Subject:  CALIFORNIA v. ACEVEDO, Syllabus



 
    NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as
is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is
issued.  The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but
has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the
reader.  See United States v. Detroit Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


Syllabus


CALIFORNIA v. ACEVEDO


certiorari to the court of appeal of california, fourth appellate district


No. 89-1690.  Argued January 8, 1991 -- Decided May 30, 1991

Police observed respondent Acevedo leave an apartment, known to contain
marijuana, with a brown paper bag the size of marijuana packages they had
seen earlier.  He placed the bag in his car's trunk, and, as he drove away,
they stopped the car, opened the trunk and the bag, and found marijuana.
Acevedo's motion to suppress the marijuana was denied, and he pleaded
guilty to possession of marijuana for sale.  The Cali fornia Court of
Appeal held that the marijuana should have been suppressed.  Finding that
the officers had probable cause to believe that the bag contained drugs but
lacked probable cause to suspect that the car, itself, otherwise contained
contraband, the court concluded that the case was controlled by United
States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, which held that police could seize movable
luggage or other closed containers but could not open them without a
warrant, since, inter alia, a person has a heightened privacy expectation
in such containers.

Held: Police, in a search extending only to a container within an
automobile, may search the container without a warrant where they have
probable cause to believe that it holds contraband or evidence.  Carroll v.
United States, 267 U. S. 132 -- which held that a warrantless search of an
automobile based upon probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained
evidence of crime in the light of an exigency arising out of the vehicle's
likely disappearance did not contravene the Fourth Amendment's Warrant
Clause -- provides one rule to govern all automobile searches.  Pp. 3-15.

    (a) Separate doctrines have permitted the warrantless search of an
automobile to include a search of closed containers found inside the car
when there is probable cause to search the vehicle, United States v. Ross,
456 U. S. 798, but prohibited the warrantless search of a closed container
located in a moving vehicle when there is probable cause to search only the
container, Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753.  Pp. 3-7.

    (b) The doctrine of stare decisis does not preclude this Court from
eliminating the warrant requirement of Sanders, which was specifically
undermined in Ross.  The Chadwick-Sanders rule affords minimal protection
to privacy interests.  Police, knowing that they may open a bag only if
they are searching the entire car, may search more extensively than they
otherwise would in order to establish the probable cause Ross requires.
Cf. United States v. Johns, 469 U. S. 478.  And they may seize a container
and hold it until they obtain a search warrant or search it without a
warrant as a search incident to a lawful arrest.  Moreover, the search of a
paper bag intrudes far less on individual privacy than does the incursion
sanctioned in Carroll, where prohibition agents slashed a car's upholstery.
The Chadwick-Sanders rule also is the antithesis of a clear and unequivocal
guideline and, thus, has confused courts and police officers and impeded
effective law enforcement.  United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696; Oklahoma
v. Castleberry, 471 U. S. 146, distinguished.  Pp. 7-14.

    (c) This holding neither extends the Carroll doctrine nor broadens the
scope of permissible automobile searches.  In the instant case, the
probable cause the police had to believe that the bag in the car's trunk
contained marijuana now allows a warrantless search of the bag, but the
record reveals no probable cause to search the entire vehicle.  Pp. 14-15.

216 Cal. App. 3d 586, 265 Cal. Rptr. 23, reversed and remanded.

    Blackmun, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist,
C. J., and O'Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ., joined.  Scalia, J., filed
an opinion concurring in the judgment.  White, J., filed a dissenting
opinion.  Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Marshall, J.,
joined.

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Subject: 89-1690 -- OPINION, CALIFORNIA v. ACEVEDO

 


NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in
the preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested
to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States,
Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to
press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


No. 89-1690



CALIFORNIA, PETITIONER v. CHARLES STEVEN ACEVEDO

on writ of certiorari to the court of appeal of california, fourth
appellate district

[May 30, 1991]



    Justice Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court.

    This case requires us once again to consider the so-called "automobile
exception" to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment and its
application to the search of a closed container in the trunk of a car.

