Also known as: searches incident to lawful arrest · search incident to arrest · searches incident to arrest · SILA · search-incident-to-arrest
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A warrantless search of an arrestee's person and the area within immediate control, authorized only when conducted substantially contemporaneously in time and place with a lawful arrest. Delayed or remote searches after impoundment fall outside the exception and require independent justification such as a warrant or inventory policy.
Deputies arrested Scott Summers at a roadside stand and immediately towed his truck to a secured county lot. Hours later, after the vehicle sat locked behind a fence, officers opened feed sacks in the bed and found contraband. The court suppressed the evidence because the search occurred too far removed in time and place from the arrest itself.
Sydney Santos was arrested after a traffic stop for an outstanding warrant. Officers conducted a brief protective sweep of the passenger compartment and located a firearm under the seat. The search remained valid because it occurred immediately at the scene while Santos was still unsecured and within reach of the weapon.
In a rural area of Michigan one evening shortly after midnight, Deputies Howell and Lewis observed a car traveling erratically and at excessive speed. The officers observed the car turning down a side road, where it swerved off into a shallow ditch. The officers stopped to investigate. Long, the only occupant of the automobile, met the deputies at the rear of the car, which was protruding from the ditch onto the road. The door on the driver's side of the vehicle was left open. Deputy Howell requested Long to produce his operator's license, but he did not respond. After the request was repeated, Long produced his license. Long again failed to respond when Howell requested him to produce the vehicle registration. After another repeated request, Long, who Howell thought appeared to be under the influence of something, turned from the officers and began walking toward the open door of the vehicle. The officers followed Long and both observed a large hunting knife on the floorboard of the driver's side of the car. The officers then stopped Long's progress and subjected him to a Terry protective patdown, which revealed no weapons. Long and Deputy Lewis then stood by the rear of the vehicle while Deputy Howell shined his flashlight into the interior of the vehicle, but did not actually enter it. The purpose of Howell's action was to search for other weapons. The officer noticed that something was protruding from under the armrest on the front seat. He knelt in the vehicle and lifted the armrest. He saw an open pouch on the front seat, and upon flashing his light on the pouch, determined that it contained what appeared to be marihuana. After Deputy Howell showed the pouch and its contents to Deputy Lewis, Long was arrested for possession of marihuana. A further search of the interior of the vehicle, including the glovebox, revealed neither more contraband nor the vehicle registration. The officers decided to impound the vehicle. Deputy Howell opened the trunk, which did not have a lock, and discovered inside it approximately 75 pounds of marihuana. The Barry County Circuit Court denied Long's motion to suppress the marihuana taken from both the interior of the car and its trunk. He was subsequently convicted of possession of marihuana. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed Long's conviction, holding that the search of the passenger compartment was valid as a protective search under Terry. The Michigan Supreme Court reversed. The court held that the sole justification of the Terry search, protection of the police officers and others nearby, cannot justify the search in this case. The marihuana found in Long's trunk was considered by the court below to be the fruit of the illegal search of the interior, and was also suppressed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the authority of a police officer to protect himself by conducting a Terry-type search of the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle during the lawful investigatory stop of the occupant of the vehicle.
View caseSophia Singh was arrested at her home for fraud. Officers seized her car parked in the driveway and later searched the trunk at the stationhouse without a warrant. The court held the search invalid because the vehicle had been removed from the arrest scene and the examination occurred hours afterward.
In January 1964, fourteen-year-old Pamela Mason disappeared from her home in Manchester, New Hampshire, during a heavy snowstorm after receiving a telephone call about a babysitting job. Her body was discovered eight days later beside a major highway, prompting a massive police investigation. On January 28, officers visited Edward Coolidge at his home after learning he had been absent on the night of the disappearance. Coolidge produced three guns for inspection and agreed to take a lie-detector test. On February 2, while Coolidge was at the police station undergoing the test, two plainclothes officers arrived at his house and spoke with his wife. Mrs. Coolidge provided four guns belonging to her husband and some clothing she believed he might have worn on the night in question. Coolidge was held overnight on an unrelated charge but released the next day. Over the following two and a half weeks, the State accumulated evidence implicating Coolidge. On February 19, the results of the investigation were presented at a meeting between the police officers working on the case and the State Attorney General, who had personally taken charge of all police activities relating to the murder, and was later to serve as chief prosecutor at the trial. Coolidge was arrested at his home that day. His 1951 Pontiac automobile parked in the driveway was seized and towed to the police station two and a half hours later. The Pontiac was searched and vacuumed on February 21, again in January 1965, and a third time in April 1965. At Coolidge's subsequent jury trial for murder, vacuum sweepings from the car were introduced into evidence. One of the guns taken from the home was also introduced. Vacuum sweepings from the clothing were introduced into evidence. The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the conviction after upholding the admissibility of the evidence, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseSteven Silva was arrested inside his apartment after officers entered without knocking. A search of the living room immediately following the arrest uncovered drug paraphernalia. The evidence was admissible because the search remained limited to the area within Silva's immediate control at the moment of arrest.
