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. Container here denotes any object capable of holding another object. It thus includes closed or open glove compartments, consoles, or other receptacles located anywhere within the passenger compartment.
How later courts described this case
- 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. Container here denotes any object capable of holding another object. It thus includes closed or open glove compartments, consoles, or other receptacles located anywhere within the passenger compartment.
- 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 compartment ... are in fact generally, even if not inevitably, within `the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m]'"
- 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 interest the arrestee may have.”
- 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 compartment”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Reported abrogated by Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009) — not on the Supreme Court's list
453 U.S. 454, 462-63 (1981), limited by Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332
Reported abrogated by Davis v. United States, 180 L. Ed. 2d 285 (2011) — not on the Supreme Court's list
453 U.S. 454 , 460-461 n.4, 101 S.Ct. 2860 , 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981), overruled on other grounds by Davis v. United States , 564 U.S. 229 , 131 S.Ct. 2419 , 180 L.Ed.2d 285
Questioned by State v. McElrath, 569 S.W.3d 565 (2019)
During the pendency of the criminal case, the United States Supreme Court *573released its opinion in Arizona v. Gant , 556 U.S. 332, 129 S.Ct. 1710, 173 L.Ed.2d 485 (2009), which called into question the Belton decision.
Criticized by State v. Williams, 22924 (4-3-2009), 2009 Ohio 1627 (2009)
Belton has been widely criticized and, we believe, for good reason.
Declined to follow by State v. Brown, 63 Ohio St. 3d 349 (1992)
If Belton does stand for the proposition that a police officer may conduct a detailed search of an automobile solely because he has arrested one of its occupants, on any charge, we decline to adopt its rule.3 As Justice Stevens pointed out, this rule permits an extensive search based on facts that could never support a warrant because of the lack of probable cause.
Declined to follow by State v. Drott, 412 So. 2d 984 (1982)
In State v. Hernandez, 410 So.2d 1381 (La.1981), we noted that the rule of New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 2860, 69 L.Ed.2d 768 (1981) has been criticized by jurists and scholars and, more importantly, it is not a proper rule of police conduct under our state constitution in view of its explicitly broader guarantees of individual liberty and privacy.
and 3 more.
Distinguished
Distinguished by People v. Mungo, 295 Mich. App. 537 (2012)
We find no merit in defendant’s argument that Belton is distinguishable from the present case and ought not be applied under these circumstances.... [A]s noted by Justice Rehnquist in Belton, supra at 463 (Rehnquist, J., concurring), the majority did not rest its decision on the automobile exception [to the warrant requirement].
Distinguished by Davis v. United States, 131 S. Ct. 2419 (2011)
Moreover, as a practical matter, defense counsel in many cases will test this Cuurt’s Fourth Amendment precedents in the same way that Belton was tested in Gant — by arguing that the precedent is distinguishable.
Distinguished by State v. Gant, 213 Ariz. 446 (2006)
¶ 18 Belton is readily distinguishable for several other reasons as well.
Distinguished by State v. Gant, 202 Ariz. 240 (2002)
¶ 10 We agree with the holding of United States v. Strahan, 984 F.2d 155 (6th Cir.1993), in which the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that Belton was inapplicable to a situation in which an arrestee had been apprehended approximately thirty feet from his automobile because the police had not initiated contact with him until that time and, therefore, he was not an occupant of the vehicle.
The opinion
Justice White,
with whom Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.
In Robbins v. California, ante, p. 420, it was held that a wrapped container in the trunk of a car could not be searched without a warrant even though the trunk itself could be searched without a warrant because there was probable cause to search the car and even though there was probable cause to search the container as well. This was because of the separate interest in privacy with respect to the container. The Court now holds that as incident to the arrest of the driver or any other person in an automobile, the interior of the car and any container found therein, whether locked or not, may be not only seized but also searched even absent probable cause to believe that contraband or evidence of crime will be found. As to luggage, briefcases, or other containers, this seems to me an extreme extension of Chimel and one to which I cannot subscribe. Even if the decision in Robbins had been otherwise and United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1 (1977), and Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753 (1979), had been overruled, luggage found in the trunk of a car could not be searched without probable cause to believe it contained contraband or evidence. Here, searches of luggage, briefcases, and other containers in the interior of an auto are authorized in the absence of any suspicion whatsoever that they contain anything in which the police have a legitimate interest. This calls for more caution than the Court today exhibits, and, with respect, I dissent.