Case Information
*1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA THE PEOPLE,
Plaintiff and Appellant, v.
MARIA ELENA LOPEZ, Defendant and Respondent.
S238627 Third Appellate District C078537
Yolo County Superior Court CRF143400
November 25, 2019 Justice Kruger authored the opinion of the Court, in which Justices Liu, Cuéllar, and Groban concurred.
Justice Chin filed a dissenting opinion, in which Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye and Justice Corrigan concurred.
S238627
Acting on an anonymous tip about a motorist’ s erratic driving, a police officer approached defendant Maria Elena Lopez after she parked and exited her car. When the officer asked if she had a driver’s license, she said she did not . Police then detained her for unlicensed driving and, without asking her name, searched the car for Lopez’s personal identification. They found methamphetamine in a purse sitting on the front passenger’s seat.
The trial court held the search was invalid under
Arizona
v. Gant
(2009)
We granted review to consider the application and continuing validity of the rule in light of subsequent legal developments. At the time was decided, no other state or federal court had recognized an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement for suspicion less traffic-stop vehicle searches. The same holds true today; California remains the only state to have recognized such an exception. Considering the issue in light of more recent decisions from both the United States Supreme Court and our sister states, we now conclude that the desire to obtain a driver’s identification following a traffic stop does not constitute an independent, categorical exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. To the extent held otherwise, we conclude that rule should no longer be followed. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remand for further proceedings.
I. On the morning of July 4, 2014, City of Woodland Police Officer Jeff Moe responded to an anonymous tip concerning erratic driving. The tip described the car, a dark-colored Toyota, and the area in which it was driving. Unable to locate the vehicle, Officer Moe asked dispatch to run a computer search of the license plate, then drove by the address where the car was registered. Not seeing the vehicle, he resumed his duties.
Around 1:30 p.m., Officer Moe received a second anonymous report concerning the same car. The tipster identified the car ’s location and asserted the driver, whom the tipster identified as “Marlena,” “had been drinking all day.” Again unable to locate the car, Officer Moe returned to the address where the car was registered. This time, he parked and waited. A few minutes later, defendant Maria Elena Lopez drove up and parked in front of the house.
Moe did not observe any traffic violations or erratic driving. But believing the driver to be “ Marlena, ” Officer Moe approached the car. Moe testified at the suppression hearing that Lopez saw him, looked nervous, got out of the car, and began walking away from him. Moe did not smell alcohol or note any other signs of intoxication. But because he “wanted to know what her driving status was based on the allegations earlier, plus [he] wanted to identify who she was,” Moe asked Lopez if she had a driver’s license. Lopez said that she did not. Without asking Lopez for her name or other identifying information, Moe detained her by placing her in a control hold. When Lopez tried to pull away, Moe handcuffed her.
Officer Moe then asked Lopez “if she had . . . any identification possibly within the vehicle. ” When Lopez responded “there might be,” a second officer on the scene opened the passenger door, retrieved a small purse from the passenger seat, and handed it to Moe. Moe then searched the purse and found a baggie containing methamphetamine in a side pocket.
Lopez was charged with misdemeanor violations of possessing methamphetamine (Health & Saf. Code, § 11377, subd. (a)) and driving when her license to drive had been suspended or revoked (Veh. Code, § 14601.2, subd. (a)). She filed a motion to suppress evidence (Pen. Code, § 1538.5, subd. (a)(1)), arguing she had been unlawfully detained and her purse unlawfully searched.
The trial court granted the suppression motion. The court concluded the initial contact between Lopez and Officer Moe after she exited her vehicle was consensual. Once Lopez told Moe she did not have a license, the officer also had probable cause to detain and arrest her for driving without a valid license. (See Veh. Code, § 12500, subd. (a) [“ A person may not drive a motor vehicle upon a highway, unless the person then holds a valid driver’s license issued under this code”] .) But the trial court concluded that the ensuing search of Lopez’s vehicle was invalid because neither of the justifications for conducting a vehicle search incident to arrest under Gant , , 556 U.S. 332, was present. Gant held that a vehicle search incident to arrest is justified only if it is reasonable to believe the suspect can gain access to weapons inside the vehicle or that evidence of the offense of arrest might be found inside the vehicle. ( Id. at p. 335.) Here, Lopez was handcuffed at the rear of her car when the search took place and could not reach any weapons inside the car. Nor was there any likelihood a search of the car would produce eviden ce of Lopez’s driving without a license in her possession. With the evidence suppressed, the trial court dismissed the case.
The Court of Appeal reversed the suppression ruling. The
appellate court explained that
Gant
was not applicable because
Lopez had not been formally arrested, only detained, at the time
of the search. (
People v. Lopez
(2016)
We granted review.
II.
A.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” In general, a law
enforcement officer is required to obtain a warrant before
conducting a search. (
Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton
(1995)
In , , 27 Cal.4th 60, we considered the existence and scope of an exception permitting officers to conduct a warrantless vehicle search when a driver pulled over for a traffic infraction is unable to produce the required documentation in response to an officer’s request . involved two consolidated cases in which law enforcement officers had detained drivers for traffic infractions and the drivers could produce neither a driver’s license nor the vehicle’s registration in response to the officers’ requests . In one case, the officer entered the defendant’s truck and reached under the driver’s seat. The officer did not locate any relevant documents but did discover a box that later was found to contain methamphetamine. In the other case, the officer entered the defendant’s car and looked first in the glove compartment and then under the front passenger seat, finding a wallet that contained a baggie of methamphetamine. ( Arturo D. , at pp. 65 – 67.)
Arturo D.
upheld both searches. The opinion concluded
that when a driver has been detained for a traffic infraction and
fails to produce vehicle registration or personal identification
documentation upon request, the Fourth Amendment “permits
limited warrantless searches of areas within a vehicle where
such documentation reasonably may be expected to be found.” (
Arturo D.
, ,
Although
Arturo D.
upheld warrantless searches for both
vehicle registration and personal identification, its reasoning
focused primarily on the former rather than the latter. In
explaining the basis for this exception to the Fourth
Amendment’s warrant requirement, relied heavily on
various California and out-of-state cases upholding warrantless
searches of vehicles for the purpose of locating the vehicle
registration. ( ,
As
Arturo D.
acknowledged, the United States Supreme
Court had previously held that the Fourth Amendment does not
permit law enforcement to search the vehicle of a person who
has been cited, but not arrested, for a traffic violation. (
Knowles
v. Iowa
(1998)
point but distinguished Knowles on the ground that the case concerned a full search of the entire vehicle “ following the issuance of a traffic citation, ” not a search for documentation “ prior to issuing a traffic citation, ” limited to the areas in which actually embraced, directly quoted in the text above, is considerably broader. It extends beyond places a driver might hide identification at the last second; it also includes other places where a driver, not trying to conceal identification, might “store” his or her identification as a matter of routine or habit. ( , , 27 Cal.4th at p. 87.) Thus, containers in which identification might be expected to be kept are subject to search even if they could not have been accessed in the moments when the driver was being pulled over.
such documentation might reasonably be found. (
Arturo D.
