ROBBINS v. CALIFORNIA
No. 80-148
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 27, 1981—Decided July 1, 1981
453 U.S. 420
Marshall W. Krause argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs was Joseph G. Baxter.
Ronald E. Niver, Deputy Attorney General of California, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were George Deukmejian, Attorney General, Robert H. Philibosian, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Edward P. O‘Brien, Assistant Attorney General, and Clifford K. Thompson, Jr., Deputy Attorney General.
Deputy Solicitor General Frey argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging affirmance. With him on the brief were Solicitor General McCree, Acting Assistant Attorney General Keeney, Joshua I. Schwartz, and John Fichter De Pue.*
*Quin Denvir and Steffan Imhoff filed a brief for the State Public Defender of California as amicus curiae urging reversal.
I
On the early morning of January 5, 1975, California Highway Patrol officers stopped the petitioner‘s car—a 1966 Chevrolet station wagon—because he had been driving erratically. He got out of his vehicle and walked towards the patrol car. When one of the officers asked him for his driver‘s license and the station wagon‘s registration, he fumbled with his wallet. When the petitioner opened the car door to get out the registration, the officers smelled marihuana smoke. One of the officers patted down the petitioner, and discovered a vial of liquid. The officer then searched the passenger compartment of the car, and found marihuana as well as equipment for using it.
After putting the petitioner in the patrol car, the officers opened the tailgate of the station wagon, located a handle set flush in the deck, and lifted it up to uncover a recessed luggage compartment. In the compartment were a totebag and two packages wrapped in green opaque plastic.1 The police unwrapped the packages; each one contained 15 pounds of marihuana.
The petitioner was charged with various drug offenses, his pretrial motion to suppress the evidence found when the
II
The
Among these exceptions is the so-called “automobile exception.” See Colorado v. Bannister, 449 U. S. 1. In Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, the Court held that a search warrant is unnecessary “where there is probable cause to search an automobile stopped on the highway; the car is movable, the occupants are alerted, and the car‘s contents may never be found again if a warrant must be obtained.” Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, 51. In recent years, we have twice been confronted with the suggestion that this “automobile exception” somehow justifies the warrantless search of a closed container found inside an automobile. Each time, the Court has refused to accept the suggestion.
In United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, the Government argued in part that luggage is analogous to motor vehicles for
Second, the Court acknowledged that “inherent mobility” cannot alone justify the automobile exception, since the Court has sometimes approved warrantless searches in which the automobile‘s mobility was irrelevant. See Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433, 441-442; South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 367. The automobile exception, the Court said, is thus also supported by “the diminished expectation of privacy which surrounds the automobile” and which arises from the facts that a car is used for transportation and not as a residence or a repository of personal effects, that a car‘s occupants and contents travel in plain view, and that automobiles are necessarily highly regulated by government. United States v. Chadwick, supra, at 12-13. No such dimin-
In Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753, the State of Arkansas argued that the “automobile exception” should be extended to allow the warrantless search of everything found in an automobile during a lawful warrantless search of the vehicle itself. The Court rejected this argument for much the same reason it had rejected the Government‘s argument in Chadwick. Pointing out, first, that “[o]nce police have seized a suitcase, as they did here, the extent of its mobility is in no way affected by the place from which it was taken,” the Court said that there generally “is no greater need for warrantless searches of luggage taken from automobiles than of luggage taken from other places.” 442 U. S., at 763-764. Second, the Court saw no reason to believe that the privacy expectation in a closed piece of luggage taken from a car is necessarily less than the privacy expectation in closed pieces of luggage found elsewhere.
In the present case, the Court once again encounters the argument—made in the Government‘s brief as amicus curiae—that the contents of a closed container carried in a vehicle are somehow not fully protected by the
The respondent, however, proposes that the nature of a container may diminish the constitutional protection to which it otherwise would be entitled—that the
The respondent‘s argument cannot prevail for at least two reasons. First, it has no basis in the language or meaning of the
Second, even if one wished to import such a distinction into the
The respondent protests that footnote 13 of the Sanders opinion says that “[n]ot all containers and packages found by police during the course of a search will deserve the full protection of the
The California Court of Appeal believed that the packages in the present case fell directly within the second exception described in this footnote, since “[a]ny experienced observer could have inferred from the appearance of the packages that they contained bricks of marijuana.” 103 Cal. App. 3d, at 40, 162 Cal. Rptr., at 783. The only evidence the court
“A. I had previous knowledge of transportation of such blocks. Normally contraband is wrapped this way, merely hearsay. I had never seen them before.
