Gale Encyclopedia Of American Law 3Rd Edition Volume 1 P46 docx

exception as it applied not only to automobiles
but also to containers found in automobiles, to
mobile homes, and to sobriety checkpoints. For
several decades the Court rarely cited Carroll in
vehicle-search cases. Instead, it relied on the
“search-incident-to-arrest” doctrine, which
allowed the police to search, without a warrant,
the areas surrounding an arrest site. Originally
the police could search areas that w ere outside
the control of the arreste d person. (See, e.g.,
Harris v. Stephens, 361 F.2d 888 [8th Cir. 1966],
cert. denied, 386 U.S. 964 [ 1967], in which the
Court let stand a ruling by the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that the search of
a car parked in a driveway, while the suspect
was arrested at the front door of his house, was
valid.) However, the Court restricted the
search-incident-to-arrest standard in Chimel v.
California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S. Ct. 2034, 23 L.
Ed. 2d 685 (1969), which held that a warrantless
search must be limited to the area within the
immediate control of the arrestee.
After the Chimel decision, the Court abandoned
this line of reasoning and re turned to the “probable-
cause-accompanied-by-exigent-circumstances”
rationale in Carroll. In Chambers v. Maroney, 399
U.S. 42, 90 S . Ct. 1975, 26 L. Ed. 2d 419 (1970), the
justices found that Carroll supported a warrantless
search of an impounded car. They based this
finding on the theory that had the search been
conducted at the time of the arrest, it would have

been valid because of the exigent circumstances
that existed at that time. The fact that the car was
impounded, and therefore immobile, by the time
the search was conducted did not affect the
Court’s decision.
A year later, in Coolidge v. New Hampshire,
403 U.S. 443, 91 S. Ct. 2022, 29 L. Ed. 2d 564
(1971) (
PLURALITY opinion), the Court held that
a search conducted with a warrant that was later
found to be invalid fell outside of the automo-
bile exception. The Court stated that the police
in Coolidge could not have legally conducted a
warrantless search at the arrest scene, because
no exigent circumstances existed: At the time of
arrest, the arrestee had not had access to the car
and therefore could not have moved it. The
Coolidge decision firmly established that the
police must show both
PROBABLE CAUSE and
exigent circumstances in order for a warrantless
search to be valid.
The Court continued with this line of
reasoning as recently as April 21, 2009, when it
issued its decision in Arizona v. Gant 556
U.S. ___. In Gant, the r espondent was arrested
for driving on a suspended license. He was
handcuffed and locked in a police car before the
officers searched his car and found cocaine in one
of his jacket pockets. The Supreme Court held

that police officers may search the passenger
compartment o f a vehicle incident to an a rrest
only if it was reasonable to conclude that t he
individual may access the vehicle at the time of
the search, or if the vehicle contains evidence of
the offense of the arrest. In its decision, the Court
rejected the broader holding of its previous
decision in New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454
(1981), which permitted a vehicle s earch incident
to an arrest even if no possibility existed that the
arrestee could gain a ccess t o t he ve hicle a t the
time of the search. In Gant, the responden t was
arrested for a n o ffense in connection to which
police officers co uld not have reasonably expected
to find evidence in his car. Thus, the Court
concluded that the search was unreasonable.
The Supreme Court added an alternative
rationale to support automobile searches, with
its decision in Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583,
94 S. Ct. 2464, 41 L. Ed. 2d 325 (1974) (plurality
opinion). In Cardwell, the police had made an
impression of the tires of the suspect’s car and
had taken paint samples from the car, without a
warrant. The Court held that the search had
been permissible because the police had had
probable cause, and the search had been
conducted in a reasonable manner. No exigency
had existed in this case, but the Court found
justification in the principle that individuals
have a “lower expectation of privacy” in their

automobiles. Writing for the plurality, Justice
HARRY A. BLACKMUN stated, “One has a lesser
expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle
because its function is transportation and it
seldom serves as one’s residence or as the
repository of personal effects.”
The same rationale supported the Court’s
determination that police officers do not violate
the Fourth Amendment when they search a
passenger’s personal belongings inside an auto-
mobile that they have probable cause to believe
contains
CONTRABAND. Officers with probable
cause to search a car may inspect passengers’
belongings that are capable of concealing the
object of the search. If probable cause justifies the
search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, including
every part of the vehicle and its contents that
may conceal the object of the search, then this
rule extends to passengers’ property as well, the
Supreme Court wrote in Wyoming v. Houghton,
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
438 AUTOMOBILE SEARCHES
526 U.S. 295, 119 S. Ct. 1297, 143 L.Ed.2d 408
(U.S. 1999). The balancing of the relative
interests weighs in favor of allowing searches of
a passenger’s belongings, because passengers, no
less than drivers, possess a reduced expectation
of privacy with regard to the property that they
transport in cars.