I
    On October 28, 1987, Officer Coleman of the Santa Ana, Cal., Police
Department received a telephone call from a federal drug enforcement agent
in Hawaii.  The agent informed Coleman that he had seized a package
containing marijuana which was to have been delivered to the Federal
Express Office in Santa Ana and which was addressed to J. R. Daza at 805
West Stevens Avenue in that city.  The agent arranged to send the package
to Coleman instead.  Coleman then was to take the package to the Federal
Express office and arrest the person who arrived to claim it.
    Coleman received the package on October 29, verified its contents, and
took it to the Senior Operations Manager at the Federal Express office.  At
about 10:30 a.m. on October 30, a man, who identified himself as Jamie
Daza, arrived to claim the package.  He accepted it and drove to his
apartment on West Stevens.  He carried the package into the apartment.
    At 11:45 a.m., officers observed Daza leave the apartment and drop the
box and paper that had contained the marijuana into a trash bin.  Coleman
at that point left the scene to get a search warrant.  About 12:05 p.m.,
the officers saw Richard St. George leave the apartment carrying a blue
knapsack which appeared to be half full.  The officers stopped him as he
was driving off, searched the knapsack, and found 112 pounds of marijuana.
    At 12:30 p.m., respondent Charles Steven Acevedo arrived.  He entered
Daza's apartment, stayed for about 10 minutes, and reappeared carrying a
brown paper bag that looked full.  The officers noticed that the bag was
the size of one of the wrapped marijuana packages sent from Hawaii.
Acevedo walked to a silver Honda in the parking lot.  He placed the bag in
the trunk of the car and started to drive away.  Fearing the loss of
evidence, officers in a marked police car stopped him.  They opened the
trunk and the bag, and found marijuana. {1}
    Respondent was charged in state court with possession of marijuana for
sale, in violation of Cal. Health & Safety Code Ann. MDRV 11359 (West Supp.
1987).  App. 2.  He moved to suppress the marijuana found in the car.  The
motion was denied.  He then pleaded guilty but appealed the denial of the
suppression motion.
    The California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, concluded that the
marijuana found in the paper bag in the car's trunk should have been
suppressed.  People v. Acevedo, 216 Cal. App. 3d 586, 265 Cal. Rptr. 23
(1990).  The court concluded that the officers had probable cause to
believe that the paper bag contained drugs but lacked probable cause to
suspect that Acevedo's car, itself, otherwise contained contraband.
Because the officers' probable cause was directed specifically at the bag,
the court held that the case was controlled by United States v. Chadwick,
433 U. S. 1 (1977), rather than by United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798
(1982).  Although the court agreed that the officers could seize the paper
bag, it held that, under Chadwick, they could not open the bag without
first obtaining a warrant for that purpose.  The court then recognized "the
anomalous nature" of the dichotomy between the rule in Chadwick and the
rule in Ross.  216 Cal. App. 3d, at 592, 265 Cal. Rptr., at 27.  That
dichotomy dictates that if there is probable cause to search a car, then
the entire car -- including any closed container found therein -- may be
searched without a warrant, but if there is probable cause only as to a
container in the car, the container may be held but not searched until a
warrant is obtained.
    The Supreme Court of California denied the State's petition for review.
App. to Pet. for Cert. 33.  On May 14, 1990, Justice O'Connor stayed
enforcement of the Court of Appeal's judgment pending the disposition of
the State's petition for certiorari, and, if that petition were granted,
the issuance of the mandate of this Court.
    We granted certiorari, --- U. S. --- (1990), to reexamine the law
applicable to a closed container in an automobile, a subject that has
troubled courts and law enforcement officers since it was first considered
in Chadwick.

II
    The Fourth Amendment protects the "right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures."  Contemporaneously with the adoption of the Fourth
Amendment, the First Congress, and, later, the Second and Fourth
Congresses, distinguished between the need for a warrant to search for
contraband concealed in "a dwelling house or similar place" and the need
for a warrant to search for contraband concealed in a movable vessel.  See
Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 151 (1925).  See also Boyd v.
United States, 116 U. S. 616, 623-624 (1886).  In Carroll, this Court
established an exception to the warrant requirement for moving vehicles,
for it recognized

"a necessary difference between a search of a store, dwelling house or
other structure in respect of which a proper official warrant readily may
be obtained, and a search of a ship, motor boat, wagon or automobile, for
contraband goods, where it is not practicable to secure a warrant because
the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in
which the warrant must be sought."  267 U. S., at 153.