“Q. You had heard contraband was packaged this way?
This vague testimony certainly did not establish that marihuana is ordinarily “packaged this way.” Expectations of privacy are established by general social norms, and to fall within the second exception of the footnote in question a container must so clearly announce its contents, whether by its distinctive configuration, its transparency, or otherwise, that its contents are obvious to an observer. If indeed a green plastic wrapping reliably indicates that a package could only contain marihuana, that fact was not shown by the evidence of record in this case.2
Although the two bricks of marihuana were discovered during a lawful search of the petitioner‘s car, they were inside a closed, opaque container. We reaffirm today that such a container may not be opened without a warrant, even if it is found during the course of the lawful search of an automobile. Since the respondent does not allege the presence of any circumstances that would constitute a valid exception
It is so ordered.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE concurs in the judgment.
JUSTICE POWELL, concurring in the judgment.
The Court‘s judgment is justified, though not cоmpelled, by the Court‘s opinion in Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753 (1979). Accordingly, I join the judgment. As the plurality today goes well beyond Sanders or any other prior case to establish a new “bright-line” rule, I cannot join its opinion.1 It would require officers to obtain warrants in order to examine the contents of insubstantial containers in which no one had a reasonable expectation of privacy. The plurality‘s approach strains the rationales of our prior cases and imposes substantial burdens on law enforcement without vindicating any significant values of privacy. I nevertheless concur in the judgment because the manner in which the package at issue was carefully wrapped and sealed evidenced petitioner‘s expectation of privacy in its contents. As we have stressed
Having reached this decision on the facts of this case, I recognize—as the dissenting opinions find it easy to proclaim—that the law of search and seizure with respect to automobiles is intolerably confusing. The Court apparently cannot agree even on what it has held previously, let alone on how these cases should be decided. Much of this difficulty comes from the necessity of applying the general command of the
This case and New York v. Belton, post, p. 454, decided today, involve three different
A
I have joined the Court‘s opinion in Belton because I concluded that a “bright-line” rule was necessary in the quite
Any “bright-line” rule does involve costs. Belton trades marginal privacy of containers within the passenger area of an automobile for protection of the officer and of destructible evidence. The balance of these interests strongly favors the Court‘s rule. The occupants of an automobile enjоy only a limited expectation of privacy in the interior of the automobile itself. See Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U. S. 266, 279 (1973) (POWELL, J., concurring). This limited interest is diminished further when the occupants are placed under custodial arrest. Cf. United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218, 237 (1973) (POWELL, J., concurring). Immediately preceding the arrest, the passengers have complete control over the entire interior of the automobile, and can place weapons or contraband into pockets or other containers as the officer approaches. Thus, practically speaking, it is difficult to justify varying degrees of protection for the general interior of the car and for the various containers found within. These
B
Although petitioner Robbins was arrested, this case was litigated only on the question whether the officers needed a warrant to open a sealed, opaquely wrapped container in the rear compartment of a station wagon. The plurality treats this situation as identical with that in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1 (1977), and Sanders, supra, which addressed warrantless searches of a double-locked footlocker and personal luggage rеspectively. Thus, the plurality‘s opinion in this case concerns itself primarily with the kinds of containers requiring a warrant for their search when police have probable cause to search them, and where there has been no arrest. For reasons explained more fully below, I will share the plurality‘s assumption that the police had probable cause to search the container rather than the automobile generally. Viewing this as a “container case,” I concur in the judgment.
Chadwick and Sanders require police to obtain a warrant to search the contents of a container only when the container is one that generally serves as a repository for personal effects or that has been sealed in a manner manifesting a reasonable expectation that the contents will not be open to public scrutiny. See Chadwick, supra, at 13; Sanders, 442 U. S., at 764. See, e. g., United States v. Mannino, 635 F. 2d 110, 114 (CA2 1980); United States v. Goshorn, 628 F. 2d 697, 700-701 (CA1 1980); United States v. Mackey, 626 F. 2d 684, 687-688 (CA9 1980); United States v. Ross, 210 U. S. App. D. C. 342, 356-362, 655 F. 2d 1159, 1173-1179 (1981) (en banc) (Tamm, J., dissenting). This resembles in principle the inquiry courts must undertake to determine whether a search violates the
The plurality‘s approach today departs from this basic concern with interests in privаcy, and adopts a mechanical requirement for a warrant before police may search any closed container. Nothing in Chadwick or Sanders justifies this extreme extension of the warrant requirement. Indeed, the Court in Sanders explicitly foreclosed that reading:
“There will be difficulties in determining which parcels taken from an automobile require a warrant for their search and which do not. Our decision in this case means only that a warrant generally is required before personal luggage can be searched and that the extent to which the
Fourth Amendment applies to containers and other parcels depends not at all upon whether they are seized from an automobile.” 442 U. S., at 765, n. 13.
