Supreme Court limits warrantless vehicle searches near homes

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Associated Press

Supreme Court limits warrantless vehicle searches near homes

By MARK SHERMAN
5 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court is putting limits on the ability of police to search vehicles when they do not have a search warrant.

The court sided 8-1 Tuesday with a Virginia man who complained that police walked onto his driveway and pulled back a tarp covering his motorcycle, which turned out to be stolen. They acted without a warrant, relying on a line of Supreme Court cases generally allowing police to search a vehicle without a warrant. ... The justices said the automobile exception does not apply when searching vehicles parked adjacent to a home.

The court ruled in the case of Ryan Collins, who was arrested at the home of his girlfriend in Charlottesville, Virginia. Collins had twice eluded police in high-speed chases in which he rode an orange and black motorcycle. ... The authorities used Collins' Facebook page to eventually track the motorcycle to his girlfriend's home.

Collins argued that police improperly entered private property uninvited and without a warrant.
....

The case is Collins v. Virginia, 16-1027.

Read more: https://apnews.com/df56586023b6414ba89d0519ae39839c

---

KneelBeforeHat Retweeted: https://twitter.com/Popehat

SCOTUS holds 8-1 in Collins v. Virginia that car parked in driveway is not part of the "curtilage" so warrrantless search invalid. Sotomayor writes, Thomas concurs, Alito dissents.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1027_7lio.pdf ...

Link to tweet

-- -- --

"Is not part of the 'curtilage'" is a typo. He meant to say "is part of the cultilage."

Thomas concurs; Alito dissents. How often does that happen?

-- -- --

Wow, Alito's dissenting opinion here, from top to bottom, is just uncharacteristically awful.

"We have also observed that the owner of
an automobile has a diminished expectation of privacy in
its contents."

Huh? Previous erosion of privacy justifies more of the same?

Link to tweet

There's also this bizarre burden of "harm" that gets injected into the reasoning:

"Nor does the Court claim that Officer Rhodes's short
walk up the driveway did petitioner or his girlfriend any
harm."

Again, so what? The 4th amendment is about search and seizure, not vandalism.

Link to tweet

[FBaggins]

1. Makes sense

If the vehicle is on my property then it's like anything else there... you need a warrant unless you can see something illegal in plain sight.

I'm surprised that it wasn't 9-0

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. More links:

Last edited Tue May 29, 2018, 11:50 AM - Edit history (1)

Live blog of orders and opinions (Update: Completed)

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-1027_7lio.pdf

https://twitter.com/scotusreporter

Supreme Court Rules 8-1 Against Warrantless Police Search in Important Fourth Amendment Case

SCOTUS rejects warrantless search of vehicle parked in the "curtilage" of private home.

Damon Root|May. 29, 2018 11:30 am
....

Fourth Amendment advocates scored a victory today when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against a warrantless police search that involved an officer entering private property for the purpose of examining a motorcycle stored under a tarp in the driveway near a home. "In physically intruding on the curtilage of {Ryan Austin} Collins' home to search the motorcycle," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority in Collins v. Virginia, the officer "not only invaded Collins' Fourth Amendment interest in the item searched, i.e., the motorcycle, but also invaded Collins' Fourth Amendment interest in the curtilage of his home."

The central question before the Supreme Court in Collins v. Virginia was whether the so-called automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment, which allows the police certain latitude to search vehicles on public streets without a warrant, also allows the police to walk up a driveway without a warrant and search a vehicle parked in the area near a house. The Court ruled 8-1 that the automobile exception should not apply in this scenario.
....

This clash over the meaning of the Fourth Amendment should come as little surprise. Since joining the Supreme Court in 2009, Justice Sotomayor has distinguished herself as both a leading critic of police misconduct and an outspoken advocate of Fourth Amendment rights. Justice Alito, by contrast, has emerged as perhaps the Court's most dependable voice in support of law enforcement in such cases.

Today's decision will not be the last time that Sotomayor and Alito stand on opposite sides of a Fourth Amendment dispute.

[elleng]

3. Alito's my least favorite,

sounds like an interesting combo, Sotom + + Thomas concur!

[FBaggins]

4. Actually... you might be surprised

They actually agree with each other on the decision (if not always the rationale) about twice as often as they disagree.

[elleng]

5. Thanks; I really should follow more closely.

[7962]

7. But "agreement" never makes the news! The news folks always want dissent & animosity. nt

[bucolic_frolic]

6. They are allowing us the sanctity of our homes

to some degree

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Believe it or not, they are channeling Scalia

because this was one of his pet peeves.

Scalia gets it right
In a case involving a search by a drug-sniffing dog, the Supreme Court sides with the homeowner.
March 27, 2013|By the Los Angeles Times editorial board

<...>

But when it comes to the 4th Amendment's more specific protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, Scalia has been a strong voice for individual rights. That was the case again Tuesday. Writing for a 5-4 majority, Scalia came down hard on police in Florida who, without having obtained a warrant, deployed a drug-sniffing dog at a homeowner's front door.

Acting on an unverified tip that Joelis Jardines was growing marijuana, Miami-Dade police had Franky, a Labrador retriever trained to detect marijuana, sniff around the base of Jardines' front door. Only after Franky gave them the signal they were looking for did they obtain a warrant. Jardines was charged with trafficking in more than 25 pounds of marijuana and stealing the electricity needed to grow it. But the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the evidence had to be tossed out because Franky's olfactory investigation was an illegal search.

In affirming that decision, Scalia said it was well-established Anglo American law that the protection of the home against unreasonable searches extends to the area "immediately surrounding his house." Nor did it matter that the law allows visitors to approach the front door of a house. "An invitation to engage in canine forensic investigation assuredly does not inhere in the very act of hanging a knocker," Scalia wrote. "To find a visitor knocking on the door is routine (even if sometimes unwelcome); to spot that same visitor exploring the front path with a metal detector, or marching his bloodhound into the garden before saying hello and asking permission, would inspire most of us to — well, call the police."

Welcome as Scalia's decision is, it was narrower than we would have liked. In deciding whether police have engaged in an unreasonable search, the court has employed two tests. The one cited by Scalia in this case involves whether there has been a trespass on private property. But in 1967, the court adopted a broader definition of an illegal search when it ruled that the 4th Amendment was violated when police affixed a wiretap to the outside of a telephone booth being used by a gambler. What mattered, wrote Justice John Marshall Harlan in that case, was whether the suspect had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/27/opinion/la-ed-warrant-supreme-court-20130327

[Hulk]

9. Points out to me that we have some real idiots on the bench in the Supreme Court.

Normally I would put Thomas on that category, but I think Alito just exposed himself as an idiot as well. Granted, it's become such a partisan bench of classless ideologues, but it's as if basic logic escapes Alito in this one. What a sad day for the whole US government, right up to the Supreme Court. Nine men and women, and half of them are worthless when it comes to the future of this country.

[getagrip_already]

10. Really? Took you this long? ;)

Sorry, couldn't resist. Nothing personal.

[MichMan]

11. Do the police now have to return the stolen motorcycle to him?

Since the entire search was ruled illegal, does he get to keep it?

[NutmegYankee]

13. No.

Bike will be returned to proper owner, but case against him for possession of stolen property is probably dead.

[DeminPennswoods]

12. Since the cops found the evidence on facebook

that this was the motorcycle used in the crimes, why didn't they just get a valid search warrant? To me, this just seems like lazy police work.