It therefore held that a warrantless search of an automobile based upon
probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained evidence of crime in
the light of an exigency arising out of the likely disappearance of the
vehicle did not contravene the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment.  See
id., at 158-159.
    The Court refined the exigency requirement in Chambers v. Maroney, 399
U. S. 42 (1970), when it held that the existence of exigent circumstances
was to be determined at the time the automobile is seized.  The car search
at issue in Chambers took place at the police station, where the vehicle
was immobilized, some time after the driver had been arrested.  Given
probable cause and exigent circumstances at the time the vehicle was first
stopped, the Court held that the later warrantless search at the station
passed constitutional muster.  The validity of the later search derived
from the ruling in Carroll that an immediate search without a warrant at
the moment of seizure would have been permissible.  See Chambers, 399 U.
S., at 51.  The Court reasoned in Chambers that the police could search
later whenever they could have searched earlier, had they so chosen.  Id.,
at 51-52.  Following Chambers, if the police have probable cause to justify
a warrantless seizure of an automobile on a public roadway, they may
conduct either an immediate or a delayed search of the vehicle.
    In United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798, decided in 1982, we held that
a warrantless search of an automobile under the Carroll doctrine could
include a search of a container or package found inside the car when such a
search was supported by probable cause.  The warrantless search of Ross'
car occurred after an informant told the police that he had seen Ross
complete a drug transaction using drugs stored in the trunk of his car.
The police stopped the car, searched it, and discovered in the trunk a
brown paper bag containing drugs.  We decided that the search of Ross' car
was not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment: "The scope of a
warrantless search based on probable cause is no narrower -- and no broader
-- than the scope of a search authorized by a warrant supported by probable
cause."  Id., at 823.  Thus, "[i]f probable cause justifies the search of a
lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies the search of every part of the
vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the search."  Id.,
at 825.  In Ross, therefore, we clarified the scope of the Carroll doctrine
as properly including a "probing search" of compartments and containers
within the automobile so long as the search is supported by probable cause.
Id., at 800.
    In addition to this clarification, Ross distinguished the Carroll
doctrine from the separate rule that governed the search of closed
containers.  See 456 U. S., at 817.  The Court had announced this separate
rule, unique to luggage and other closed packages, bags, and containers, in
United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1 (1977).  In Chadwick, federal
narcotics agents had probable cause to believe that a 200-pound
double-locked footlocker contained marijuana.  The agents tracked the
locker as the defendants removed it from a train and carried it through the
station to a waiting car.  As soon as the defendants lifted the locker into
the trunk of the car, the agents arrested them, seized the locker, and
searched it.  In this Court, the United States did not contend that the
locker's brief contact with the automobile's trunk sufficed to make the
Carroll doctrine applicable.  Rather, the United States urged that the
search of movable luggage could be considered analogous to the search of an
automobile.  433 U. S., at 11-12.
    The Court rejected this argument because, it reasoned, a person expects
more privacy in his luggage and personal effects than he does in his
automobile.  Id., at 13.  Moreover, it concluded that as "may often not be
the case when automobiles are seized," secure storage facilities are
usually available when the police seize luggage.  Id., at 13, n. 7.
    In Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 753 (1979), the Court extended
Chadwick's rule to apply to a suitcase actually being transported in the
trunk of a car.  In Sanders, the police had probable cause to believe a
suitcase contained marijuana.  They watched as the defendant placed the
suitcase in the trunk of a taxi and was driven away.  The police pursued
the taxi for several blocks, stopped it, found the suitcase in the trunk,
and searched it.  Although the Court had applied the Carroll doctrine to
searches of integral parts of the automobile itself, (indeed, in Carroll,
contraband whiskey was in the upholstery of the seats, see 267 U. S., at
136), it did not extend the doctrine to the warrantless search of personal
luggage "merely because it was located in an automobile lawfully stopped by
the police."  442 U. S., at 765.  Again, the Sanders majority stressed the
heightened privacy expectation in personal luggage and concluded that the
presence of luggage in an automobile did not diminish the owner's
expectation of privacy in his personal items.  Id., at 764-765.  Cf.
California v. Carney, 471 U. S. 886 (1985).
    In Ross, the Court endeavored to distinguish between Carroll, which
governed the Ross automobile search, and Chadwick, which governed the
Sanders automobile search.  It held that the Carroll doctrine covered
searches of automobiles when the police had probable cause to search an
entire vehicle but that the Chadwick doctrine governed searches of luggage
when the officers had probable cause to search only a container within the
vehicle.  Thus, in a Ross situation, the police could conduct a reasonable
search under the Fourth Amendment without obtaining a warrant, whereas in a
Sanders situation, the police had to obtain a warrant before they
searched.
    The dissent is correct, of course, that Ross involved the scope of an
automobile search.  See post, at 8.  Ross held that closed containers
encountered by the police during a warrantless search of a car pursuant to
the automobile ex ception could also be searched.  Thus, this Court in Ross
took the critical step of saying that closed containers in cars could be
searched without a warrant because of their presence within the automobile.
Despite the protection that Sanders purported to extend to closed
containers, the privacy interest in those closed containers yielded to the
broad scope of an automobile search.