,
supra
,
Arturo D. found reassurance in a second high court decision, Class , supra , 475 U.S. 106, in which the court had upheld a traffic-stop search for a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) that had been covered by papers on the ca r’s dashboard. ( Arturo D. , , 27 Cal.4th at pp. 71 – 74; see Class , at pp. 116 – 119.) Class had emphasized law enforcement’s important interest in tracking stolen vehicles and promoting highway safety, drivers’ decreased expectation of privacy when driving automobiles on public roads, and the relatively limited nature of the VIN search. ( Class , at pp. 111 114, 118 – 119; see Arturo D. at p. 72.) Arturo D. concluded that this reasoning and approach was “ not inconsistent ” with approving a limited warrantless search for registration documents or driver identification. ( Arturo D. , at p. 73.)
Three justices dissented from ’s traffic-stop identification-search holding. Although Justice Werdegar agreed with ’s holding as to registration searches, she argued that the logic of the identification-search exception would take officers not only into glove compartments and visors, but also into drivers’ pockets and purses. She saw no adequate justification for granting law enforcement such authority whenever a driver who has committed a traffic infraction fails to produce a license upon request. ( , 27 Cal.4th at pp. 89 91 (conc. & dis. opn. of Werdegar, J.).) Justice Kennard, joined by Justice Brown, opined that granting officers such authority was inconsistent with Knowles , 525 U.S. 113. And d espite the majority’s assurance that the identification-search authority was “limited”— and thus unlike the “full - scale” search invalidated in Knowles ( Arturo D. , at p. 75) — Justice Kennard opined that the exception “may well result in limitless searches throughout a vehicle whenever a driver cannot produce the requisite documentation.” ( at p. 91 (dis. opn. of Kennard, J.).)
B. In this case, police searched a driv er’s purse after detaining her for a traffic violation. This is not a scenario squarely addressed in Although Justice Werdegar’s partial dissent had argued that this is where the logic of the identification-search rule would lead, the majority opinion neither responded to the point nor otherwise directly addressed the application of its rule to these circumstances.
Nevertheless, although Lopez briefly argues otherwise,
there is no real question that the search in this case was
conducted in accordance with ’s general guidance.
Officer Moe approached Lopez as she got out of her car and
asked whether she had a driver’s license. Lopez concedes that
by answering no, she admitted that she had committed, at a
minimum, the traffic infraction of driving a car without physical
possession of a license. (Veh. Code, § 12951, subd. (a).) That
admission gave Officer Moe the authority to detain her for a
reasonable period to determine whether to issue a traffic
citation and to conduct the “ ‘ordinary inquiries incident to [the
traffic] stop,’ ” which generally include verifying the driver’s
identity. (
Rodriguez v. U.S.
(2015)
As the Court of Appeal correctly surmised, the central issue in this case is not whether the search of Lopez’s car was consistent with the guidance given in Arturo D. The issue, rather, is whether to continue to adhere to the rule of , notwithstanding subsequent legal developments casting doubt on the validity of a categorical rule authorizing warrantless vehicle searches whenever a driver stopped for a traffic infraction fails to produce a license or other satisfactory identification documents upon request.
III.
A.
Lopez’s primary argument concerns the effect of the
United States Supreme Court’s 2009 decision in
Gant
,
The question in concerned the scope of the exception
governing vehicle searches incident to the arrest of the driver or
another recent occupant. In
Chimel v. California
(1969) 395
U.S. 752, 762 763, the court had held that law enforcement may
conduct a warrantless search incident to a person’s arrest for
certain safety or evidentiary reasons: specifically, to disarm the
person or to prevent the person from destroying evidence. Some
years later, in
New York v. Belton
(1981)
Belton was “[f]or years . . . widely understood to have set down a simple, bright- line rule” permitting vehicle “ searches incident to arrests of recent occupants, regardless of whether the arrestee in any particular case was within reaching distance of the vehicle at the time of the search.” ( Davis v. United States (2011) 564 U.S. 229, 233.) This trend was exemplified by the facts of Thornton v. United States (2004) 541 U.S. 615 ( Thornton ), a case decided not long after our decision in Arturo D. In Thornton , the court upheld a Belton search for weapons or evidence even though the driver had exited the vehicle before the police encounter and was handcuffed and in the back of a patrol car at the time of the search. ( Thornton , at pp. 617 618.) Rejecting a proposed rule that would limit Belton searches depending on whether police initiated contact with the suspect while he was still in the car or after, the majority opined that the “need for a clear rule, readily understood by police officers . . . justifies the sort of generalization which Belton enunciated.” ( Thornton , at p. 623.) But a number of justices — collectively representing a majority of the court — expressed dissatisfaction with the broad scope of the Belton rule and how it had been applied in the lower courts. (See Thornton , at p. 624 (conc. opn. of O’Connor, J.) ; id. at pp. 625 – 632 (conc. opn. of Scalia, J., joined by Ginsburg, J.); id. at pp. 633 636 (dis. opn. of Stevens, J., joined by Souter, J.).)
The court revisited the issue in
Gant
and this time reached
a different conclusion. The defendant in that case had been
arrested for driving with a suspended license. While he was
handcuffed in the back of a locked patrol car, police officers
searched his vehicle and found drugs. The United States
Supreme Court invalidated the search. The court held that a
Belton
search for weapons or destructible evidence is permitted
only when an arrestee is actually capable of reaching the area
to be searched. (
Gant
,
supra
, 556 U.S. at p. 343 & fn. 4.)
Drawing on Justice Scalia’s
Thornton
concurrence, the court
also allow ed searches for evidence “ ‘relevant to the crime of
arrest’ ”— a justification rooted in historical practice. (
Gant
, at
p. 343, quoting
Thornton
, ,
The high court rejected the state’s argument that a broader, more categorical rule authorizing vehicle searches incident to arrest “ correctly balances law enforcement interests, including the interest in a bright- line rule, with an arrestee’s limited privacy interest in his vehicle.” ( , 556 U.S. at p. 344.) On one side of the balance, the court noted, the argument “seriously undervalues the privacy interests at stake[:] Although we have recognized that a motorist’s privacy interest in his vehicle is less substantial than in his home, see . . . Class , [ supra ,] 475 U.S. [at pp.] 112 – 113 . . . , the former interest is nevertheless important and deserving of constitutional protection, see Knowles , [ ,] 525 U.S.[] at p. 117. It is particularly significant that Belton searches authorize police officers to search not just the passenger compartment but every purse, briefcase, or other container within that space. A rule that gives police the power to conduct such a search whenever an individual is caught committing a traffic offense, when there is no basis for believing evidence of the offense might be found in the vehicle, creates a serious and recurring threat to the privacy of countless individuals. Indeed, the character of that threat implicates the central concern underlying the Fourth Amendment — the concern about giving police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among a person’s private effects.” ( Gant , at pp. 344 345, fn. omitted.)
Turning to the law enforcement interests on the other side
of the balance, the court found little to commend a rule that
permits
Belton
searches regardless of the suspect’s ability to
access the vehicle at the time of the search or the likelihood of
finding offense-related evidence inside. “Construing
Belton
broadly to allow vehicle searches incident to any arrest would
serve no purpose except to provide a police entitlement, and it is
anathema to the Fourth Amendment to permit a warrantless
search on that basis.” (
Gant
,
B.
In cutting back the prevailing understanding of
permissible vehicle searches incident to arrest, neither
considered nor disapproved ’s rule authorizing
prearrest searches for driver identification. That is hardly
surprising: as itself acknowledged, the high court has
never
approved
a prearrest search for identification, either.