This “lesser-expectation-of-privacy” ratio-
nale was not sufficient to support a warrantless
search in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. 1,
97 S. Ct. 2476, 53 L. Ed. 2d 538 (1977). In
Chadwick, the defendants were arrested imme-
diately after they had placed a footlocker in their
trunk. Federal agents, who had probable cause
to believe that the footlocker contained mari-
juana, impounded the car and opened the
footlocker without a warrant. The Court found
that although the agents did have probable
cause to search the footlocker, they had not
proved that they had had probable cause to
search the car in order to find the footlocker.
Because the car was impounded, no exigent
circumstances existed. Furthermore, the Court
held that the defendants had a greater expecta-
tion of privacy in the closed footlocker than in
an automobile, which is open to public view.
“The factors which diminish the privacy aspects
of an automobile do not apply to the (defen-
dants’) footlocker,” the Court concluded.
Therefore, the lesser-expectation-of-privacy ra-
tionale did not support an extension of the
automobile exception to the closed footlocker.
Armed with the Carroll-Chambers line of cases
(the probable-cause-accompanied-by-exigent-
circumstances rationale) and the Chadwick
decision (the lower-expectation-of-privacy ra-
tionale), the Court tackled the question of

whether a warrantless search of a suitcase found
in the trunk of a taxi fell under either
justification. In Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S.
753, 99 S. Ct. 2586, 61 L. Ed. 2d 235 (1979), the
police had probable cause to believe that a
suitcase picked up by the
DEFENDANT at an
airport contained contraband. After the defen-
dant placed the suitcase in the trunk of a taxi
and left the airport, the police stopped the taxi,
opened the trunk, and searched the suitcase,
which contained the contraband that they
expected to find. The Court evaluated the facts
under each rationale and found that (a) once
the taxi had been stopped, no exigency existed;
and, (b) an individual’s privacy expectations in
a suitcase, which “serve[s] as a repository for
personal items,” are greater than his or her
privacy expectations in an automobile. For these
reasons, the Court held that the search had
violated the Fourth Amendment.
Later cases, however, extended the automo-
bile exception to containers located in an
automobile, where authorities have probable
cause to search the automobile. For example,
in United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S. Ct.
2157, 72 L. Ed. 2d 572 (1982), the police stopped
a car that they had probable cause to believe
contained contraband. Without a warrant, they
opened a closed paper bag that they found inside

the car’s trunk, and discovered heroin. The
Court held that the search was valid, reasoning
that if the police had probable cause to conduct a
warrantless search of the vehicle, they also had
justification to search the bag.
However, the Court retreated from this
holding in Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U.S. 113, 119
S. Ct. 484, 142 L.Ed.2d 492 (U.S. 1998), where it
held that a Fourth Amendment violation had
occurred when a police officer had conducted a
full search of a car, including the trunk, after the
driver had been stopped for speeding. The
officer had issued the driver a citation, rather
than arresting him, although Iowa law would
have permitted an arrest. The U.S. Supreme
Court held that the search could not be
sustained under the search-incident-to-arrest
exception to the warrant requirement, as the
underlying rationales for the exception, includ-
ing the need to disarm the suspect and to
preserve evidence, did not justify the search of
the car’s trunk. While the concern for officer
safety in the context of a routine traffic stop
might justify the minimal additional intrusion
of ordering a driver and passengers out of the
car, the Court said, it does not, by itself, justify
the often considerably greater intrusion attend-
ing a full field-type search.
However the Supreme Court moved back
toward its reasoning of Ross in the case of

Illinois v. Caballes 543 U.S. 405 (2005). In that
case, Caballes was stopped for speeding by an
Illinois State Trooper. A second trooper arrived
to the scene with his narcotics-detection dog and
walked the dog around the car while the first
trooper wrote Caballes a traffic ticket. The dog
alerted the officers at Caballes’ trunk. As a result,
the officers searched the trunk, found marijuana
and then arrested Caballes. The Supreme Court
determined that a narcotics-detection dog sniff,
which was conducted during a lawful traffic stop,
and reveals no information other than the
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
AUTOMOBILE SEARCHES 439
location of an unlawful substance, does not violate
an individual’s Fourth Amendment rights.
The automobile exception was also extend-
ed to searches of some mobile homes, in
California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386, 105 S. Ct.
2066, 85 L. Ed. 2d 406 (1985). In Carney, the
police had searched a motor home that was
parked in a public lot. The Court found the
search to have been valid, stating that the
mobile home was being used for transportation
and that it therefore was as readily movable as
an automobile. In addition, the Court noted a
reduced expectation of privacy in a mobile
home, as contrasted with an ordinary residence,
as mobile homes, like cars, are regulated by the
state. In this case, where the mobile home was

parked in a public parking lot, rather than a
mobile home park, and was not anchored in
any way, it resembled a vehicle more than a
residence. Therefore, the automobile exception
applied. Carney established not only that the
automobile exception applies to some mobile
homes but also that it applies to parked vehicles.
Another extension of the automobile excep-
tion, called the “inventory exception,” was
recognized by the Court in South Dakota v.
Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 96 S. Ct. 3092, 49 L.
Ed. 2d 1000 (1976). Donald Opperman’s
illegally parked vehicle was ticketed and towed
to an impound lot, where the police inventoried
its contents. In an unlocked glove compart-
ment, they found marijuana. The Court held
that once a vehicle has been legally impounded,
its contents may be inventoried. Three justifica-
tions were given: protection of the owner’s
property while it is in police custody; protection
of the police against claims; and protection of
the police against danger. Likewise, in Colorado
v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 107 S. Ct. 738, 93 L. Ed.
2d 739 (1987), the Court found that marijuana
discovered in a closed backpack durin g an
inventory of an impounded vehicle had been
legally seized because there was no showing that
“the police, who had followed standardized
procedures, had acted in bad faith or for the
sole purpose of investigation.” The Court