While the plurality‘s blanket warrant requirement does not even purport to protect any privacy interest, it would impose substantial new burdens on law enforcement. Confronted with a cigarbox or a Dixie cup in the course of a probable-cause search of an automobile for narcotics, the conscientious policeman would be required to take the object to a magistrate, fill out the appropriate forms, await the decision, and finally obtain the warrant. Suspects or vehicles normally will be detained while the warrant is sought. This process may take hours, remоving the officer from his normal police duties. Expenditure of such time and effort, drawn from the public‘s limited resources for detecting or preventing crimes, is justified when it protects an individual‘s reasonable privacy interests. In my view, the plurality‘s requirement cannot be so justified. The aggregate burden of procuring warrants whenever an officer has probable cause to search the most trivial
The dissenters argue, with some justice, that the controlling question should be the scope of the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. In their view, when the police have probable cause to search an automobile, rather than only to search a particular container that fortuitously is located in it, the exigencies that allow the police to search the entire automobile without a warrant support the warrantless search of every container found therein. See post, at 451, and n. 13 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). This analysis is entirely consistent with the holdings in Chadwick and Sanders, neither of which is an “automobile case,” because the police there had probable cаuse to search the double-locked footlocker and the suitcase respectively before either came near an automobile. See Chadwick, 433 U. S., at 11; Sanders, 442 U. S., at 761; see also id., at 766 (BURGER, C. J., concurring). Adoption of the dissenters’ view would require, however, rejection of a good deal of the reasoning in the latter case.
Resolving this case by expanding the scope of the automobile exception is attractive not so much for its logical virtue, but because it may provide ground for agreement by a majority of the presently fractured Court on an approach that would give more specific guidance to police and courts in this recurring situation—one that has led to incessant litigation. I note, however, that this benefit would not be realized fully, as courts may find themselves deciding when probable cause ripened, or whether suspicion focused on the container or on the car in which it traveled.
The parties have not pressed this argument in this case and it is late in the Term for us to undertake sua sponte reconsideration of basic doctrines. Given these constraints, I adhere to statements in Sanders that the fact that the container was seized from an automobile is irrelevant to the question whether a warrant is needed to search its contents. Some future case affording an opportunity for more thorough con-
JUSTICE BLACKMUN, dissenting.
I must dissent for the reasons stated in my respective writings in United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 17 (1977), and Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753, 768 (1979). I also agree with much of what JUSTICE REHNQUIST says, post, at 439-443, in his dissenting opinion in the present case. The anticipated confusion that Chadwick and Sanders spawned for the Nation‘s trial and appellate courts is well illustrated by JUSTICE STEWART‘S listing, ante, at 425-426, of cases decided by Federal Courts of Appeals since Chadwick was announced in 1977.
The decision in the present case at least has the merit of a “bright line” rule that should serve to eliminate the opaqueness and to dissipate some of the confusion. See 442 U. S., at 771-772. Nonetheless, under today‘s holding, an arresting officer will still be forced, despite a concededly lawful search of the automobile, to go to the magistrate, whether near or far, for the search warrant inevitably to be issued when the facts are like those presented here. And only time will tell whether the “test,” ante, at 427, for determining whether a package‘s exterior “announce[s] its contents” will lead to a new stream of litigation.
I continue to think the Court is in error and that it would have been better, see 442 U. S., at 772, “to adopt a clear-cut rule to the effect that a warrant should not be required to seize and search any personal property found in an automobile that may in turn be seized and searched without a war-
JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting.
I have previously stated why I believe the so-called “exclusionary rule” created by this Court imposes a burden out of all proportion to the
“State and federal law enforcement officers and prosecutorial authorities must find quite intolerable the present state of uncertainty, which extends even to such an everyday question as the circumstances under which police may enter a man‘s property to arrest him and seize a vehicle believed to have been used during the commission of a crime.
