angelatc
05-30-2018, 12:10 PM
http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/05/opinion-analysis-justices-decline-to-extend-fourth-amendments-automobile-exception/
TLDR: SCOTUS says cops needed a warrant to search a motorcycle parked in a driveway.
Excerpted:
The Fourth Amendment normally requires police to have a warrant to conduct a search. But one exception to that general rule, known as the “automobile exception,” was at the heart of this case: It allows police to search a car without a warrant if the car is “readily mobile” and they have probable cause to believe that it contains evidence of a crime. But the justices today ruled that the exception does not justify an intrusion on the “curtilage” of a home – the area immediately surrounding the house, where residents expect privacy.
In a near-unanimous decision authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court began by making clear that the driveway where Collins’ motorcycle was parked was part of the curtilage protected by the Fourth Amendment. The court then explained that the justification for the automobile exception doesn’t consider a resident’s privacy interest in his home and its curtilage at all; rather, the rationale rests on the twin ideas that cars can easily be moved and are subject to regulation simply by virtue of being on the roads. None of the Supreme Court’s cases, the court continued, indicates that the automobile exception allows a police officer to enter the home or its curtilage without a warrant to search a vehicle – if anything, the court has emphasized the need to treat “automobiles differently from houses.” “Given the centrality of the Fourth Amendment interest in the home and its curtilage and the disconnect between that interest and the justifications behind the automobile exception,” the court concluded, “we decline Virginia’s invitation to extend the automobile exception to permit a warrantless intrusion on a home or its curtilage.”
Justice Samuel Alito was the court’s lone dissenter. He emphasized that if the motorcycle had been parked at the curb instead of in the driveway, the officer would not have needed a warrant. So why should the officer need one, Alito queried, to “walk 30 feet or so up the driveway”? “An ordinary person of common sense,” Alito suggested, “would react to the Court’s decision the way” a Charles Dickens character “famously responded when told about a legal rule that did not comport with the reality of everyday life. If that is the law, he exclaimed, ‘the law is a ass—a idiot.’” Moreover, Alito added, the only real question in the case is whether the officer’s search of the motorcycle was reasonable – which, in his opinion, it was.
By all means, do not click on this and read the whole thing before commenting: http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/05/opinion-analysis-justices-decline-to-extend-fourth-amendments-automobile-exception/
TLDR: SCOTUS says cops needed a warrant to search a motorcycle parked in a driveway.
Excerpted:
The Fourth Amendment normally requires police to have a warrant to conduct a search. But one exception to that general rule, known as the “automobile exception,” was at the heart of this case: It allows police to search a car without a warrant if the car is “readily mobile” and they have probable cause to believe that it contains evidence of a crime. But the justices today ruled that the exception does not justify an intrusion on the “curtilage” of a home – the area immediately surrounding the house, where residents expect privacy.
In a near-unanimous decision authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court began by making clear that the driveway where Collins’ motorcycle was parked was part of the curtilage protected by the Fourth Amendment. The court then explained that the justification for the automobile exception doesn’t consider a resident’s privacy interest in his home and its curtilage at all; rather, the rationale rests on the twin ideas that cars can easily be moved and are subject to regulation simply by virtue of being on the roads. None of the Supreme Court’s cases, the court continued, indicates that the automobile exception allows a police officer to enter the home or its curtilage without a warrant to search a vehicle – if anything, the court has emphasized the need to treat “automobiles differently from houses.” “Given the centrality of the Fourth Amendment interest in the home and its curtilage and the disconnect between that interest and the justifications behind the automobile exception,” the court concluded, “we decline Virginia’s invitation to extend the automobile exception to permit a warrantless intrusion on a home or its curtilage.”
Justice Samuel Alito was the court’s lone dissenter. He emphasized that if the motorcycle had been parked at the curb instead of in the driveway, the officer would not have needed a warrant. So why should the officer need one, Alito queried, to “walk 30 feet or so up the driveway”? “An ordinary person of common sense,” Alito suggested, “would react to the Court’s decision the way” a Charles Dickens character “famously responded when told about a legal rule that did not comport with the reality of everyday life. If that is the law, he exclaimed, ‘the law is a ass—a idiot.’” Moreover, Alito added, the only real question in the case is whether the officer’s search of the motorcycle was reasonable – which, in his opinion, it was.
By all means, do not click on this and read the whole thing before commenting: http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/05/opinion-analysis-justices-decline-to-extend-fourth-amendments-automobile-exception/