concluded that “reasonable police regulations
relating to inventory procedures administer ed
in
GOOD FAITH satisfy the Fourth Amendment.”
This patchwork of decisions led many,
including Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., to
conclude that “the law of
SEARCH AND SEIZURE
with respect to automobiles is intolerably
confusing” (Robbins v. California, 453 U.S.
420, 101 S. Ct. 2841, 69 L. Ed. 2d 744 [1981]
[Powell, J., concurring]). The Court attempted
to put the confusion to rest with its decision in
California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 111 S. Ct.
1982, 114 L. Ed. 2d 619 (1991). In Acevedo,
federal drug agents tracked a bag that they knew
contained marijuana, as it was in transit to the
defendant. They then notified police officers,
who watched as the defendant put the bag into
the trunk of a car and drove away. The police
officers stopped the car, opened the trunk, and
searched the bag, finding the marijuana. The
Court held that the search had been legal, stating
that it is not necessary for an officer to obtain a
warrant before searching a container located in
an automobile when the officer has probable
cause to believe that the container holds
contraband or evidence. After analyzing the long
and ambiguous line of automobile exception
cases, the Court decided that the distinction

between the Ross situation (where the police had
probable cause to search the car) and the Sanders
situation (where the police had probable cause
only to search the container) was not supported
by the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
Discarding the reasoning in Sanders as unwork-
able and an unjustified impingement on legiti-
mate police activity, the justices announced a
new and unequivocal rule: “The police may
search an automobile and the containers within
it where they have probable cause to believe
contraband or evidence is contained.”
The Acevedo decision was met with harsh
criticism by some legal analysts, who saw it as
an excessive retreat from Fourth Amendment
guarantees. Supporters, however, pointed out
that the police still must establish that they have
probable cause to conduct a warrantless search
before such a search will be found valid.
Probable cause can be shown in a variety of
ways, but generally it follows from a chain of
events that raise police suspicions from the level
of mere conjecture to the level of reasonable
grounds. For example, in Acevedo, federal drug
enforcement agents had previously seized and
inspected the package that was eventually
delivered to the defendant, and they knew that
it contained marijuana. In Sanders, a reliable
informant had told the police that the defendant
would arrive at the airport carrying a green

suitcase containing marijuana. And in Ross, an
informant had told the police that someone
known as Bandit was selling drugs from the
trunk of his car; when the police located the car
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
440 AUTOMOBILE SEARCHES
described by the informant, they discovered
through a computer check that the driver, the
defendant, Albert Ross Jr., used the alias Bandit.
From these cases, the Court has shown that
arbitrary searches, or searches based on mere
SUSPICION, will not be supported by a spurious
claim of probable cause.
Warrantless Seizures of Automobile as
Forfeitable Contraband
The Fourth Amendment does not require the
police to obtain a warrant before seizing an
automobile from a public place when they have
probable cause to believe that it is forfeitable
contraband. The U.S. Supreme Court thus
reversed a decision in which the Supreme Court
of Florida had held that the warrantless
SEIZURE
of an automobile, pursuant to the Florida
Contraband Forfeiture Act, violated the Fourth
Amendment in the absence of exigent circum-
stances. Florida v. White, 526 U.S. 559, 119 S.
Ct. 1555, 143 L. Ed. 2d 748 (1999).
The case involved a defendant who had been
convicted of

POSSESSION of cocaine, which had
been found during a police inventory search of
his automobile following its warrantless seizure
from a public parking lot pursuant to the
Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act. Fla. Stat.
932.701. Although the police lacked probable
cause to believe that the defendant’s car
contained contraband, they did have probable
cause to believe that the vehicle itself was
contraband under the Florida law.
Fourth Amendment
JURISPRUDENCE recog-
nizes the need to seize readily movable contra-
band before it is spirited away, and this need is
equally weighty when the automobile, as
distinguished from its contents, is the very
contraband that the police seek to secure, the
Court observed. In addition to the special
considerations recognized in the context of
movable items, the Court continued, Fourth
Amendment jurisprudence has consistently
afforded law enforcement officials greater lati-
tude in exercising their duties in public places.
Because the police had seized defendant’s
vehicle from a public area, the Court concluded
that the warrantless seizure had not involved
any invasion of the defendant’s privacy.
Sobriety Checkpoints
During the 1980s and 1990s, the Court considered a
new line of cases in which t he automobile exception

was b een used to just ify sobriety-checkpoint
programs. Under such programs, police stop
motorists, typically along an interstate highway,
for the purpose of a pprehendin g drivers who
are impaired by alcohol. One such program was
challenged and found to be constitutional in
Michigan Department of State Police v. Sitz, 496
U.S. 444, 110 S. Ct. 2481, 110 L. Ed. 2d 412
(1990). The Court applied a somewhat more
stringenttestthanthatusedinautomobile
search cases, citing as relevant authority a line
of cases involving highway checkpoints for
discovering illegal
ALIENS. (See, e.g., United
States v. Martinez, 428 U.S. 543, 96 S. Ct.
3074, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1116 (1976); Brown v. Texas,
443 U.S. 47, 99 S. Ct. 2637, 61 L. Ed. 2d 357
(1979). Brown required “aweighingofthe
gravity of the public concerns served by the
seizure, the degree to which the seizure
advances the
PUBLIC INTEREST, and the severity
of the interference with individual liberty.”
Applying that balancing test, the majority in Sitz
found that the intrusion on individual liberty
imposed by Michigan’s sobriety checkpoint
program was outweighed by the advancement
of the state’s interest in preventing drunk driving.
Therefore, it concluded that the program did not
violate the Fourth Amendment.

