# New York v. Belton

> Supreme Court of the United States · September 23, 1981 · 453 U.S. 454

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428489

## Case

- **Full name:** New York v. Belton
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** September 23, 1981
- **Citations:** 453 U.S. 454; 101 S. Ct. 2860; 69 L. Ed. 2d 768; 1981 U.S. LEXIS 13
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Rehnquist
- **Judges:** Stewart, Burger, Blackmun, Powell, Rehnquist, Stevens, Brennan, White, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 2,937 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Reported abrogated by Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009) — not on the Supreme Court's list.
- Negative treatments: 9
- Distinguished by: 12
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428489

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that when an officer makes a lawful custodial arrest of the occupants of an automobile he may, as incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of the vehicle and may also examine the contents of any container found within the passenger compartment. Contain…
- holding that police may search the passenger compartment of a car incident to a lawful arrest under principle that a search of the area within the "immediate control of the arrestee" may occur and noting "articles inside the relatively narrow compass of the passenger compartme…
- holding “[s]uch a container may, of course, be searched whether it is open or closed, since the justification for the search is not that the arrestee has no privacy interest in the container, but that the lawful custodial arrest justifies the infringement of any privacy intere…
- holding that “when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile” and “examine the contents of any containers found within the passenger…
- holding that ________ ______ after policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, "examine the contents of any containers," including glove compartments, found within the passenger compartment

## Opinion text

Justice Rehnquist,
concurring.
Because it is apparent that a majority of the Court is unwilling to overrule Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961), and because the Court does not find it necessary to consider the “automobile exception” in its disposition of this case, ante, at 462-463, n. 6, see Robbins v. California, ante, p. 437 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting), I join the opinion of the Court.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9428489. Public record. Not legal advice.