“I would begin [the] process of re-evaluation by overruling Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961), and Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23 (1963). . . .
“Until we face up to the basic constitutional mistakes of Mapp and Ker, no solid progress in setting things straight in search and seizure law will, in my opinion, occur.”
The 10 years which have intervened since Justice Harlan
The harm caused by the exclusionary rule is compounded by the judicially created preference for a warrant as indicating satisfaction of the reasonableness requirement of the
Not only has historical study “suggested that in emphasizing the warrant requirement over the reasonableness of the search the Court has ‘stood the fourth amendment on its head’ from a historical standpoint,” Coolidge, supra, at 492 (Harlan, J., concurring) (quoting T. Taylor, Two Studies in Constitutional Interpretation 23-24 (1969)), but the Court has failed to appreciate the impact of its decisions, not mandated by the
Recent developments have cast further doubt on the emphasis on a warrant as opposed to the reasonableness of the search. In Shadwick v. City of Tampa, 407 U. S. 345 (1972), the Court ruled that clerks of the Municipal Court of the city of Tampa, Fla., not trained in the law, are “neutral and detached magistrates” who may issue warrants which satisfy the Warrant Clause of the
Even aside from these general observations on the warrant requirement, the case we decide today falls within what has been and should continue to be an exception to that requirement—the automobile exception. In Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433, 439-440 (1973), we explained that one class of cases which constitutes “at least a partial exception to this general rule [of requiring a warrant] is automobile searches. Although vehicles are ‘effects’ within thе meaning of the
“[T]he application of
Fourth Amendment standards, originally intended to restrict only the Federal Govern-ment
ment, to the States presents some difficulty when searches of automobiles are involved. The contact with vehicles by federal law enforcement officers usually, if not always, involves the detection or investigation of crimes unrelated to the operation of a vehicle. Cases such as Carroll v. United States, supra, and Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160 (1949), illustrate the typical situations in which federal officials come into contact with and search vehicles. In both cases, members of a special federal unit charged with enforcing a particular federal criminal statute stopped and searched a vehicle when they had probable cause to believe that the operator was violating that statute.
“As a result of our federal system of government, however, state and local police officers, unlike federal officers, have much more contact with vehicles for reasons related to the operation of vehicles themselves. All States require vehicles to be registered and operators to be licensed. States and localities have enacted extensive and detailed codes regulating the condition and manner in which motor vehicles may be operated on public streets and highways.” Id., at 440-441.
I would not draw from the language of either Cady or of South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364 (1976), the conclusion which the plurality draws today that ” ‘inherent mobility’ cannot alone justify the automobile exception, since the Court has sometimes approved warrantless searches in which the automobile‘s mobility was irrelevant.” Ante, at 424. Logically, it seems to me that the conclusion to be drawn from Cady and Opperman is that one need not demonstrate that a particular automobile was capable of being moved, but that automobiles as a class are inherently mobile, and a defendant seeking to suppress evidence obtained from an automobile should not be heard to say that this particular automobile had broken down, was in a parking lot under the supervision
“If ‘contraband goods concealed and illegally transported in an automobile or other vehicle may be searched for without a warrant,’ Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 153 (1925), then, in my view, luggage and similar containers found in an automobile may be searched for contraband without a warrant. The luggage, like the automobile transporting it, is mobile. And the expectation of privacy in a suitcase found in the car is probably not significantly greater than the expectation of privacy in a locked glove compartment. . . .
“In my view, it would be better to adopt a clear-cut rule to the effect that a warrant should not be required to seize and search any personal property found in an automobile that may in turn be seized and searched without a warrant pursuant to Carroll and Chambers.” Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753, 769, 772 (1979) (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting).
The proper application of the automobile exception would uphold the search conducted by the California Highway Patrol officers in this case inasmuch as the plurality acknowledges that the officers could constitutionally open the tailgate of the station wagon and then open the car‘s luggage compartment. Ante, at 428.