Similar sobriety-checkpoint programs have
been used in other states. Since the Sitz decision,
all have passed constitutional muster. Less
certain is the constitutionality of narcotics
checkpoints. In 1992, Minnesota instituted a
random narcotics checkpoint on an interstate
highway’s exit ramp. The police stopped every
third or fourth car and asked several questions
of the occupants. If the answers or demeanor of
the occupants aroused suspicion, the car was
diverted for further investigation. A number of
individuals were cited when police found
marijuana, either in plain view or after a
consensual search of the vehicle.
The Minnesota scheme raised serious con-
stitutional questions. Whereas the state has a
legitimate interest in curbing the use of illegal
drugs, it was not clear whether a narcotics-
checkpoint program was a valid me ans of
promoting this interest in light of the privacy
interest that is violated by random questioning
for investigation of drug possession or use. The
Supreme Court addressed this issue in City of
Indianapolis v. Edmond 531 U.S. 32 (2000). In
that case, the City of Indianapolis conducted
vehicle checkpoints in an effort to detect
unlawful drugs. It established roadblocks where
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
AUTOMOBILE SEARCHES 441
one officer would conduct an open-view

examination of the vehicle, while another
walked around the vehicle with a narcotics-
detection dog. Each stop that was conducted
was without reasonable suspicion or probable
cause. In a 6–3 decision issued by Justice Sandra
Day O’Connor, the Court held that, because the
purpose of the checkpoint was indistinguishable
from the general interest in crime control, the
checkpoint violated the Fourth Amendment.
Automobile Searches: Is the
Fourth Amendment in Jeopardy?
T
he right to move about freely
without fear of governmental inter-
ference is one of the cornerstones of
democracy in America. Likewise, free-
dom from governmental intrusions into
personal privacy is a cherished U.S. right.
Automobiles have come to symbolize
these rights in the United States, but
freedom and autonomy often conflict
with law enforcement’s interest in pre-
serving domestic order.
The
FOURTH AMENDMENT to the Con-
stitution guarantees U.S. citizens free-
dom from “unreasonable searches and
seizures.” The Supreme Court, in Katz v.
United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S. Ct. 507,
19 L. Ed. 2d 576 (1967), interpreted the

Fourth Amendment to mean that a
WARRANT issued by a “neutral and de-
tached magistrate” must be obtained
before police officers may lawfully search
PERSONAL PROPERTY. The Court in Katz
held that “searches conducted outside
the judicial process, without prior ap-
proval by a judge or
MAGISTRATE are per se
unreasonable under the Fourth Amend-
ment—subject only to a few specifically
established and well-delineated excep-
tions.”
In its struggle to balance the Fourth
Amendment’s personal privacy guaran-
tees with the government’s interest in
effective law enforcement, the Court has
allowed numerous exceptions to the
warrant requirement, prompting debate
over the amendment’s continued viabili-
ty. A particularly tricky area involves
decisions regarding warrantless automo-
bile searches.
Beginning with its decision in Carroll
v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S. Ct. 280,
69 L. Ed. 543 (1925), the Court has granted
law enforcement personnel substantial
latitude when searching automobiles and
their contents. Carroll and its progeny
established that automobiles constitute a

distinct class of personal property that
deserves less privacy protection than other
types of property. The Court has consis-
tently held that because a car and its
contents are easily and quickly moved,
police officers need not obtain a warrant to
search them if they reasonably believe that
doing so would result in lost evidence.
Since its decision in Carroll, the
Supreme Court has articulated several
rationales for allowing warrantless vehicle
searches. First, the Court followed Carroll
and held that a warrantless search of an
automobile is valid because of the exigent
circumstances involved (see, e.g., Cham-
bers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42, 90 S. Ct.
1975, 26 L. Ed. 2d 419 [1970]). Next, the
Court found that warrantless automobile
searches are justified because individuals
have a lower expectation of privacy in
their automobiles than in their homes
(see, e.g., Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583,
94 S. Ct. 2464, 41 L. Ed. 2d 325 [1974]
[plurality opinion]). Finally, the Court
extended the warrant exception to con-
tainers found inside a vehicle, reasoning
that if the police could legally search an
automobile, they could also legally search
containers found in the automobile (see
United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798, 102 S.

Ct. 2157, 72 L. Ed. 2d 572 [1982]).
However, the Court had previously ruled
that where a vehicle search was illegal, a
subsequent search of a suitcase found
inside the trunk of the vehicle was also
illegal (Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U.S. 753,
99 S. Ct. 2586, 61 L. Ed. 2d 235 [ 1979]).
The need to distinguish between a Sanders
situation and a Ross situation caused some
confusion, both for the police and for the
courts. This need was finally addressed by
the Court in 1991.
Underlying all the exceptions to the
warrant requirement is the need to assist
law enforcement personnel without un-
duly trampling on the Constitution.
However, some have argued that the
pendulum has swung too far in favor of
POLICE POWER. In 1991 the Court extended
the permissible scope of the warrant
exception with its decision in California
v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 111 S. Ct. 1982,
114 L. Ed. 2d 619, which upheld the
warrantless search of a bag found inside
the defendant’s vehicle. In an attempt to
clarify the law regarding warrantless
searches of containers found in auto-
mobiles, the justices announced that the
Fourth Amendment does not require a
distinction between