( ,
It is important to remember that the question before us is
a question of federal constitutional law, not one of state law. In
matters of federal law, the United States Supreme Court has the
final word; we operate as an intermediate court and not as a
court of last resort. In such matters, although we recognize the
importance of following precedent in our judicial system, we also
recognize that our role in that system sometimes requires us to
reevaluate our precedent in light of new guidance. “W hen
emergent [United States] Supreme Court case law calls into
question a prior opinion of another court, that court should
pause to consider its likely significance before giving effect to an
earlier decision.” (
Carpenters Local Union No. 26 v. U.S.
Fidelity & Guar. Co.
(1st Cir. 2000)
Arturo D.
itself had taken its cues from high court
precedent concerning other types of vehicle searches, taking
care to ensure the exception was “not inconsistent” with the
reasoning and general approach of these cases. (
Arturo D.
,
supra
,
On the privacy side of the scales,
Gant
cautions against
“undervalu[ing] the privacy interests at stake” in the context of
vehicle searches. (
supra
, 556 U.S. at pp. 344 – 345.) The
opinion in
Arturo D.
contained no discussion of the magnitude
of the intrusion associated with a search for a driver’s license or
other proof of identity.
Arturo D.
found reassurance in the high
court’s reasoning in
Class
, which held that an officer did not act
unreasonably in shifting papers on a dashboard to read the car’s
VIN, without ever acknowledging the very different privacy
implications of permitting officers to look through drivers’
wallets and purses for their personal identification. (See
, , 27 Cal.4th at pp. 71 74, discussing
Class
,
Gant
reaffirms this proposition, but clarifies that while a
“motorist’s privacy interest in his vehicle is less substantial than
in his home [citation], the former interest is nevertheless
important and deserving of constitutional protection.” (
Gant
,
Although
Gant
addresses a different exception to the
warrant requirement, its relevance here is hard to miss. The
identification-search exception, after all, is also a rule that
permits officers to search vehicles, including —
especially
including
— purses, briefcases, and other personal effects
contained therein. It applies “ whenever an individual is caught
committing a traffic offense ” (
Gant
,
The dissent suggests drivers’ privacy concerns are
overblown because
Arturo D.
outlined a series of limits to the
identification-search power. Among other things,
Arturo D.
cautioned that the power is not to be used as a pretext to search
for contraband and that the searches must be targeted to focus
on the areas in which identification is likely to be found. (Dis.
opn.
post
, at pp. 9 10.) As the dissent notes, these limitations
were important to ’s identification-search holding —
indeed, they were arguably crucial, given the high court’s
disapproval of vehicle searches “ ‘ incident to [traffic] citation ’ ”
in
Knowles
, ,
None of this is surprising. As much as attempted to cordon off the authority it granted from the full-
scale vehicle searches disapproved in
Knowles
, the inevitable
consequence of a categorical rule authorizing officers to look for
identification in places where they might reasonably believe the
identification is located, or where it might have been hidden, is
that officers will look throughout the area “into which [the
driver] might reach, ” much as they would if they were
conducting a vehicle search incident to arrest. (
Chimel v.
California
,
supra
, 395 U.S. at p. 763.) Officers will naturally
focus in particular on purses, wallets, briefcases, and other
similar personal effects where identification is typically carried
but the intrusion into privacy is also at its apex. And given an
officer’s authority to seize any “ ‘evidence in plain view from a
position where the officer has a right to be’ ” (
Arturo D.
,
supra
27 Cal.4th at p. 70), in practice the scope of the authority
granted under
Arturo D.
has proved perilously close to the “full -
scale search for contraband” we acknowledged was expressly
prohibited by
Knowles
, ,
Although Gant speaks most clearly to the privacy side of the balance, it also offers by example important guidance about how to weigh the law enforcement interests on the other side of the scale. The justification for the search incident to arrest exception, Gant emphasized, is ultimately only to permit law enforcement to respond to particular safety or evidentiary concerns that may arise during the course of the arrest of a driver or recent occupant of a vehicle. ( , 556 U.S. at pp. 335, 347.) To ensure the scope of the exception did not become “untether [ed] ” from its justifications, Gant insisted that the exception be limited to the subset of arrests in which genuine safety or evidentiary concerns are present — that is, cases in which officers reasonably believed the arrestee could have accessed a weapon or destructible evidence in the car at the time of the search, or that evidence of the offense for which the person was arrested might be found in the car. ( Id. at p. 343.) In other words, courts must pay close attention to the presence or absence of the circumstances that justify breaching a person’s privacy by searching a vehicle and the personal effects contained therein. (See also Riley v. California , , 573 U.S. at pp. 401 403 [confining any exception for warrantless cellphone searches to exigent circumstances or a like case- specific showing of police necessity].)
The justification for ’s identification-search exception was the need to ensure that a law enforcement officer has the information necessary to issue a citation and notice to appear for a traffic infraction —despite drivers’ incentives to conceal that information, and notwithstanding safety concerns that might arise if officers were compelled to allow drivers to retrieve the relevant documents themselves. ( Arturo D. 27 Cal.4th at pp. 67, 70, fn. 6, 79.) To give effect to these important interests, considered a limited warrantless search to be more reasonable than the alternative of subjecting the driver to full custodial arrest, which would impose substantially greater burdens on drivers and law enforcement alike. ( Id. at p. 76, fn. 17.)
But ’s discussion of the issue was not exhaustive. Indeed, experience and common sense suggest a range of options that are both less intrusive than a warrantless search and less burdensome than a full custodial arrest. Closer attention to the presence or absence of circumstances justifying the invasion of privacy alters the appraisal of the law enforcement interests at stake: To the extent there are adequate alternative avenues for obtaining the information needed by law enforcement, the interest in searching a vehicle without a warrant necessarily carries less weight.
The first alternative is straightforward: an officer can ask
questions. If a driver professes not to have a driver’s license or
other identification, the officer can ask for identifying
information such as the driver’s full name and its spelling,
address, and date of birth. The answers need not be accepted at
face value. Rather, they may be checked against Department of
Motor Vehicles (DMV) records —just as driver’s licenses
themselves are routinely checked against such records to verify
the driver’s identity and the validity of the license. (See Gov.
Code, §§ 15150 – 15167 [providing for statewide law enforcement
telecommunications system]; Veh. Code, § 1810.5 [authorizing
law enforcement telephone access to DMV records]; see also,
e.g.,
People v. Boissard
(1992) 5 Cal.App.4th 972, 978 – 979
[records check of individual who failed to produce identification
at officer’s request] ; see generally 4 LaFave, Search and Seizure,
, § 9.3(c), pp. 508 511 [noting that such records checks,
which are typically conducted by computer or radio, are both
routine and critical to the operation of any system of citation].)
Similarly, the detainee’s size and physical appearance , such as
height, weight, eye color, and hair color, may be subject to
verification against such records. (See
People v. Hunt
(1990) 225
Cal.App.3d 498, 503.) Officers may also check the name and
address against the DMV’s registration record for the vehicle
and explore any discrepancies.