The plurality, however, concludes that the opening of the two plastic garbage bags which the officers found in the luggage compartment is unconstitutional. In so doing, the plurality relies on its earlier decision in Arkansas v. Sanders, supra, and rejects the argument that the search of the garbage bags should, at a minimum, fall within the exception noted in footnote 13 of the Sanders opinion. There, the Court had explained:
“Not all containers and packages found by police dur-
ing the course of a search will deserve the full protection of the Fourth Amendment . Thus, some containers (for exаmple a kit of burglar tools or a gun case) by their very nature cannot support any reasonable expectation of privacy because their contents can be inferred from their outward appearance. Similarly, in some cases the contents of a package will be open to ‘plain view,’ thereby obviating the need for a warrant. See Harris v. United States, 390 U. S. 234, 236 (1968) (per curiam).” 442 U. S., at 764-765, n. 13.
It seems to me that the search conducted by the Highway Patrol officers falls squarely within the above exception. This is revealed by an examination of the events which prompted the search of the luggage compartment in the first place—events which are conspicuously absent from the recitation of the facts in the plurality opinion. Prior to opening the tailgate of the car, the Highway Patrol officers had already discovered marihuana in the passenger compartment of the car. While the officers were retrieving this marihuana and other drug paraphernalia from the front of the car, petitioner stated: “What you are looking for is in the back.” Only then did an officer open the luggage compartment of the station wagon and discover the two plastic garbage bags being used to wrap the blocks оf marihuana. One of the officers then testified that he was aware that contraband was often wrapped in this fashion—a fact of which all those who watch the evening news are surely well aware. Given these factors, particularly the petitioner‘s statement, it seems to me that petitioner could have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the garbage bags. Surely, given all the circumstances, the contents of the garbage bags “could be inferred from their outward appearance.”
The present case aptly illustrates the problems inherent in the
But I think that probably any search for “bright lines” short of overruling Mapp v. Ohio is apt to be illusory. Our entire profession is trained to attack “bright lines” the way hounds attack foxes. Acceptance by the courts of arguments that one thing is the “functional equivalent” of the other, for example, soon breaks down what might have been a bright line into a blurry impressionistic pattern.
If city court clerks who are not trained in the law satisfy the warrant requirement of the
JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.
It is quite clear to most of us that this case and New York v. Belton, post, p. 454, should be decided in the same way.1 Both cases involve automobile searches. In both cases, the automobiles had been lawfully stopped on the highway, the occupants had been lawfully arrested, and the officers had probable cause to believe that the vehicles contained contraband. In my opinion, the “automobile exception” to the warrant requirement therefore provided each officer the authority to make a thorough search of the vehicle—including the glove compartment, the trunk, and any containers in the vehicle that might reasonably contain the contraband.
Such was the state of the law prior to the Court‘s discursive writing in Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753.2 Be-
narcotic agents had probable cause to search a footlocker which was seized immediately after being placed in the trunk of a car. In Sanders, the officers had probable cause to believe a particular piece of luggage contained contraband before it was placed in the trunk of a taxicab. The officers, however, had no reason to search the vehicle in either case, and no right to arrest the driver in Sanders. The issue in Chadwick and Sanders would have been exactly the same if the officers had apprehended the suspects before they placed the footlocker in the trunk of the car in Chadwick or before they hailed the taxi in Sanders.4 The officers’ duty to obtain a warrant in both cases could not be evaded by simply waiting until the luggage was placed in a vehicle.
I therefore believe that neither Sanders nor Chadwick precludes application of the automobile exception to authorize
I
Although a routine application of the automobile exception would provide an adequate basis for upholding the search in this case, the plurality instead quixotically concludes that notwithstanding an officer‘s probable cause to believe that
In Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, the Court reaffirmed the automobile exception established a half century earlier in Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, and upheld the warrantless search of an automobile on probable cause.7 The “exception” recognized in Carroll and Chambers, however, applies merely to the requirement that police seek a warrant from a magistrate before conducting a search of places or things protected by the
II
In Belton, post, p. 454, instead of relying on the automobile exception to uphold the search of respondent‘s jacket pocket, the Court takes an extraordinarily dangerous detour to reach the same result by adopting an admittedly new rationale ap-
The Court‘s careful and repeated use of the term “lawful custodial arrest”10 seems to imply that a significant distinction between custodial arrests and ordinary arrests exists. I am familiar with the distinction between a “stop,” see, e. g., Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, and an “arrest,” but I am not familiar with any difference between custodial arrests and any other kind of arrest. It is, of course, true that persons apprehended for traffic violations are frequently not required to accompany the arresting officer to the police station before they are permitted to leave on their own recognizance or by using their driver‘s licenses as a form of bond. It is also possible that state law or local regulations may in some cases prohibit police officers from taking persons into custody for violation of minor traffic laws. As a matter of constitutional law, however, any person lawfully arrested for the pettiest misdemeanor may be temporarily placed in custody.11 In-
After the vehicle in which respondent was riding was stopped, the officer smelled marihuana and thereby acquired probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained contraband.13 A thorough search of the car was therefore reasonable. But if there were no reason to believe that anything more than a traffic violation had occurred, I should think it palpably unreasonable to require the driver of a car to open
The Court‘s reasoning, which will lead to a massive broadening of the automobile exception, is particularly unfortunate because that reasoning is not necessary to the decision. By taking the giant step of permitting searches in the absence of probable cause, the Court misses the shorter step of relying on the automobile exception to uphold the search.15 By taking this shorter step the Court could have adhered to the fundamental distinction between a search that a magistrate
Because I do not regard the dictum in Sanders as a correct statement of the law, because the holding of that case is not applicable in either Robbins or Belton, and because the search in both cases was supported by probable cause and falls within the automobile exception, I respectfully dissent in Robbins and concur in the judgment in Belton.
