holding that a traffic–violation arrest remains valid despite the fact that it was a mere pretext for a narcotics search and that a lawful post-arrest search of the person remains valid even if it was not motivated by the officer–safety concern Cause No. 03-15-00098-CR 9 Brian Vincent Robinson v. The State of Texas Brief of Appellant that justifies such searches
How later courts described this case
- holding that a traffic–violation arrest remains valid despite the fact that it was a mere pretext for a narcotics search and that a lawful post-arrest search of the person remains valid even if it was not motivated by the officer–safety concern Cause No. 03-15-00098-CR 9 Brian Vincent Robinson v. The State of Texas Brief of Appellant that justifies such searches
- explaining that police authority to search person incident to lawful arrest "does not depend on what a court may later decide was the probability in a particular arrest situation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found on the person of the suspect” because "[i]t is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search”
- reasoning, in the context of a search incident to arrest where the officer was not searching for evidence of the crime, that it was immaterial that the arresting officer did not have “any subjective fear of the respondent or that he did not himself suspect that respondent was armed”
- holding that a traffic violation arrest would not be rendered invalid merely because it was a pretext for a narcotics search, and further, that a lawful post-arrest search of a person would not be *418 rendered invalid merely because it was not motivated by officer-safety concerns
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Questioned by United States v. Scopo, 814 F. Supp. 292 (1993)
414 U.S. 218, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973), which cast doubt on the conclusion that “usual police practices” are constitutionally insignificant under
Declined to follow by State v. K.C., 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 18084 (2016)
We therefore decline to extend Robinson to searches of data on cell phones, and hold instead that officers must generally secure a warrant before conducting such a search.
Distinguished
Distinguished by The People v. Graham Reid, 24 N.Y.3d 615 (2014)
The incident to arrest exception is a “bright-line rule” that does not depend on whether there is a threat of harm to the officer or destruction of evidence in a particular case (id. at 118; Robinson, 414 US at 235) — but the rule is inapplicable to cases that fall, as does this one, outside the bright line.
Distinguished by Smallwood v. State, 38 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 271 (2013)
The bases upon which the dissent relies to disagree with our conclusion that Robinson is distinguishable from the issue we address today are highly dubious.
Distinguished by United States v. Maddox, 614 F.3d 1046 (2010)
Robinson, however, is easily distinguishable from the case before us; the search of Maddox’s key chain was not a valid search incident to arrest as the key chain was not on Maddox’s person at the time of the search.
Distinguished by United States v. Device, 641 F.2d 1289 (1981)
The exception permitting warrantless search of the person and immediate surroundings of someone arrested, United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 224, 94 S.Ct. 467, 471, 38 L.Ed.2d 427 (1973), is inapplicable here because appellant was not arrested.
The opinion
Mr. Justice Powell,
concurring. *
Although I join the opinions of the Court, I write briefly to emphasize what seems to me to be the essential premise of our decisions.
The Fourth Amendment safeguards the right of “the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . These are areas of an individual’s life about which he entertains legitimate expectations of privacy. I believe that an individual lawfully subjected to a custodial arrest retains no significant Fourth Amendment interest in the privacy of his person. Under this view the custodial arrest is the significant intrusion of state power into the privacy of one’s person. If the arrest is lawful, the privacy interest guarded by the Fourth Amendment is subordinated to a legitimate and overriding governmental concern. No reason then exists to frustrate law enforcement by requiring some independent justification for a search incident to a lawful custodial arrest. This seems to me the reason that a valid arrest justifies a full search of the person, even if that search is not narrowly limited by the twin rationales of seizing evidence and disarming the arrestee. 1 The search incident to arrest *238 is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment because the privacy interest protected by that constitutional guarantee is legitimately abated by the fact of arrest. 2
This opinion also applies to No. 71-1669, Gustafson v. Florida, post, p. 260.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit aptly stated this rationale in Charles v. United States, 278 F. 2d 386, 388-389 (1960): “Power over the body of the accused is the essence of his arrest; the two cannot be separated. To say that the police may curtail the liberty of the accused but refrain from impinging upon the sanctity of his pockets except for enumerated reasons is to *238 ignore the custodial duties which devolve upon arresting authorities. Custody must of necessity be asserted initially over whatever the arrested party has in his possession at the time of apprehension. Once the body of the accused is validly subjected to the physical dominion of the law, inspections of his person, regardless of purpose, cannot be deemed unlawful, unless they violate the dictates of reason either because of their number or their manner of perpetration.” (Citation omitted.)
In Gustafson, post, p. 260, the petitioner conceded the validity of the custodial arrest, although that conclusion was not as self-evident as in Robinson. Gustafson would have presented a different question if the petitioner could have proved that he was taken into custody only to afford a pretext for a search actually undertaken for collateral objectives. But no such question is before us.