[6]
Officers have discretion to
accept such oral evidence of identity for purposes of issuing a
citation if they determine the information to be sufficiently
reliable. (
People v. McKay
(2002)
The Attorney General, echoing a suggestion in dismisses the value of consent in this context; he suggests that
any consented-to search might later be challenged as the
product of coercion. (See ,
Other established exceptions to the warrant requirement
may also permit a vehicle search. For example, exigent
circumstances may be shown based on the particular situation
an officer faces. (
U.S. v. Haley
(8th Cir. 1978)
In circumstances where an officer believes he or she has
been given false identification information, other exceptions
may come into play. At that point, the officer is no longer solely
concerned with issuing an enforceable traffic citation; lying to a
police officer about one’s identity is a criminal offense
punishable by imprisonment in county jail. (Pen. Code, § 148.9;
Veh. Code, §§ 31, 40000.5.) Under the automobile exception to
the warrant requirement, an officer may search a vehicle if the
officer has probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime will
be found inside. (E.g.,
United States v. Ross
(1982)
The permissibility of such searches depends in the first instance on the existence of probable cause to believe that a particular driver is, in fact, lying about his or her identity. Thus, for example, in Armstead , the court explained that the officer had probable cause to believe the driver was lying about his identity based on computer checks, notified the driver he was under arrest, and therefore could search the vehicle for evidence of the crime of providing false identity information. ( Armstead v. Com. , , 695 S.E.2d at pp. 563 – 566 [upholding search under Gant ].) , in contrast, had authorized a search any time a detainee is unable to supply identification — without any requirement that the officer have probable cause or even a reasonable suspicion that the detainee has lied about his or her identity. [10]
When an officer has obtained satisfactory evidence of a
detainee’s identity, he or she may cite and release the detainee.
(Pen. Code, § 853.5, subd. (a); Veh. Code, §§ 40303, 40500,
40504;
People v. Superior Court
(
Simon
) (1972) 7 Cal.3d 186,
199.)
[11]
The officer also has discretion to release the suspect with
a warning against committing future violations. (Pen. Code,
§ 849, subd. (b)(1);
People v. McGaughran
,
supra
, 25 Cal.3d at
p. 584.) And finally, if no other path seems prudent or
permissible, the officer can arrest the detainee and take him or
her to be booked into jail for the traffic violation. (Veh. Code,
§ 40302;
Atwater v. Lago Vista
(2001) 532 U.S. 318, 323;
Knowles
,
produce identification upon request, without more, justifies a
warrantless search through pockets or purses. The idea that,
without authority for a warrantless identification search unique
to
this
context, officers will be forced to issue unenforceable
citations and “traffic laws can be flouted with impunity” (dis.
opn.
post
, at p. 14), is a fiction; an arrestee is eligible for citation
and release only when th e arrestee is “ able to convince the
officer —either by exhibiting his driver’s license or by ‘other
satisfactory evidence’— that the name he is signing on the
written promise to appear corresponds to his true identity ”
(
People v. Superior Court
(
Simon
), ,
possible outcome of such an encounter, authorizing officers to perform a warrantless, suspicionless, nonconsensual search of the driver’s b elongings actually “serves to protect [the] privacy interests” the Fourth Amendment was intended to safeguard. (Dis. opn. post , at p. 13.) This is a curious notion. In the absence of a categorical traffic-stop identification-search exception, both driver and officer would have precisely the same range of options for locating and producing identification; the only difference is that it would be up to the driver, not the officer, to decide whether to allow in whole or in part a search of the vehicle to supply the necessary identification. Stripping the driver of that choice cannot seriously be described as the option that better
The Fourth Amendment does not, of course, require law
enforcement to employ the least intrusive means of achieving its
objectives. (
Board of Ed. of Independent School Dist. No. 92 of
Pottawatomie Cty. v. Earls
(2002)
The dissent insists that warrantless identification searches are a necessary tool for coping with drivers who seek to deceive officers concerning their identity but who have left evidence of that deception in their vehicles. (Dis. opn. post , at pp. 4 7.) (For those who have not, any search would of course be futile.) This idea is belied by the great many cases in which officers have successfully ferreted out this sort of deception protects the constitutional right of the people to be secure in their persons and effects.
through the ordinary investigative techniques we have already described. [13] And, as we have already explained, officers who have probable cause to believe a driver is lying about his or her identity already have search options at their disposal in appropriate circumstances. ( Ante , at pp. 26 – 28.) But the warrant exception we are asked to apply here is not limited to cases of deception; it applies to honest drivers and dishonest drivers alike. Indeed, it applies even when, as here, the driver has not so much as been given the chance to identify herself before having her vehicle, and the personal belongings contained therein, opened for official examination.
The dissent worries that in the absence of a categorical
authorization to search, officers may not be able to achieve
absolute certainty about the identity of some subset of traffic
violators before issuing traffic tickets. (Dis. opn.
post
, at pp. 4 –
9; see
id.
at p. 7 [driver may give sibling’s name], p. 8, fn. 5
[driver may conceal face with a tinted visor or niqab].) But the
same is true under the dissent’s own proposed rule. In the end,
the test for whether an exception should be recognized is not
whether, in its absence, there might be some cost in effective
enforcement of the traffic laws; it is, instead, whether the
tradeoff to lower that risk is worth the coin in diminished
privacy. The price of giving officers the “ discretion to rummage
at will among a person’s private effects” whenever that person
has committed a traffic infraction is a high one. (
Gant
,
Here, Officer Moe had a tip that provided the driver’s name, and he was able to locate the driver because she pulled her car up in front of the address where dispatch informed him the vehicle was registered. He could have employed any one of several approaches to ascertain Lopez’s identity once she exited the car. But Officer Moe never so much as asked Lopez her name. Instead, after detaining Lopez for a suspected traffic infraction, the officer proceeded directly to searching the purse on the passenger’s seat . Under , Officer Moe could not have searched Lopez’s vehicle if he had arrested her for unlicensed driving instead of simply detaining her. [15] Searching Lopez’s vehicle for her personal identification before she was arrested was no less unreasonable.
C. Although, as Lopez argues, Gant provides important guidance calling the identification-search exception into question, our consideration of the issue is not limited to that case. Careful examination of the practices in other jurisdictions reinforces our conclusion that the search at issue here was not reasonable under the circumstances.
As noted, ’s identification -search rule was an
outlier when the case was first decided: At the time was handed down, neither the United States Supreme Court nor
any other state embraced — or, so far as our research reveals,
ever had embraced — a similar exception for traffic-stop
identification searches. It remains an outlier today. Indeed, 17
years after was decided, California still stands alone
in authorizing warrantless vehicle searches for identification.
No federal or state court has seen fit to adopt the rule; some have
expressly rejected it. This, too, lends force to the argument for
reevaluating whether such searches are permitted by the
Fourth Amendment. (See
Moradi- Shalal v. Fireman’s Fund Ins.
Companies
(1988)
Arturo D.
did rely on a handful of federal appellate
decisions in support of its holding. ( , 27 Cal.4th
at p. 76, fn. 16.) In particular,
Arturo D.
relied on a Ninth
Circuit case,
United States v. Brown
(9th Cir. 1972) 470 F.2d
1120, 1122, and cases that preceded or relied on
Brown
(
Kendrick v. Nelson
(9th Cir. 1971)
A similar story emerges when examining the treatment of warrantless vehicle searches in our sister states. It appears no other state has seen fit to vest its police with the power to conduct warrantless searches for licenses or identification. As with federal cases, cited a handful of state court cases from elsewhere in support of its holding, but all involved searches for vehicle registration , not a license or identification. (See , supra , 27 Cal.4th at p. 76, fn. 16.) A search through the reported decisions in other states has located none that approve a warrantless traffic-stop vehicle search, without consent or probable cause , for a driver’s license or identification.