Notes
“And though it is true that the Court spoke of an automobile while we treat of containers in or just removed from one, the principle is not different. The officer who arrested Soriano and his companions indisputably had probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained contraband, a circumstance justifying the initial incursion into the trunk. Under established law in this circuit and elsewhere, this justification encompassed the search of containers in the vehicle which cоuld reasonably be employed in the illicit carriage of the contraband.”
See also United States v. Anderson, 500 F. 2d 1311, 1315 (CA5 1974); United States v. Evans, 481 F. 2d 990, 993-994 (CA9 1973). Indeed, in many cases it apparently never occurred to defendants challenging the validity of automobile searches or the courts considering such challenges that a search of a suitcase or other container located in an automobile presented a different question than the search of the car itself. See, e. g., United States v. Bowman, 487 F. 2d 1229 (CA10 1973); United States v. Garner, 451 F. 2d 167 (CA6 1971); United States v. Chapman, 474 F. 2d 300 (CA5 1973), cert. denied, 414 U. S. 835; State v. Hearn, 340 So. 2d 1365 (La. 1976); State v. Lee, 113 N. H. 313, 307 A. 2d 827 (1973); Cf. State v. Warren, 283 So. 2d 740 (La. 1973). Even after Chadwick was decided, courts continued to apply the automobile exception to uphold searches of containers found in cars and rejected the argument that Chadwick constituted a limitation on the automobile exception. See United States v. Milhollan, 599 F. 2d 518, 525-527 (CA3 1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 909; United States v. Finnegan, 568 F. 2d 637, 641 (CA9 1977); United States v. Ochs, 595 F. 2d 1247 (CA2 1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 955. But see United States v. Johnson, 588 F. 2d 147, 150-152, and n. 6 (CA5 1979) (repudiating United States v. Soriano, supra).
“The breadth of the Court‘s opinion and its repeated references to the ‘automobile’ from which respondent‘s suitcase was seized at the time of his arrest, however, might lead the reader to believe—as the dissenters apparently do—that this case involves the ‘automobile’ exception to the warrant requirement. See ante, at 762-765, and n. 14. It does not. Here, as in Chadwick, it was the luggage being transported by respondent at the time of the arrest, not the automobile in which it was being carried, that was the suspected locus of the contraband. The relationship betwеen the
“This case simply does not present the question of whether a warrant is required before opening luggage when the police have probable cause to believe contraband is located somewhere in the vehicle, but when they do not know whether, for example, it is inside a piece of luggage in the trunk, in the glove compartment, or concealed in some part of the car‘s structure.” 442 U. S., at 767.
“Because the police officers had probable cause to believe that respondent‘s green suitcase contained marihuana before it was placed in the trunk of the taxicab, their duty to obtain a search warrant before opening it is clear under United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1 (1977). The essence of our holding in Chadwick is that there is a legitimate expectation of privacy in the contents of a trunk or suitcase accompanying or being carried by a person; that expectation of privacy is not diminished simply because the owner‘s arrest occurs in a public place. Whether arrested in a hotel lobby, an airport, a railroad terminal, or on a public street, as here, the owner has the right to expect that the contents of his luggage will not, without his consent, be exposed on demand of the police.” Id., at 766-767.
“In enforcing the
The Chambers Court held that if a car could be searched on the scene of an arrest, it could also be searched after being taken to the station house.