PROBABLE CAUSE to
search an entire vehicle, including con-
tainers found inside (as in Ross), and
probable cause to search only a container
found inside an automobile (as in San-
ders). The Court announced a new and
succinct rule regarding automobile
searches: “The police may search an
automobile and the containers within it
where they have probable cause to believe
contraband or evidence is contained.”
The Acevedo decision provides what
is known as a bright-line rule, that is, a
RULE OF LAW that is clear and unequivocal.
But bright-line rules can obscure the
important nuances that surround an
issue. The Acevedo decision left little
doubt in the minds of law enforcement
personnel that they could, with probable
cause, search not only an automobile but
also any containers found inside. But that
clarity and the unfettered discretion it
gives the police trouble some legal
analysts. They assert that the ruling
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
442 AUTOMOBILE SEARCHES
The Court further noted that it could not
SANCTION traffic stops that were justified only by
the possibility that interrogation and inspection
may reveal that any given motorist has

committed some type of crime. Although the
Sitz and Acevedo decisions have been criticized
as giving too much discretion to the police, the
Edmond decision indicates that the Court is not
effectively guts the Fourth Amendment
as it applies to automobile searches and,
perhaps more disturbing, that its reason-
ing could and probably will be applied to
searches of other types of personal
property.
Justice
JOHN PAUL STEVENS noted in his
dissent to Acevedo that the majority’s
ruling creates the paradoxical situation in
which a container, such as a briefcase, is
not subject to a warrantless search when
it is carried in full view on a public street
but becomes subject to such a search
upon being placed inside an automobile.
Critics of Acevedo also argue that it
contradicts earlier rationales established
to support exceptions to the warrant
requirement. In Acevedo, the Court
found no exigent circumstances to justify
the search, as it had in Carroll, because
the police could have legally seized the
bag and obtained a warrant for a later
search. Neither, assert critics, would the
defendant’s expectation of privacy in the
bag be diminished by virtue of his

placing it into the automobile.
Lacking both exigency and the lesser
expectation of privacy justifications, the
Court turned to policy considerations to
support its decision in Acevedo. The
majority stated that law enforcement
personnel were unnecessarily impeded
by the Court’s previous rulings on this
issue. The Court dismissed privacy con-
cerns by stating that protection of privacy
is minimal anyway, because in many
automobile search cases the police may
legally search a container under the
“search-incident-to-arrest” justification.
Critics respond that the policy underly-
ing that exception is that the police
should be able to secure the arrest site in
order to protect their safety; it does not
follow that the police should be allowed
to search containers even when they are
not in danger.
Critics assert that by giving the police
the discretion to determine what is a
reasonable search, the Court ignored
established
PRECEDENT governing Fourth
Amendment cases. Justice
ROBERT H.
JACKSON wrote in Johnson v. United States,
333 U.S. 10 (1948),

The point of the Fourth Amend-
ment, which is often not grasped
by zealous officers, is not that it
denies law enforcement the sup-
port of the usual inferences
which reasonable men draw
from evidence. Its protection
consists in requiring that those
inferences be drawn by a neutral
and detached magistrate instead
of being judged by the officer
engaged in the often competitive
enterprise of ferreting out crime.
According to Justice Stevens, the
majority in Acevedo rejected this prece-
dent without justification.
Justice
ANTONIN SCALIA took a differ-
ent approach. He suggested in his
concurrence to Acevedo that the Fourth
Amendment does not proscribe warrant-
less searches but rather prohibits unrea-
sonable searches. Scalia argued that “the
supposed ‘general rule’ that a warrant is
always required does not appear to have
any basis in the common law.”
Lower federal courts and state courts
of appeals have struggled with the question
of whether Acevedo effectively expands law
enforcement officers’ ability to search

automobiles without a warrant. For exam-
ple, in United States v. Br ooks, 838 F. Supp.
58 (W.D.N.Y. 1993), the U.S. district court
for the Western District of New York
upheld the conviction of an individual for
distribution and conspiracy to distribute
cocaine after officers conducted a warrant-
less search of the defendant’sautomobile.
The officer, an undercover police agent,
knew that a package contained cocaine,
and the agent and other officers observed
the
DEFENDANT place the package in the
front seat of the car. Noting Scalia’s
concurrence, the Court distinguished be-
tween a warrantless search and an unrea-
sonable search. Because the officer knew
that the package contained cocaine, the
search of the automobile for the package
was reasonable.
Some state courts have invalidated
warrantless searches notwithstanding the
Acevedo decision, though even these
courts have struggled with the applica-
tion of the decision. In Green v. Indiana,
647 N.E.2d 694 (Ind. Ct. App. 1995),
officers conducted surveillance of the
defendant at his home in Indiana based
upon reliable tips. The officers knew that
the defendant and another individual

planned to deliver cocaine from Texas to
Indiana after making a trip to Texas. The
officers anticipated that the defendant
would return in two days and reestab-
lished surveillance at a state highway in
Indiana. The officers did not obtain a
SEARCH WARRANT for the automobile,
though they had discussed the idea. The
officers stopped Green’s car upon his
return, arrested him, and conducted a
warrantless search of his automobile. The
officers discovered the cocaine during
their search. The court held that though
the officers had probable cause to
conduct the search, it was not impracti-
cable to secure a warrant. Relying in part
on the Acevedo decision, the court held
that though the officer had probable
cause to conduct the search, it would not
have been impracticable for them to
secure a warrant, thus their failure to do
so rendered the search illegal.
FURTHER READINGS
Dressler, Joshua. 2002. Understanding Crimi-
nal Procedure. Newark, N.J.: LexisNexis.
Gottlieb, Henry. 2002. “N.J. Joins Minority of
States that Ban Freewheeling Consent
Searches; Justices Invoke ‘Reasonable
and Articulable Suspicion’ Standard.”
New Jersey Law Journal 167 (March 18).

Saltzburg, Stephen A., et al. 2003. Basic
Criminal Procedure. St. Paul, Minn.: West
Group.
CROSS REFERENCES
Privacy; Search and Seizure; Search Warrant.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
AUTOMOBILE SEARCHES 443
allowing as much latitude to law enforcement
officials in stopping and searching automobiles
as it previously had.
FURTHER READINGS
Blade, Bryan S. 1991. “Fourth Amendment—The Constitu-
tionality of a Sobriety Checkpoint Program.” Journal of
Criminal Law and Criminology 81 (winter).
Braeske, Chris. 1993. “The Drug War Comes to a Highway
Near You: Police Power to Effectuate Highway
‘Narcotics Checkpoints’ under the Federal and State
Constitutions.” Law and Inequality 11 (June).
City of Indianapolis v. Edmond 531 U.S. 32 (2000).
Clancy, Thomas K. 2008. The Fourth Amendment: Its History
and Interpretation. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic
Press.
Fisanick, Christian A. 2002. Vehicle Search Law Deskbook. St.
Paul, Minn.: Thomson/West.
Grant, Marguerite T., ed. 2003. Motor Vehicle Stops: Update
on the Law Governing Police Searches and Roadside
Questioning. Boston: Massachusetts Continuing Legal
Education.
Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405 (2005).
King, Lawrence T. 1988. “The Inventory Exception to the

Fourth Amendment Warrant Requirement: Why the
Last in Should Be the First Out—or, Putting Opperman
and Bertine in Their Place.” American Journal of Trial
Advocacy 12 (fall).
Kole, Edward T. 1987. “Parked Motor Home Held to Be
within Scope of Automobile Exception to Warrant
Requirement—California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386
(1985).” Seton Hall Law Review 17 (summer).
Lally, Nicole C. 2000. “Constitutional Law—Fourth Amend-
ment Protection Against Unreasonable Searches and
Seizures: Valid Automobile Search Includes a Passenger’s
Belongings.” Tennessee Law Review 67 (winter): 455–73.
Logan, Wayne A. 2002. “Street Legal: The Court Affords
Police Constitutional Carte Blanche.” Indiana Law
Journal 77 (summer): 419–67.
Soden, Steven D. 1992. “Expansion of the ‘Automobile
Exception’ to the Warrant Requirement: Police Discre-
tion Replaces the ‘
Neutral and Detached Magistrate.’”
Missouri Law Review 57 (spring).
CROSS REFERENCES
Privacy; Dru gs and Narcotics; Fourth Amendment; Proba-
ble Cause; Search and Seizure; Search Warrant.
AUTOMOBILES
The first automobile powered by an internal
combustion engine was invented and designed
in Germany during the 1880s. In 1903, Henry
Ford founded the Ford Motor Company and
started an era of U.S. leadership in auto
production that lasted for most of the twentieth

century. In 1908, Ford introduced the highly
popular Model T, which by 1913 was being
manufactured through assembly line techni-
ques. Innovations by Ford, General Motors, and
other manufacturers near Detroit, Michigan,
made that city the manufacturing center for the
U.S. car industry. By the 1920s, General Motors
had become the world’s largest auto manufac-
turer, a distinction it still held by the mid-1990s.
Over time, the auto industry in all countries
became increasingly concentrated in the hands of
a few companies, and by 1939, the Big Three—
Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler Corpora-
tion—had 90 percent of the U.S. market.
No invention has so transformed the
landscape of the United States as the automo-
bile, and no other country has so thoroughly
adopted the automobile as its favorite means of
transportation. Automobiles are used both for
pleasure and for commerce and are typically the
most valuable type of
PERSONAL PROPERTY own ed
by U.S. citizens. Because autos are expensive to
acquire and maintain, heavily taxed, favorite
targets of thieves, major causes of air and noise
pollution, and capable of causing tremendous
personal injuries and property damage, the
body of law surrounding them is quite large.
Automobile law covers the four general phases
in the life cycle of an autom obile: its manufac-

ture, sale, operation, and disposal.
Brief History of the Automobile
In 1929 there were roug hly 5 million autos in
the United States. All of those cars required an
infrastructure of roads, and by the end of
WORLD WAR II, the federal government had begun
aggressively to fund highway development.
With the intention of improving the nation’s
ability to defend itself, Congress passed the
Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 (58 Stat. 838).
It authorized construction of a system of
multiple-lane, limited-access freeways, officially
called the National System of Interstate and
Defense Highways, designed to connect 90
percent of all U.S. cities of 50,000 or more
people. In 1956 the Federal-Aid Highway Act
(23 U.S.C.A. § 103 [West 1995]) established the
Federal Highway Trust Fund, which as of the
early 2000s continued to provide 90 percent of
the financing for interstate highways. By 1990
the interstate highway syste m was 99.2 percent
complete and had cost $125 billion.
During the 1970s the U.S. auto industry
began to lose ground to Japanese and European
automakers, and U.S. citizens relied to an
increasing degree on imported autos. Japan,
for example, surpassed the United States in auto
production in the 1970s. Oil shortages and
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
444 AUTOMOBILES