Perhaps particularly instructive in this vein is the
experience of New Jersey — a state which, like California, has
recognized an exception for warrantless vehicle searches to
locate registration and proof of insurance documentation. (E.g.,
State v. Keaton
(2015)
In
State v. Lark
,
The New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously affirmed,
“substantially for the reasons expressed” in the intermediate
court’s opinion. (
State v. Lark
(2000)
Last year, the New Jersey Supreme Court revisited its
driving credentials exception. (See
State v. Terry
(N.J. 2018) 179
A.3d 378.) And while a sharply divided court reaffirmed the
state’s exception for proof -of-ownership searches, the majority
distinguished
State v. Lark
,
Appellate courts in other states have agreed as well. (See,
e.g.,
Commonwealth v. Pacheco
(2001) 51 Mass.App.Ct. 736,
–743 [need to establish suspect’s identity does not justify
warrantless vehicle search];
id.
at p. 742 [to accept as sufficient
the asserted “ need for absolute certainty of the identification of
the person arrested would be to sanction a principle having no
apparent stopping place and could risk the possibility of a
general exploratory search for evidence of criminal activity”] ;
State v. Green
(1991)
Casting the net slightly more broadly, we have identified
limited authority allowing a warrantless search of a
person
solely
for evidence of his or her identity. (
State v. Flynn
(1979) 92
Wis.2d 427, 441 – 448 [285 N.W.2d 710] [officer justified in
removing and examining wallet of suspect who refuses to identify
himself].) Other states, however, have not sanctioned similar
searches. (
People v. Williams
(1975)
In sum, California remains in a distinct minority — indeed, a minority of one — when it comes to approving a warrantless vehicle search solely for personal identification. “Although holdings from other states are not controlling, and we remain free to steer a contrary course, ” this is a case in which “ the near unanimity” of out -of- state authority “indicates we should question the advisability of continued allegiance to our minority approach.” ( Moradi- Shalal v. Fireman’s Fund Ins. Companies , 46 Cal.3d at p. 298.) This is particularly true given the nature of the issue before us. It is noteworthy that the vehicle search for a driver’s license anywhere “such documentation reasonably may be expected to be found” ( , , 27 Cal.4th at p. 65) is authority the police of this state did without for quite some time after the invention of the automobile. But it is especially telling that the police of all other states appear to do without that authority to this day, despite facing much the same need to identify traffic violators for purposes of issuing citations. To reaffirm the exception now would leave California out of step not only with United States Supreme Court precedent, but also with every other jurisdiction in the nation.
IV.
Reconsidering the scope of is not a task we
undertake lightly. Adherence to precedent is always “ ‘ the
preferred course because
it promotes the evenhanded,
predictable, and consistent development of legal principles,
fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual
and perceived integrity of the judicial process. ’ ” (
Johnson v.
Department of Justice
(2015)
But after considering both further guidance from the United States Supreme Court and the practices of every other state in the nation, we conclude the time has come to correct a misperception of the constraints of the Fourth Amendment in this context. We recognize that law enforcement agencies have crafted policies in reliance on , and our decision today will require them to adopt a different approach in scenarios like the one presented here. But inasmuch as subsequent legal developments have called the validity of the traffic-stop identification-search exception into question, the change in approach is warranted.
On this point, too, Gant is instructive. In reaching its conclusion, pointed to the “checkered history” of the law in the area of searches incident to arrest — the multiple shifts in direction the court’s doctrine had undergone over the last 80 years. ( Gant , , 556 U.S. at p. 350.) Indeed, Gant itself represented a substantial shift in the prevailing understanding of the Belton rule, and the high court acknowledged the decision would require substantial revisions to police practice. But Gant held this was an insufficient reason to avoid reexamining a rule that had proved, over time, to result in “routine constitutional violations.” ( , at p. 351.) Here, too, it must be acknowledged that the field of vehicle searches is one that has been the subject of considerable retilling over the years. Given this history, reliance interests have less force. And here, too, we conclude that the reliance interests at stake cannot justify continuation of a practice that results in recurring and unwarranted invasions of individual privacy. (See id. at pp. 350 . ) [19]
For these reasons, we now hold the Fourth Amendment does not contain an exception to the warrant requirement for searches to locate a driver’s identification following a traffic stop. To the extent it created such an exception, In re Arturo D. , 27 Cal.4th 60, is overruled and should no longer be followed.
V.
Although t he warrantless search of Lopez’s vehicle
violated the Fourth Amendment, the Attorney General argues
the trial court should nevertheless have denied Lopez’s motion
to suppress the fruits of the search because the officer acted in
good faith based on the existing state of the law. (See, e.g.,
People v. Macabeo
,
The judgment of the Court of Appeal is reversed, and this case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
KRUGER, J.
We Concur:
LIU, J.
CUÉLLAR, J.
GROBAN, J.
S238627
Dissenting Opinion by Justice Chin
The majority today overrules our decision in
In re
Arturo D.
(2002) 27 Cal.4th 60 (
Arturo D.
), which applied the
Fourth Amendment of the federal Constitution to uphold a
limited vehicle search. The majority does so first by giving
an unnecessarily expansive reading that makes the
decision into an easy target and then by claiming that is inconsistent with the high court’s intervening decision in
Arizona v. Gant
(2009)
Stare decisis alone should cause the court to reaffirm
,
Chin, J., dissenting body. But even if we were writing on a blank slate, there are sound reasons supporting our holding in Arturo D. , reasons that should lead us to adopt the same rule today.
Therefore, I dissent.
I.
The Fourth Amendment provides: “The right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and
no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by
Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (U.S. Const.,
4th Amend.) The Amendment by its terms protects only against
“
unreasonable
searches and seizures” (italics added), and its
warrant requirement is therefore not absolute. (See
Brigham
City v. Stuart
(2006)
Consistent with that balancing approach, the high court
has recognized many situations in which an entry and/or search
without a warrant is reasonable and does not violate the Fourth
Amendment. (See, e.g.,
Kentucky v. King
(2011)
Chin, J., dissenting
than in a residence, although the privacy rights in a vehicle are
not insubstantial. ( ,
supra
,
II. Case law throughout the country establishes that a driver who is being pulled over for a traffic violation and who hopes to conceal his or her identity (and thus evade responsibility for the violation) will sometimes, while slowing to a halt, hide a wallet under the seat or elsewhere in the vehicle and then give law enforcement officers a false name. Because this method of Chin, J., dissenting we could have cited many more. (See, e.g., Chest v. State (Ind.Ct.App. 2009) 922 N.E.2d 621, 622 –623 [“[After a traffic stop,] Officer Reynolds . . . asked [Marcus] Chest for his driver’s license and registration. Chest replied he had forgotten his license at home. . . . [¶] . . . Officer Reynolds then handcuffed Chest and secured him in the back seat of the police car. . . . At the trial, Officer Reynolds testified that in his experience, suspects who refuse to provide identification have often hidden their driver’s license ‘. . . somewhere in the vehicle.’ . . . Officer Reynolds looked und er the seat and discovered Chest’s wallet, including his driver’s license.”]; People v. Washington (Aug. 7, 2007, F049975) [nonpub. opn.] [“[After a traffic stop,] [a]ppellant handed Sergeant Marmolejo a driver’s license bearing the name of Glenn Bernard Washington. However, the photograph on the license did not resemble appellant. . . . [¶] Officers arrested appellant for possession of a fraudulent driver’s license. . . . [¶] Police searched the Jeep and found a wallet with appellant’s identification un der the driver’s seat.”]; State v. Lee (Tenn.Crim.App. Jan. 9, 2004, No. M2003-01077-CCA-R3-CD) 2004 WL 49108, p. *1 [“The defendant, who was driving, told Deputy Terns that he did not have a driver’s license and gave Terns a false name. Upon conducting a search, Deputy Terns found a wallet under the driver’s seat containing what appeared to be a Department of Safety receipt with the defendant’s name on it.”]; State v. Vandergriff (Wn.Ct.App. June 1, 1999, No. 16619-8- III) 1999 WL 360568, p. *1 [“The deput y requested a driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance. Mr. Vandergriff responded that he had none of those documents. When asked his name, Mr. Vandergriff then gave his brother’s name . . . . [¶] The deputy then placed Mr. Vandergriff under arrest for driving without a valid driver’s license. . . . The deputy then . . . searched the car. He discovered a wallet under the driver’s seat containing identification for Mr. Vandergriff.”]; U.S. v. Milton (6th Cir. Mar. 10, 1995, Nos. 93-1812 & 93-1876) 1995 WL 106131, p. *1 [“After stopping the vehicle, Sergeant Sitar asked the driver of the car for his license. The driver refused, and identified himself as Derek Johnson. Other
Chin, J., dissenting
evading responsibility for a traffic violation poses such a
persistent problem, it is to that extent reasonable for law
enforcement officers to take measured steps to ensure that our
traffic laws are duly enforced. Therefore, our decision in
, ,
search for vehicle registration documentation. That aspect of the decision is not at issue here.
