U.S. Supreme Court's New Law: Search Incident to Arrest

The United States Supreme Court recently established new law regarding the search of motor vehicles incident to arrest. The law states: "Police may search the vehicle of its recent occupant after his arrest only if it is reasonable to believe that the arrestee might access the vehicle at the time of the search or that the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of the arrest (emphasis added)." In other words, the police may only search a vehicle [following a lawful arrest] if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the vehicle, or it is "reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle."

This new law arose from Arizona v Gant, (129 S.Ct. 1710), which was decided on April 21, 2009. The case involved a defendant who was arrested for driving on a suspended license. The police officers handcuffed the defendant, placed him in the back of the police car, and then searched his vehicle. They discovered a small bag of cocaine in the vehicle, and the defendant was subsequently convicted of drug offenses. However, the court found this to be unreasonable, and in violation of the defendant's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Gant decision places restrictions on the broad holding in United States v Belton, which held: "police may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle and any containers therein as a contemporaneous incident of a recent occupant's lawful arrest." In reaching their new decision, the Gant court concluded that the Belton rule was too broad, because it allowed for warrantless vehicle searches, which violates a person's Fourth Amendment constitutional rights.

The Sixth Circuit Federal Court in Michigan has recently applied the rule from Gant, in deciding U.S. v Peoples (2009 WL 3586564). In this case, as in Gant, the defendant was arrested for driving on a suspended license. When the defendant was arrested and placed in the back of a police car, the police officers searched his vehicle and discovered a semi-automatic pistol and a bag of marijuana. The defendant was convicted as a felon in possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1). The government attempted to argue that at the time of the arrest, the officers were acting in good faith reliance on current Sixth Circuit precedent (which was the broad rule from Belton above). However, the Peoples court excluded evidence of the gun, "because good-faith reliance upon case law cannot excuse suppression under the current formulation," and under the new Gant analysis, the search violated the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights.