# California v. Acevedo

> Supreme Court of the United States · June 3, 1991 · 500 U.S. 565

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432310

## Case

- **Full name:** California v. Acevedo
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** June 3, 1991
- **Citations:** 500 U.S. 565; 111 S. Ct. 1982; 114 L. Ed. 2d 619; 1991 U.S. LEXIS 3016
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by White
- **Judges:** Blackmun, Rehnquist, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Scalia, White, Stevens, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 1,249 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Declined to follow by State v. Savva, 159 Vt. 75 (1992).
- Negative treatments: 2
- Distinguished by: 2
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432310

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- stating that "a warrantless search of an automobile, based upon probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained evidence of crime in light of an exigency arising out of the likely disappearance of the vehicle, [does] not contravene the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment"
- stating that “ ‘searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment-subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions’ ”
- holding that “the police may search an automobile and the containers within it where 5 they have probable cause to believe contraband or evidence is contained”
- holding that, under the automobile exception, officers may search inside a closed container that is in a vehicle if they have probable cause to search the container, even if they “lack probable cause to search the entire car”
- stating that the Ross decision was supported by "practical consider ations that apply to searches in which the police have only generalized probable cause to believe that contraband is somewhere in a . vehicle.”

## Opinion text

Justice White,
dissenting.
Agreeing as I do with most of Justice Stevens’ opinion and with the result he reaches, I dissent and would affirm the judgment below.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9432310. Public record. Not legal advice.