Chin, J., dissenting different person, then a limited search of places in the vehicle where the driver may have hidden a wallet while slowing to a halt is reasonable. That was correct when we decided , and it is correct today.
If, after being pulled over for a traffic violation, a driver gives a false name and declines to provide adequate proof of identity, what options does an officer have? If the officer writes a traffic citation using the false name that the driver has provided and then allows the driver to go, the driver has successfully gamed the system, because the citation will eventually be dismissed. Of course, the officer can question the driver for details about his or her identity and check those details against state records that are available to the officer, but that approach might not adequately identify the driver, particularly if — as uncooperative drivers frequently do — the driver gives the name of a brother or sister. The officer can also ask the driver to consent to a search, but the driver, who may have just hidden or refused to provide identification documents, will be unlikely to grant such consent. So, what more practical options does the officer have?
First, the officer can require the driver to place a thumbprint on the notice to appear, and the officer can accept Chin, J., dissenting that thumbprint as “satisfactory evidence” of identity. (Veh. Code, §§ 40302, subd. (a), 40500, subd. (a); see § 40504.) The thumbprint can later be used to track down the driver and hold him or her accountable for the traffic violation. The problem, however, with the thumbprint solution is that the driver might refuse to give it. (See Pen. Code, § 853.5, subd. (a) [“Only if the arrestee refuses to sign a written promise, has no satisfactory identification, or refuses to provide a thumbprint or fingerprint may the arrestee be taken into custody.”].) Moreover, even if the driver agrees to give a thumbprint, the thumbprint is not necessarily a satisfactory substitute for documentary identification. For example, a matching thumbprint might not be found in the database of the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Second, the officer can make a custodial arrest of the driver for failure to carry a driver ’s license. (Veh. Code, §§ Chin, J., dissenting 12500, 12951, 40302; People v. McKay (2002) 27 Cal.4th 601, 618, 625.) The officer can then search the person of the driver incident to that arrest. ( United States v. Robinson , 414 U.S. 218.) Moreover, if the vehicle is illegally parked and no passenger in the vehicle is authorized to drive the vehicle, the officer can impound the vehicle and conduct a comprehensive inventory search. ( Colorado v. Bertine , , 479 U.S. 367.) Thus, by arresting the driver, the officer can (in many cases) search both the driver and the vehicle. Of course, if the driver has hidden identification documents, that search will likely result in their discovery.
The second of these options would entail significant burden, and the officer might not choose to pursue it, but if the driver refuses to give an adequate thumbprint, the officer has it as an alternative.
In light of the foregoing, our decision in recognized a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment’s
warrant requirement, giving officers a third, considerably less
intrusive option as compared to the option of custodial arrest.
When an officer detains a driver for a traffic violation, and the
driver declines to provide identification documents, the officer
does not contravene Fourth Amendment protections by
conducting a limited search of places in the vehicle where such
Chin, J., dissenting
documentation reasonably may be expected to be found.
(
Arturo D.
,
supra
, 27 Cal.4th at p. 78.) Contrary to the
majority’s view, an
Arturo D.
search is not “ perilously close to
the ‘full - scale search for contraband’ we acknowledged was
expressly prohibited by
Knowles
, , 525 U.S. 113.” (Maj.
opn.,
ante
, p. 21.) Actually, we cabined the search in several
important ways. The search may not be pretextual ( ,
at pp. 78, 86), which means of course that it must be limited to
searching for identification documents and that it must
terminate when those documents are found. We also said that
“the prospective reach of a driver in relation to the location
searched is a factor that can be considered in evaluating the
reasonableness of the search.” (
Id
. at p. 82.) In addition, our
strongly emphasized concern about drivers who put or toss a
wallet under the front seat in an effort to conceal identity (see
id
., at pp. 79 82) served to narrowly circumscribe the scope of
the search we were authorizing. We clearly had in mind places
that a driver might easily access during the moments while he
or she, having been signaled by an officer to stop, is slowing to a
halt, and even then we said that we were not “condon[ing]
Chin, J., dissenting
searches for required documentation of ‘virtually all areas in the
physical proximity of the driver.’ ” (
Id
. at p. 84.) We noted, for
example, that “an officer may not search in containers or
locations in which such documents are not reasonably expected
to be found,” and we gave as illustrations of that limitation a
“crumpled fast - food bag under [the] seat” and an “enclosed ‘rear
interior compartment.’ ” (
Id
. at p. 86, fn. omitted.) Finally, we
“emphasize[d]” that we were not “condon[ing] the equivalent of
the full-scale search for contraband prohibited by the high court
in
Knowles
, ,
The facts of this case aptly illustrate the effective and limited application of Arturo D. ’s rule. Defendant’s car was searched only after she admitted that she did not have a driver’s license but that “ ‘there might be identification in the vehicle.’ ” Having been so advised, the officers were entitled to protect their own safety by retrieving the identification themselves rather than permitting defendant to do so. ( , 27 Cal.4th at p. 87, fn. 28.) One of the officers noticed an object on the front passenger seat that looked like a purse, and he seized it. The other officer opened the purse, “[l]ooking for . . . identification,” which he found. The officer di scovered the Gant, supra , 556 U.S. at pp. 339 – 341, 343 – 344.) In we emphasized the problem of drivers who conceal identification documents from police after being signaled to stop (see id . at pp. 82), and our holding should be construed accordingly. Instead, the majority reads unnecessarily broadly, thus making it an easier target for criticism.
Chin, J., dissenting methamphetamine while searching for the identification documents, and no broader search of the purse or car occurred.
If law enforcement officers have applied our decision in
Arturo D.
,
Of course, the officer also has the option of making a
custodial arrest and then searching the person of the driver and,
depending on the circumstances, searching the vehicle, too. Chin, J., dissenting
But a search of the driver’s person incident to a custodial arrest
of the driver is certainly more intrusive than the limited search
of the driver’s vehicle that we approved in
Arturo D.