embargoes during the 1970s caused the price of
gasoline to rise and put a premium on smaller
autos, most of which were produced by foreign
companies. Foreign cars also earned a reputation
for higher quality during this period. The share
of foreign cars in the U.S. market rose from 7.6
percent in 1960 to 24.9 percent in 1984.
In the early 1980s the U .S. auto companies
were suffering greatly, and the U.S. government
bailed out the nearly bankrupt Chrysler Corpora-
tion. The U.S. government also negotiated a quota
system with Japan t hat called f or limits on Japanese
autos imported into the United States, thereby
raising t he prices of Japanese cars. By t he 1990s, the
U.S. auto companies had regained much of the
ground lost to foreign c ompanies. In t he mid-
1990s, however, international manufacturing
agreements meant that few cars, U.S. or foreign,
were made entirely in one country.
Manufacture
Throughout the twentieth century, automakers
were required to conform to e ver stricter standards
regarding the manufactur e of their vehicles. These
rules were designed to i mprove the safety, f uel
consumption, and emissions of the auto.
Safety Standards As autos increased in num-
ber and became larger and faster, and people
traveled more miles per year in them, the
number of motor vehicle deaths and injuries
rose. By 1965 some 50,000 people were being

killed in motor vehicle accidents every year,
making automobiles the leading cause of
accidental death for all age groups and the
overall leading cause of death for the population
below age 44. Between 1945 and 1995, 2 million
people died, and about 200 million were injured
in auto accidents—many more than were
wounded and injured in all the wars in the
nation’s history combined.
Beginning in the 1960s, consumer and
automobile safety advocates began to press for
federal safety standards for the manufacture of
automobiles that would reduce such harrowing
statistics. The most famous of these advocates
was
RALPH NADER, who published a 1965 book on
the deficiencies of auto safety, called Unsafe at
Any Speed: The Designed-in Dangers of the
American Automobile. From 1965 to 1995, more
than 50 safety standards were imposed on
vehicle manufac turers, regulating the construc-
tion of windshields, safety belts, head restraints,
brakes, tires, and lighting, as well as door
strength, roof strength, and bum per strength.
In 1966 Congress passed the National
Traffic and Motor Vehicle Act (15 U.S.C.A . §
1381 note, 1391 et seq. [1995]), which estab-
lished a new federal regulatory agency, the
National Highway Safety Bureau, later renamed
the National Highway Traffic Safet y Adminis-

tration (NHTSA). NHTSA was given a mandate
to establish and enforce rules that would force
manufacturers to build vehicles that could
better avoid and withstand accidents . It was
also given the power to require manufacturers
to recall and repair defects in their motor
vehicles and the authority to coordinate state
programs aimed at improving driver behavior.
Also in 1966, Congress passed the Highway
Safety Act (23 U.S.C.A. §§ 105, 303 note, et seq.
[1995]), which provided for federal guidance
and funding to states for the creation of
highway safety programs.
As a result of these new laws, 19 federal
safety regulations came into effect on January 1,
1968. The regulations specified accident-avoid-
ance standards governing such vehicle features
as brakes, tires, windshields, lights, and trans-
mission controls. They also mandated more
costly crash-protection standards. Th ese included
occupant-protection requirements for
SEAT BELTS,
Ralph Nader
celebrates the 40th
anniversary of his
1965 book Unsafe at
Any Speed, which
documented the
resistance of the
automobile industry

to the implementation
of safety features.
AP IMAGES
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
AUTOMOBILES 445
energy-absorbing steering whee ls and bum-
pers, head restraints, padded instrument
panels, and stronger side doors. These auto
safety standards significantly reduced traffic
fatalities. Between 1968 and 1979 the annual
motor vehicle death rate decreased 35.2
percent, from 5.4 to 3.5 deaths per 100 million
vehicle miles.
The seat belt requirement is usually consid-
ered the most important and effective safety
standard. According to one study, seat belts that
attach across both the lap and the shoulder
reduce the probability of serious injury in an
accident by 64 percent and of fatalities by 32
percent for front-seat occupants. However,
because people do not always use restraints that
require their active participation, autos began to
be required to have passive restraint systems
such as automatic seat belts and air bags. Air
bags pop out instantly in a crash and form a
cushion that prevents the occupants from
hitting the windshield or dashboard. These
devices can substantially reduce the motor
vehicle death rate. Cars made after 1990 must

have either automatic seat belts or air bags, for
front-seat occupants.
However, many auto safety experts point
out that regulations on the manufacture of
automobiles can only go so far in reducing
injuries. Studies indicate that only 13 percent of
Unsafe at Any Speed
“F
B
or over half a century the automobi le has
brought death, injury, and the most inesti-
mable sorrow and deprivation to millions of people.”
So Ralph Nader began his 1965 book Unsafe at Any
Speed: The Designed-i n Dangers of the American
Automobile, a landmark in the history of U.S.
consumer protection.
Nader’s book recounts how U.S. automobile
manufacturers resisted attempts to improve auto
safety in the 1950s and 1960s. Even when makers of
other vehicles such as planes, boats, and trains
were forced to adhere to safety regulations, auto-
makers were still largely uncontrolled in the area of
safety. “The gap between existing design and
attainable safety,” Nader wrote, “has widened
enormously in the post-war period.”
Nader examined how auto companies lobbied
against safety regulation and organized public
relations campaigns that asserted over and over
again that most injuries were the result of driver
error. He argued that the best and most cost-

