Article by Leslie A. Lunney
This Article examines the confused jurisprudence resulting from the United States Supreme Court's efforts to define the scope of a warrantless search incident to arrest. In New York v. Belton, the Supreme Court created a bright-line rule authorizing police to search, without a warrant, the passenger compartment of an automobile upon the arrest of one of the vehicle's occupants. In justifying this rule, the Court read its earlier decision in Chimel v. California as authorizing a warrantless search of “the area within the immediate control of the arrestee.” Yet, despite years of appellate decision making prior to Belton, the precise meaning of “the area within the immediate control of the arrestee” as it applied to automobiles remained unclear. In order to bring clarity to Chimel's application in at least one common scenario, the Belton Court ruled that where a vehicle's occupant was arrested, the “area within the immediate control of the arrestee” encompassed the vehicle's entire passenger compartment, including any containers, opened or closed. Attempts to address the limits of Belton resulted in a circuit split, which the Supreme Court recently addressed in Thornton v. United States. Rather than clearly resolve the split, the Supreme Court issued a highly divided opinion that will likely result in continued division among the lower courts. This Article argues that any extension of Belton's bright-line rule must be done with honest reference to the rule's underlying purposes and suggests alternative standards for limiting the scope of Belton searches.
About the Author
Leslie A. Lunney. Associate Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans School of Law. B.S.N., University of Texas Medical Branch; J.D., University of Houston Law Center; LL.M., Tulane University School of Law.
Citation
79 Tul. L. Rev. 365 (2004)