Police officers obtained a search warrant authorizing a search for drugs and firearms at the home of petitioner Booker T. Hudson in Michigan. Upon arriving to execute the warrant, the officers knocked on the door and announced their presence. They waited only three to five seconds before turning the knob of the unlocked front door and entering Hudson's home. Inside the residence, officers discovered large quantities of drugs, including cocaine rocks in Hudson's pocket, and a loaded gun lodged between the cushion and armrest of the chair in which he was sitting. Hudson was charged under Michigan law with unlawful drug and firearm possession. He moved to suppress all the inculpatory evidence, arguing that the officers' premature entry violated his rights. The Michigan trial court granted the motion to suppress. On interlocutory review, the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, and the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. Hudson was subsequently convicted of the possession charges. He renewed his suppression claim on appeal, but the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected it and affirmed the conviction. The Michigan Supreme Court again declined review. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the case.
View caseSolomon Silver was arrested inside his residence pursuant to an arrest warrant. Officers then searched the bedroom where Silver was taken into custody and found stolen documents. The search was upheld because it was confined to the area within Silver's immediate control at the time of the lawful arrest.
In January 1970, New York detectives conducted a two-day investigation into the murder of a gas station manager. On January 14 they assembled evidence sufficient to establish probable cause to believe that Theodore Payton had committed the crime. On the morning of January 15 at about 7:30 a.m., six officers went to Payton’s apartment in the Bronx without having obtained a warrant. Although light and music emanated from inside, there was no response to their knock on the metal door. They summoned emergency assistance and approximately thirty minutes later used crowbars to break open the door and enter. No one was present, but the officers seized a .30-caliber shell casing that lay in plain view and that was later admitted into evidence at Payton’s murder trial. In a companion case, on March 14, 1974, police officers acting with probable cause went to the Queens house where Obie Riddick was living to arrest him for two armed robberies that had occurred in 1971. When Riddick’s young son opened the door the officers saw Riddick sitting in bed. They entered the house, placed him under arrest, and before permitting him to dress opened a chest of drawers two feet from the bed. They discovered narcotics and related paraphernalia that were later admitted at his trial on narcotics charges. In both cases the New York trial courts upheld the warrantless entries and plain-view seizures under provisions of the New York Code of Criminal Procedure that authorized such actions, and the Appellate Divisions affirmed. The New York Court of Appeals, in a single 4-3 opinion, affirmed the convictions of both Payton and Riddick. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases, which were argued together.
View caseSkylar Sullivan was arrested for drug possession and handcuffed outside her car. Officers then searched the passenger compartment and discovered methamphetamine in the glove box. The court suppressed the drugs because Sullivan was already secured and posed no threat of accessing the vehicle.
On August 25, 1999, Tucson police officers Griffith and Reed responded to an anonymous tip that the residence at 2524 North Walnut Avenue was being used to sell drugs by knocking on the front door and speaking with Rodney Gant, who identified himself and stated that he expected the owner to return later. The officers left and conducted a records check revealing that Gant's driver's license had been suspended and that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest for driving with a suspended license. When the officers returned to the house that evening, they found a man near the back of the house and a woman in a car parked in front of it. After a third officer arrived, they arrested the man for providing a false name and the woman for possessing drug paraphernalia. Both arrestees were handcuffed and secured in separate patrol cars when Gant arrived. Gant arrived in his car, parked at the end of the driveway, and got out. Officer Griffith recognized the car, confirmed Gant's identity with a flashlight, called to him, and arrested him 10 to 12 feet from the vehicle before handcuffing him. Because the other arrestees occupied the only patrol cars at the scene, Griffith called for backup. When two more officers arrived, they locked Gant in the backseat of their vehicle. After Gant had been handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car, two officers searched his car. One of them found a gun, and the other discovered a bag of cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on the backseat. Gant was charged with two offenses of possession of a narcotic drug for sale and possession of drug paraphernalia. He moved to suppress the evidence seized from his car on the ground that the warrantless search violated the Fourth Amendment. The trial court denied the motion to suppress. A jury found Gant guilty on both drug counts, and he was sentenced to a 3-year term of imprisonment. After protracted state-court proceedings, the Arizona Supreme Court concluded that the search of Gant's car was unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The United States Supreme Court granted the State's petition for certiorari.
View caseThe search must be substantially contemporaneous in both time and place with the arrest. A search conducted hours later at an impound lot after the vehicle has been towed away falls outside the exception and requires a separate justification such as a warrant or inventory policy.
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No. A search incident to arrest requires an actual custodial arrest supported by probable cause. Issuing only a citation does not trigger the exception even if state law permits an arrest instead of a citation.
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The search is invalid under the search-incident exception because it is no longer contemporaneous in time or place. Officers must rely on another justification such as a warrant or a properly conducted inventory search.
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Once the arrestee is handcuffed, officers may search only the area the arrestee could still reach. Areas beyond that wingspan, such as a file cabinet twelve feet away, fall outside the exception.
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