(see, e.g.,
Wyoming v. Houghton
(1999) 526 U.S. 295, 303), and a
comprehensive inventory search of a vehicle (in a case in which
the vehicle must be impounded after the driver’s arrest) is also
more intrusive than the
Arturo D.
search. Therefore, far from
encroaching on the privacy interests of drivers, the holding of
Arturo D.
,
supra
,
the problem we addressed in , ,
Chin, J., dissenting As noted, the Fourth Amendment requires courts to weigh the relevant individual and governmental interests. (See, e.g., Camara v. Municipal Court , 387 U.S. at pp. 536 – 537.) In the circumstances presented in Arturo D. , “the need to search” ( Camara v. Municipal Court , at p. 537) is great. The officer needs to identify the driver to ensure that the driver is held accountable. Indeed, if law enforcement officers are prevented from issuing enforceable citations, then the traffic laws can be flouted with impunity, risking the lives of innocent people who use the public thoroughfares. By contrast, “the invasion which the search entails” ( id . at p. 537) is relatively minor, especially when compared to the alternative that would follow from a custodial arrest. The very limited search we approved in maj. opn., ante , p. 29, fn. 12.) There can be no doubt that an arrest, followed by a search of one’s person and booking at a local police station, is more intrusive than having a police officer look under the front seats of one’s car (and in similar places) for a concealed wallet or purse. At oral argument, the Attorney General made the same point. When asked what the biggest danger would be if the court accepted defendant’s argument, the Attorney General said: “[That] more persons who are guilty of mere infractions will be arrested and that the increased intrusions associated with arrest — embarrassing possible future admissions, being put in a cell with strangers accused of crime — will increase.” Among those “increased intrusions,” the Attorney General might also have mentioned a full search of the driver’s person and, depending on the circumstances, a full search of the vehicle (instead of the limited search that Arturo D. approved). The majority opinion criticizes our opinion in for
not adequately discussing the magnitude of the intrusion on privacy that was at issue. (Maj. opn., ante , pp. 18 19.) The issue before us is not whether, with the aid of hindsight, is
Chin, J., dissenting
,
supra
,
III.
Even though our decision in ,
supra
, 27 Cal.4th
60, is co nsistent with the high court’s intervening decision in
Gant
, ,
Gant
addressed the search-incident-to-arrest exception to
the warrant requirement. In
Belton
,
Chin, J., dissenting reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest.” ( Gant , supra , 556 U.S. at p. 351.) The court said that a broader reading of Belton “would . . . untether the rule from the justifications underlying the . . . exception” ( Gant , at p. 343), which the court identified as officer safety and the preservation of evidence ( id . at pp. 338 – 339).
Our decision in
Arturo D.
did not rely on
Belton
,
supra
, 453
U.S. 454, or on the rationale of a search incident to an arrest. In
fact,
Arturo D.
only cited
Belton
once, in passing, in the context
of describing the basis of the lower court’s decision in
Knowles
,
supra
,
In Gant , , 556 U.S. 332, the high court did not repudiate the balancing test that we applied in 27 Cal.4th at pages 83 to 84. On the contrary, it applied the balancing test. ( Gant , at pp. 344 347.) Gant made only two points that might possibly be relevant to the question of ’s continuing validity. First, noted that the courts sometimes undervalue the privacy interests that a person
Chin, J., dissenting has in a vehicle. ( Gant , at pp. 344 – 345.) In this regard, the high court noted in particular the undesirable possibility of police searching “every purse, briefcase, or other container” in the vehicle’s passenger compartment. ( Id . at p. 345.) The court was “concern[ed] about giving police officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among a person’s private effects.” ( Ibid .) Second, Gant reiterated the unremarkable rule that any exception to the warrant requirement must be tethered to the justifications that support it. ( Id . at p. 343.)
As to the concern about “undervalu[ing]” privacy interests
at issue in vehicular searches and the risk of “unbridled . . .
rummag[ing]” through “every purse, briefcase, or other
container” (
Gant
,
supra
, 556 U.S. at pp. 344 345), our decision
in
Arturo D.
did not take lightly the privacy concerns that the
dissenting justices in that case emphasized, and the search
approved does not come close to an “unbridled . . .
rummag[ing]” every time a driver declines to provide proof of
identification. On the contrary, we expressly disapproved the
search of any container the officer might find. (
Arturo D.
,
Regarding
Gant
’s rule that an exception to the warrant
requirement must be tethered to the justifications that support
it ( ,
Chin, J., dissenting
therefore it does not justify reconsideration of
Arturo D.
In summary, addressed a different issue than the issue we addressed in , and it changed nothing as regards the relevant standards that apply under the Fourth
Chin, J., dissenting Amendment. Nonetheless, the majority uses it as a basis for ignoring stare decisis.
I respectfully dissent.
CHIN, J.
We Concur:
CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J.
CORRIGAN, J.
*63 See next page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. Name of Opinion People v. Lopez
_______________________________________________________________________________ Unpublished Opinion
Original Appeal
Original Proceeding
Review Granted
XXX
Rehearing Granted
_______________________________________________________________________________ Opinion No. S238627
Date Filed: November 25, 2019
_______________________________________________________________________________ Court: Superior
County: Yolo
Judge: Samuel T. McAdam
_______________________________________________________________________________ Counsel:
Kamala D. Harris and Xavier Becerra, Attorneys General, Gerald A. Engler, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Michael P. Farrell, Assistant Attorney General, Joshua A. Klein, Deputy State Solicitor General, Catherine Chatman, Rachelle A. Newcomb, R. Todd Marshall and Larenda R. Delaini, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Solomon Wollack, under appointment by the Supreme Court, for Defendant and Respondent. Emily A. Rehm, Michael M. Epstein and Rachel E. Vanlandingham as Amici Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Respondent.
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): R. Todd Marshall
Deputy Attorney General
Office of the Attorney General
1300 I Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 210-7747
Solomon Wollack
P.O. Box 23933
Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
(925) 671-2501
Notes
[1] The trial court also concluded the People had not supplied support for a search for evidence of driving under the influence. The first anonymous tip was remote in time, the second was vague and conclusory, Officer Moe observed nothing to indicate Lopez was under the influence, and the hearing testimony made clear the search was directed at finding identification.
[2]
The portion of ,
[3] The dissent would reconceptualize as applying only to “places in the vehicle wh ere a driver, slowing to a halt, might quickly put or toss a wallet or similar container.” (Dis. opn. post , at p. 11; see id. at p. 10.) The standard this court
[4]
The temporary detention may sometimes also include a
“d etermin[ation] whether there are outstanding warrants
against the driver” (
Rodriguez v. U.S.
,
supra
, 135 S.Ct. at
p. 1615) and a criminal history check (
U.S. v. Purcell
(11th Cir.
2001)
[5] Lopez argues in passing that Arturo D. does not apply because the incident was a consensual encounter. This is a strange way to describe an interaction that ended with Lopez in handcuffs. True, the encounter did begin consensually, as the trial court found. But once Lopez indicated she had no license, the officer had grounds to detain Lopez and determine whether she indeed had been driving without a valid license. At that point, authorized a warrantless search for identification if Lopez could not produce any. Lopez also takes a contradictory tack, urging she was already under arrest when the search was conducted and so only a search for weapons or evidence of the crime of arrest would have been permissible. (See , 556 U.S. at pp. 342 – 344.) The record does not support this contention either. At the time of the search, Lopez had been temporarily detained to enable Officer Moe to investigate and process her traffic violation. The handcuffing did not transform the detention into an arrest. ( People v. Celis (2004) 33 Ca l.4th 667, 675 [“stopping a suspect at gunpoint, handcuffing him, and making him sit on the ground for a short period, as occurred here, do not convert a detention into an arrest”]; see ibid. [citing additional cases].)
