Police violated an Arizona man's constitutional rights when they searched his car after he had already been handcuffed and put in a patrol car, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on April 21.

Rodney Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended license, handcuffed and put in the back of a patrol car. Police searched his car and discovered cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on the backseat. He was sentenced to three years in prison.

Gant appealed, arguing that the search was unconstitutional because he posed no threat to the officers after he was handcuffed in the patrol car.

The state contended that the search was justified as incident to his arrest. The Arizona Supreme Court, however, held that the search was unreasonable.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed, saying that because Gant could not have accessed his car to retrieve weapons or evidence at the time of the search, the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement did not justify the search.

The 5-4 ruling narrows the Court's 1981 decision in New York v. Belton (453 U.S. 454), which has been widely interpreted as allowing a vehicle search after an occupant is arrested – even if there is no possibility that the arrestee could reach his vehicle at the time of the search.

Jeffrey L. Fisher, a professor at Stanford Law School who wrote an amicus brief on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, praised the decision as "a return to reality."

"For the past couple of decades, police have understood Belton to give them a blank check to search a car any time they arrest somebody who was driving or recently inside a car," said Fisher. "So, not only did it create rummaging expeditions for evidence when they pulled people over, but it's given police an excuse to arrest people when they would not have done so because it allowed them to conduct these broad-ranging searches."

The ruling makes it clear, he said, that a warrantless search can be justified only if it is necessary to protect an officer's safety or prevent the destruction of evidence.

William Foreman, a solo criminal defense lawyer in Scottsdale, said the ruling addresses a "common police tactic."

"The importance of this case is it really narrows the scope of what police can do before they search," he said. "Before they can go in that car and look through your jacket pockets, there needs to be a definable reason for it."

Search unreasonable

In an opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court said that Belton does not authorize a vehicle search incident to an occupant's arrest after the arrestee has been secured and can't reach the vehicle.

"Construing Belton broadly to allow vehicle searches incident to any arrest would serve no purpose except to provide a police entitlement and it is anathema to the Fourth Amendment to permit a warrantless search on that basis," Justice Stevens wrote. "[W]e are unpersuaded by the state's arguments that a broad reading of Belton would meaningfully further law enforcement interests and justify a substantial intrusion on individual's privacy."

The court concluded: "Police may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant's arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. When these justifications are absent, a search of an arrestee's vehicle will be unreasonable unless police obtain a warrant or show that another exception to the warrant requirement applies."

In an unusual alignment of the court, Stevens was joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, David Souter, Clarence Thomas and Ruther Bader Ginsburg. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito dissented.

In the dissenting opinion, Justice Alito wrote that the ruling "will cause the suppression of evidence gathered in many searches carried out in good-faith reliance on well-settled case law."

To read the full text of this opinion go to http://lawyersusaonline.com/wp-files/pdfs/gant.pdf

-Nora Lockwood Tooher is a reporter for Lawyers USA, a Dolan Media Company publication.