era: Reaching Distance Rules
Vehicular Search Incident to Arrest
This section will discuss New York v. Belton's clear line on search incident to arrest and Gant's subsequent amendment of Belton's rule with the superseding limited scope and evidence collection rules. Until the Belton decision in 1981, vehicles were considered in the same category as residences and fell under the Chimel doctrine. This decision was made for the sake of simplicity and continuity in the field, but had a far more far-reaching consequence than intended.
Bright Line Reaching Distance Rules Belies False Search Justifications
The Supreme Court denied Belton's motion to suppress the evidence on the grounds that Chimel v. California held,. He held that a search incident to arrest cannot exceed the space within the "immediate control of the arrestee," but that statement is too general. Following the continuation of the Court's simplification process, Belton created a bright line rule that allowed police to search the interior of a vehicle, the passenger compartment, and all containers within the body of the car (except the trunk).
However, the bright line rule intended to simplify Chimel exposed the spurious rationales the Court used to allow searches. Belton's motion to suppress evidence is denied because of the Chimel reasoning, but within his own decision, Belton completely ignores Chimel's intended purpose.
Newly Restricted Reaching Distance Rule and Reintroduced Evidence Gathering: Arizona v Gant (2009)
No Extension of Evidence Gathering Search to Digital Devices: Riley v California (2014)
Riley determined that a mobile device does not fall under the umbrella of search incidents to arrest. In the search incident that preceded his arrest, the officer searched Riley's person and retrieved his cell phone from his pocket. Chimel gave the two reasons that justified the arrest incident; officer safety and evidence preservation.
This means that there is no need for extreme fear because all arrest-related investigations are inherently dangerous. This logic was used in People v. Diaz (2011), in which the Court held that the Fourth Amendment permits a search of a cell phone incident without an arrest warrant if the phone is immediately connected to the person arrested.
Why Courts Should Import Arizona v Gant Search Incident to Arrest Rules into the Home
Curing the Anomaly: Vehicles have more Privacy Protection than Homes
Cars have less privacy protection than homes because of the necessity that comes from mobility and reduced expectation of privacy. In Chimel, law enforcement officers are always able to search the arrestee's person and the area within the immediate control of the arrestee at the time of the arrest. For example, they are allowed to search the area within the immediate control of the arrestee after it is no longer in the arrestee's immediate control.
For example, once the arrestee is handcuffed and removed from the scene, law enforcement is not permitted to use the Chimel rules to justify a search of the vehicle. Because of the misapplication of the Chimel decision, the courts must overturn its current standard in the home and adopt Gant's rule of limited reach.
Impeding Law Enforcement
Once it is clear that the restrictive reach distance rule should be implemented in the home, the rest of Gant's decision should be examined. In vehicle investigations, the limitation on reaching distance is offset by the revival of evidence collection. The reality of Gant's limited range is that officers will search the person they arrest, handcuff them, place them in the police car and then leave.
Importing Gant's limited range would hinder law enforcement and reduce police access to search the home. To balance the interests of law enforcement with privacy rights, the courts must enter Gant's evidence-gathering point in conjunction with the limited reach.
Historical Foundation Evidence Gathering
Weeks
Justice Day stated in the court's opinion: "It is not an assertion of the right of the government, always recognized under English and American law, to search the person of the accused when lawfully arrested, to discover and seize the fruits or evidence . of crime. Justice Day writes that the privacy of a man's home is of "high value" to citizens to the extent that it is written into the Constitution, and it is the most important of the constitutionally protected areas. It is not only the fruits of the crime, that can be seized, such as contraband, but also evidence of the defendant's guilt.
It is not a fruit of the crime, but it is evidence that charges the suspect with the crime for which he was arrested. The United States lost this case because police searched Weeks' home despite the arrest taking place at a different location, exceeding the scope of the warrant exception.
Rabinowitz
Search incident to arrest has a requisite spatial element; it is beyond the bounds of the law to search a man's house without a warrant if he is not arrested in the house. However, it is within the historic legal scope to search his home for evidence incident to arrest. They constitute an unreasonable search incident to arrest and are illegal with or without a warrant.
Condemning exploratory investigations requires the police to express a reasonable suspicion that evidence of a crime has been committed where they are searching. At common law, it is the right of police officers to conduct searches without a warrant in the event of a lawful arrest.
Gant
American courts condemn purely exploratory searches as a counterbalance to the legal tradition of gathering evidence. Evidence collection searches are more limited because they are described in advance, so there is less chance of misuse of the search. However, in order to collect evidence, the officer must be able to form a reasonable suspicion that the car will contain fruits of the crime or evidence related to the crime.
To limit widespread evidence-gathering searches incident to arrest, the officer must be able to formulate a reasonable suspicion that there is a reasonable belief that evidence will be found in the assigned search area. But by tying police procedure to the wording of Chimel, the court had to incorporate evidence-gathering searches to ensure that law enforcement interests are not overridden.
Simplicity of Uniform Rules
Defining the Contours of the Evidence Gathering Search in the Home To regulate privacy intrusion, the Court needs to set restrictive rules to define the
A close balance between the protection of privacy and the interest of law enforcement is the only way for evidence-gathering investigations to be effective. Having a standard range will make it easier for law enforcement to cross and reduce legislation that claims law enforcement is overstepping its bounds. It will protect privacy from the search-for-arrest doctrine, which is easily abused if the arrest does not come automatically. constitutes an investigation to gather evidence.
Modern mobile and digital devices contain an information overload that exceeds the scope of evidence typically available in a physical search.
Spatial Dimension of Search: Spaces Immediately Adjoining the Places of Arrest
Searches of the areas immediately adjacent to the arrest are already permitted and the police can seize anything, so the addition of evidence collected at these locations does not result in a drastic change of current procedure. It will also maintain established boundaries to protect the privacy of the home and ensure that there is not widespread evidence gathering throughout the home. It would be beyond the scope of the police to search all, if not most, of the house solely for evidence.
Setting limits to prevent police abuse of the Gant rule on house searches is imperative to protecting the constitutional integrity that protects the home.
Required Quantum of Suspicion
Enforcing a quantum of suspicion that requires reasonableness will act as a deterrent against routine instigation of evidence-gathering searches. The importation of evidence collected at home is the logical extension of the Gant decision, especially when one examines the restrictions that will be in place. However, there are subsequent matters dealing with evidence collection that must be considered when bringing Gant into the home.
Riley v California complicates the introduction of evidence collected in the home because it prohibits officers from searching the cellular device of the arrestee for the sole purpose of obtaining evidence. However, if Riley is considered an exception to the evidence collection rule, it is still possible to enter Gant at home.
Digital Device Exception Following Riley v California To ensure consistent doctrinal execution, the courts must insert a digital device
Academic Literature Review
Why Stare Decisis Should Constrain a Court from Further Transforming the Search Incident to the Arrest Exception” describes three policy problems with Gantt and more. Gant, on the other hand, overruled Belton error and connected Chimela to the history of the search incident to arrest doctrine by reviving evidence-gathering searches. Gant should extend to all investigations because it is established in Chimel, which is the precedent for all search to arrest cases.
Stopping the Pendulum: Why Stare Decisis Should Constrain the Court from Further Changing the Search Incident to Arrest Exception.”. Defining Gant's Reach: The Search Incident to Arrest Doctrine After Arizona v Gant [Notes].” New York University Law Review.