[6] It perhaps states the obvious to observe that telecommunications technology has advanced significantly since 2002, when was decided, and will continue to evolve in ways that make remote verification of a detainee’s information and identity easier for law enforcement.
[7]
In addition, an officer can ask for and examine written
forms of identification other than a driver’s license, such as a
student identification or health insurance card. As we
acknowledged in , the Vehicle Code “permits an officer
who plans to issue a Veh icle Code citation to accept ‘other
satisfactory evidence of [the driver’s] identity.’ ” ( , 27 Cal.4th at p. 68, fn. 4, quoting Veh. Code, § 40302,
subd. (a); cf., e.g.,
U.S. v. Zubia-Melendez
(10th Cir. 2001) 263
F.3d 1155, 1161;
U.S. v. Reyes-Vencomo
(D.N.M. 2012) 866
F.Supp.2d 1304, 1338.)
And as case law demonstrates, in some circumstances, an
officer may be personally acquainted with the driver or may be
able to obtain adequate identifying information from others who
are. (
McKay
,
[8] At oral argument, the Attorney General noted that the Supreme Court has placed limits on the extent to which a motorist may be implied to have consented to a search by virtue of choosing to drive on public roads. (See Birchfield v. North Dakota (2016) 579 U.S. ___, ___ ___ [136 S.Ct. 2160, 2185 – 2186].) We do not suggest consent could be implied here, only that express consent could be sought, and no reason appears as to why, if granted, it would be presumptively invalid.
[9]
The automobile exception and the “evidence relevant to
the crime of arrest” exception overlap to some degree, but the
former applies independent of any arrest. To the extent the
latter exception is contingent on an arrest, we express no view
whether any search may come before, or only after, the arrest.
(Cf.
People v. Macabeo
(2016)
[10] In so doing, Arturo D. authorized a new sort of suspicionless search. The high court has long held that “ [e]xceptions to the requirement of individualized suspicion are generally appropriate only where the privacy interests implicated by a search are minima l and where ‘other safeguards’ are available ‘to assure that the individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy is not “subject to the discretion of the official in the field.” ’ ” ( New Jersey v. T. L. O. (1985) 469 U.S. 325, 342, fn. 8, quoting Delaware v. Prouse , 440 U.S. at pp. 654 655.) After , the privacy interests implicated by identification searches cannot be dismissed as minimal. And the Attorney General has identified no “safeguards” that would limit an officer’s discretion to conduc t such a search to facilitate writing a traffic citation.
[11] Citation and release is employed in a wide range of nonvehicle circumstances, from jaywalking to fare evasion to cyclist moving violations, yet no one argues that failure to
[13]
A small but representative sample includes:
People v.
Casarez
(2012)
[14] T he dissent’s preferred rule would do nothing to assist in the apprehension of the wrongdoer who manages to slip his or her license into a crumpled fast-food bag ( , 27 Cal.4th at p. 86) — or, for that matter, who simply left his or her license at home.
[15]
The Attorney General argues in passing that the search
here would have been permissible under
Gant
because Officer
Moe had probable cause to arrest Lopez for driving without a
license. But no reason appears to think evidence of that crime
would be found in the car. ( ,
[16] Even as far as they go, these decisions have not been free from controversy. Brown has been described by a leading commentator as flatly “in error” when compared with the full body of Fourth Amendment law. (5 LaFave, Search and Seizure (5th ed. 2012) § 10.8(a), p. 401, fn. 33.) Rather, according to LaFave, “[s]earch of the car should be permitted only when the failure to produce the registration and the other relevant circumstances establish pro bable cause that the car is stolen.” ( Ibid. )
[17] Indeed, virtually the only point of agreement among all the justices was that the Fourth Amendment does not permit a warrantless vehicle search solely for identification.
[18] The Court of Appeal decision in People v. Loudermilk (1987) 195 Cal.App.3d 996 also does not suggest general authority to search for identification. The court approved an officer examining a wallet found in a patdown for weapons, but only because the suspect first “lied to the officer and himself created the confusion as to his own identity” by falsely stating he had no identification. ( Id. at p. 1004.) The court “emphasize[d] that we do not hold that a suspect may be detained and searched merely because he either refused to identify him self or refused to produce proof of identification.” ( Ibid. )
[19]
The dissent urges that “[s]tare decisis alone should cause
the court to” adhere to a precedent at odds with United States
Supreme Court guidance and that finds no support anywhere
else in the nation. (Dis. opn.
post
, at p. 1.) “But the policy [of
stare decisis] is just that — a policy — and it admits of exceptions
in rare and appropriate cases,” including in the face of a “ ‘tide
of critical or cont rary authority from other jurisdictions.’ ”
(
Samara v. Matar
(2018)
[1] I would reaffirm our core holding in , 27 Cal.4th 60. I note in passing, however, that a footnote in suggests an alternative basis for upholding the search at issue in this case. ( Id . at p. 87, fn. 28.)
[2]
We cited numerous such cases in , , at
pages 80 to 81. (See, e.g.,
Mallett v. Bowersox
(8th Cir. 1998)
[4] In some cases, the officer’s q uestioning of the driver about his or her identity may demonstrate that the driver has lied to the officer in violation of Vehicle Code section 31 (giving false information to a peace officer), Penal Code section 148.9 (giving false identity to a peace officer), and perhaps in violation of Penal Code section 530.5 (false personation). The officer may then arrest the driver and search the vehicle for evidence of those violations, including evidence of correct identity. ( , 556 U.S. at pp. 343 344.)
[5]
It might be supposed that with advances in technology, the
officer can use face recognition software to identify the driver,
assuming the Department of Motor Vehicles has access to a
database containing an image of the driver’s face along with
accurate identifying information. But a driver is not obligated
to expose his or her face to the officer. It might happen, for
example, that a driver refuses to remove a motorcycle helmet
that has a tinted visor or that a driver is wearing niqab for
religious reasons. Moreover, there is at present no statutory
authorization for the use of face recognition software to identify
drivers who have committed traffic violations, and the possible
constitutional questions that such a methodology would raise
remain unresolved. (Cf.
People v. Gray
(2014)
[6] In this case, defendant’s vehicle was not illegally parked, and therefore an arrest of defendant for driving without a driver’s license would not have permitted the officers to impound the vehicle. But the majority addresses the general validity of It does not limit its holding to cases like this one in which the vehicle is legally parked at the time of the search.
[7]
The majority asserts that the rule we adopted in was not limited to places that a driver might easily access while
slowing to a halt. Instead, the majority argues that our holding
was broader, allowing officers to search any places in the vehicle
where identification documents “ ‘reasonably may be expected
to be found.’ ” (See m aj. opn.,
ante
, p. 7, quoting ,
[8] The high court in Knowles expressly discussed the possibility of a driver concealing identification documents (i.e.,
[11]
The majority also relies on the assertion that other states
have not adopted the exception to the warrant requirement that
we recognized in ,
supra
,