effective way to reduce auto injuries is not to try to
alter dri ver behavior—as honorable a goal as that
might be—but to require automakers to design cars
that better prevent accidents from occurring and
better protect p assengers if accidents do occur.
In tell ing his story, Nader cited sobering
statistics on traffic injuries and fatalities, including
the fact that auto accidents caused the dea ths of
47,700 in 1964—“the extinguishment of about one
and three-quarter million years of expected life-
times,” he noted—and one-third of all hospitaliza-
tions for injuries and 25 percent of all cases of
partial and complete paralysis due to injury.
Borrowing the zeal and spirit of the civil rights
reform movement and t he faith in technology of the
space program, Nader looked at traffic fatalities as
a public health issue that can be resolved through
public action and technological innovation. Quoting
Walt Whitman’s epigram “If anything is sacred, the
human body is sacred,” Nade r asserted that he was
attempting to protect the “body rights” of U.S.
citizens.
To protect those rights, Nader used his book to
call for a number of different strategies to reduce
traffic fatalities and injuries: federal safety stan-
dards; a federal facility for auto safety research,
design, and testing; increa sed manufacturer
research and development for safety technology;
improved consumer information with r egard to auto
safety; better disclosure of auto manufacturers’

safety engineering efforts; and the creation of a
department of transportation. It is a mark of Nader’s
foresight and determination that all of those goals
were achieved in the decades foll owing the
publishing of Unsafe at Any Speed.
CROSS REFERENCE
Nader, Ralph.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
446 AUTOMOBILES
auto accidents result from mechanical failure,
and of those that do, most are caused by poor
maintenance, not inadequate design or con-
struction. Other analysts assert that safety
regulations cause a phenomenon known as
“offsetting behavior.” According to this theory,
people will drive more dangerously because they
know their risk of injury is lower, pu tting
themselves, their passengers, and other drivers,
passengers, and pedestrians at greater risk and
thereby offsetting the gain in safety caused by
stricter manufacturing standards.
The NHTSA may also authorize recalls of
cars on the road that it deems are safety hazards.
In a recall, the federal government mandate s
that a manufacturer must repair all the vehicles
that it has made that have a specific problem.
Between 1976 and 1980 the NHTSA authorized
the recall of more than 39 million vehicles.
Recall is a controversial policy. One problem
with it is that, typically, only 50 percent of auto

owners respond to recall notices.
All of these manufacturing requirements,
coupled with high labor costs and union
demands, foreign imports, rising oil prices and
a host of other excuses finally created the perfect
storm, manifesting in the near-collapse of the
U.S. auto industry in 2008. Almost all auto-
makers lost money in 2008, though the so-
called Big Three of General Motors, Ford, and
Chrysler were hit hardest. When executives with
these companies approached Congress for
bailout money, the business strategies of these
companies came into question. Though the
government eventually agreed to provide the
loans these companies requested, the loans
came with a steep price: unprecedented govern-
ment oversight of the automotive industry.
For years, the major American automakers
had focused on larger vehicles such as trucks and
SUVs. There were several reasons for this. First,
demand for these types of vehicles remained
fairly constant among U.S. consumers. Second,
the cost of producing these types of vehicles was
less than the cost of producing more fuel-
efficient passenger cars. And third, because of the
lower manufacturing costs, the profit margins of
these larger vehicles were greater than the profit
margins of typical passenger cars.
Each of the Big Three found themselves on
the verge of

BANKRUPTCY and began to lobby
Congress for bailout loans that would help the
companies survive the crisis. In September
2008 Congress and President
GEORGE W. BUSH
approved $25 billion in loans to the auto-
makers. The plan for these loans had been in the
works for some time, but the need became more
pressing with the dire economic news. The
terms included a generously low interest rate
(estimated at about 4 percent) and no payments
for five years.
Even with these loans, executives of the Big
Three said that the corporations needed more
assistance to survive. A collapse of any of these
companies could result in the loss of some two
million jobs, which would further drive the
economy downward.
In December, Congress agreed to $17.4
billion in loan s to the automakers that came out
of a $700 billion bailout package authorized two
months earlier. Despite the availability of
money from these loans, Chrysler and General
Motors continued to suffer. By the spring of
2009, however, Ford executives said that the
company had enough credit that it may not
need to take its part of the loans.
As the automakers continued to struggle,
President
BARACK OBAMA announced a n alternative

strategy to his original car czar proposal. In
February 2009, he announced the formation of
a t ask force that would o versee the bailout of
Chrysler and General Motors and oversee any
mergers, reorganizations, or manufacturing deals
in an effort to save the industry from further collapse.
Emissions Standards Emissions standards are
intended to reduce the amount of pollution
coming from a car’s exhaust system. Autos
are major contributors to
AIR POLLUTION. Some
cities, such as Los Angeles, have notorious
problems with smog, a situation that can cause
serious health problems for those with respirato-
ry problems such as asthma and bronchitis. Air
pollution also damages plants, reduces crop
yields, lowers visibility, and causes acid rain. In
1970, Congress passed the
CLEAN AIR ACT Amend-
ments (Pub. L. No. 91-604, 84 Stat. 1676–1713
[42 U.S.C.A. § 7403 et seq. (1995)]), which set
an ambitious goal of eliminating, by 1975, 90 to
95 percent of the emissions of hydrocarbons,
carbon monoxide, and oxides of nitrogen as
measured in 1968 automobiles. Manufacturers
did not meet the target date for achieving this goal,
and the deadline was extended. Also, the new
emissions standards caused problems because they
reduced fuel economy and vehicle performance.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION

AUTOMOBILES 447