# Commonwealth v. Gary

> Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · April 29, 2014 · 625 Pa. 183

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4968782

## Case

- **Full name:** COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania v. Shiem GARY
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** April 29, 2014
- **Citations:** 625 Pa. 183; 91 A.3d 102; 2014 Pa. LEXIS 1119; 2014 WL 1686766
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Saylor
- **Judges:** Baer, Castille, Eakin, McCaffery, Melvin, Orie, Saylor, Todd
- **Cited by:** 251 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4968782

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that the warrantless seizure of a vehicle requires that the police have probable cause
- holding that police officers may conduct a warrantless search of a motor vehicle in Pennsylvania when there is probable cause to do so, with no exigency required beyond the inherent mobility of a motor vehicle
- holding that the smell of marijuana provides probable cause to search
- noting the “undeniable fact that our society has undergone a sweeping technological revolution over the many years which have elapsed since the time of the federal decisions on which the [Gary] plurality opinion relies, seriously undermining the viability of their use as gover…

## Opinion text

Justice SAYLOR,
concurring.
As reflected in the lead opinion, this Court has obviously had difficulty for quite some time in managing the appropriate contours of the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. Although I have some reservations, for the sake of certainty and consistency, I join the lead Justices in adopting the federal automobile exception.
I do wish to observe, however, that I find inconsistency in the courts’ rejection of bright-line rules restraining law enforcement as a means of protecting individual rights, 1 while simultaneously embracing such rules when they facilitate law enforcement, see OAJC, at 124, 136-37. *139 For my own part, I believe there would be benefit in maintaining some clear and appropriate boundaries operating in both directions. Accord Perez, 577 Pa. at 381-82, 845 A.2d at 792 (Saylor, J., concurring and dissenting) (concurring in the abandonment of one such bright-line rule protective of defendants’ rights only because it had been consistently undermined by exceptions).
. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Revere, 585 Pa. 262, 281 , 888 A.2d 694, 707 (2005) (quoting the United States Supreme Court for the proposition that "we have consistently eschewed bright-line rules [in the Fourth Amendment context], instead emphasizing the fact-specific nature of the reasonableness inquiry” (citation omitted)); Commonwealth v. Perez, 577 Pa. 360 , 845 A.2d 779 (2004) (overruling previous decisions which had implemented a 6-hour rule governing the admissibility of pre-arraignment confessions, inter alia, as a means of protecting defendants’ rights to be free from unreasonable seizure of their persons).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/4968782. Public record. Not legal advice.