III
    The facts in this case closely resemble the facts in Ross.  In Ross,
the police had probable cause to believe that drugs were stored in the
trunk of a particular car.  See 456 U. S., at 800.  Here, the California
Court of Appeal concluded that the police had probable cause to believe
that respondent was carrying marijuana in a bag in his car's trunk. {2}
216 Cal. App. 3d, at 590, 265 Cal. Rptr., at 25.  Furthermore, for what it
is worth, in Ross, as here, the drugs in the trunk were contained in a
brown paper bag.
    This Court in Ross rejected Chadwick's distinction between containers
and cars.  It concluded that the expectation of privacy in one's vehicle is
equal to one's expectation of privacy in the container, and noted that "the
privacy interests in a car's trunk or glove compartment may be no less than
those in a movable container."  456 U. S., at 823.  It also recognized that
it was arguable that the same exigent circumstances that permit a
warrantless search of an automobile would justify the warrantless search of
a movable container.  Id., at 809.  In deference to the rule of Chadwick
and Sanders, however, the Court put that question to one side.  Id., at
809-810.  It concluded that the time and expense of the warrant process
would be misdirected if the police could search every cubic inch of an
automobile until they discovered a paper sack, at which point the Fourth
Amendment required them to take the sack to a magistrate for permission to
look inside.  We now must decide the question deferred in Ross: whether the
Fourth Amendment requires the police to obtain a warrant to open the sack
in a movable vehicle simply because they lack probable cause to search the
entire car.  We conclude that it does not.

IV
    Dissenters in Ross asked why the suitcase in Sanders was "more private,
less difficult for police to seize and store, or in any other relevant
respect more properly subject to the warrant requirement, than a container
that police discover in a probable-cause search of an entire automobile?"
Id., at 839-840.  We now agree that a container found after a general
search of the automobile and a container found in a car after a limited
search for the container are equally easy for the police to store and for
the suspect to hide or destroy.  In fact, we see no principled distinction
in terms of either the privacy expectation or the exigent circumstances
between the paper bag found by the police in Ross and the paper bag found
by the police here.  Furthermore, by attempting to distinguish between a
container for which the police are specifically searching and a container
which they come across in a car, we have provided only minimal protection
for privacy and have impeded effective law enforcement.
    The line between probable cause to search a vehicle and probable cause
to search a package in that vehicle is not always clear, and separate rules
that govern the two objects to be searched may enable the police to broaden
their power to make warrantless searches and disserve privacy interests.
We noted this in Ross in the context of a search of an entire vehicle.
Recognizing that under Carroll, the "entire vehicle itself . . . could be
searched without a warrant," we concluded that "prohibiting police from
opening immediately a container in which the object of the search is most
likely to be found and instead forcing them first to comb the entire
vehicle would actually exacerbate the intrusion on privacy interests."  456
U. S., at 821, n. 28.  At the moment when officers stop an automobile, it
may be less than clear whether they suspect with a high degree of certainty
that the vehicle contains drugs in a bag or simply contains drugs.  If the
police know that they may open a bag only if they are actually searching
the entire car, they may search more extensively than they otherwise would
in order to establish the general probable cause required by Ross.
    Such a situation is not far fetched.  In United States v. Johns, 469 U.
S. 478 (1985), customs agents saw two trucks drive to a private airstrip
and approach two small planes.  The agents drew near the trucks, smelled
marijuana, and then saw in the backs of the trucks packages wrapped in a
manner that marijuana smugglers customarily employed.  The agents took the
trucks to headquarters and searched the packages without a warrant.  Id.,
at 481.  Relying on Chadwick, the defendants argued that the search was
unlawful.  Id., at 482.  The defendants contended that Ross was
inapplicable because the agents lacked probable cause to search anything
but the packages themselves and supported this contention by noting that a
search of the entire vehicle never occurred.  Id., at 483.  We rejected
that argument and found Chadwick and Sanders inapposite because the agents
had probable cause to search the entire body of each truck, although they
had chosen not to do so.  Id., at 482-483.  We cannot see the benefit of a
rule that requires law enforcement officers to conduct a more intrusive
search in order to justify a less intrusive one.
    To the extent that the Chadwick-Sanders rule protects privacy, its
protection is minimal.  Law enforcement officers may seize a container and
hold it until they obtain a search warrant.  Chadwick, 433 U. S., at 13.
"Since the police, by hypothesis, have probable cause to seize the
property, we can assume that a warrant will be routinely forthcoming in the
overwhelming majority of cases."  Sanders, 442 U. S., at 770 (dissenting
opinion).  And the police often will be able to search containers without a
warrant, despite the Chadwick-Sanders rule, as a search incident to a
lawful arrest.  In New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), the Court
said:

"[W]e hold that when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the
occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that
arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile.
    "It follows from this conclusion that the police may also examine the
contents of any containers found within the passenger compartment."  Id.,
at 460 (footnote omitted).


Under Belton, the same probable cause to believe that a container holds
drugs will allow the police to arrest the person transporting the container
and search it.
    Finally, the search of a paper bag intrudes far less on individual
privacy than does the incursion sanctioned long ago in Carroll.  In that
case, prohibition agents slashed the upholstery of the automobile.  This
Court nonetheless found their search to be reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment.  If destroying the interior of an automobile is not
unreasonable, we cannot conclude that looking inside a closed container is.
In light of the minimal protection to privacy afforded by the
Chadwick-Sanders rule, and our serious doubt whether that rule
substantially serves privacy interests, we now hold that the Fourth
Amendment does not compel separate treatment for an automobile search that
extends only to a container within the vehicle.

V
    The Chadwick-Sanders rule not only has failed to protect privacy but it
has also confused courts and police officers and impeded effective law
enforcement.  The conflict between the Carroll doctrine cases and the
Chadwick-Sanders line has been criticized in academic commentary.  See, e.
g., Gardner, Searches and Seizures of Automobiles and Their Contents:
Fourth Amendment Considerations in a Post-Ross World, 62 Neb. L. Rev. 1
(1983); Latzer, Searching Cars and Their Contents, 18 Crim. L. Bull. 381
(1982); Kamisar, The "Automobile Search" Cases: The Court Does Little to
Clarify the "Labyrinth" of Judicial Uncertainty, 3 The Supreme Court:
Trends and Developments 1980-1981, p. 69 (1982).  One leading authority on
the Fourth Amendment, after comparing Chadwick and Sanders with Carroll and
its progeny, observed: "These two lines of authority cannot be completely
reconciled, and thus how one comes out in the container-inthe-car situation
depends upon which line of authority is used as a point of departure."  3
W. LaFave, Search & Seizure 53 (2d ed. 1987).
    The discrepancy between the two rules has led to confusion for law
enforcement officers.  For example, when an officer, who has developed
probable cause to believe that a vehicle contains drugs, begins to search
the vehicle and immediately discovers a closed container, which rule
applies?  The defendant will argue that the fact that the officer first
chose to search the container indicates that his probable cause extended
only to the container and that Chadwick and Sanders therefore require a
warrant.  On the other hand, the fact that the officer first chose to
search in the most obvious location should not restrict the propriety of
the search.  The Chadwick rule, as applied in Sanders, has devolved into an
anomaly such that the more likely the police are to discover drugs in a
container, the less authority they have to search it.  We have noted the
virtue of providing " ` "clear and unequivocal" guidelines to the law
enforcement profession.' "  Minnick v. Mississippi, 498 U. S. ---, ---
(1990) (slip op. 4), quoting Arizona v. Roberson, 486 U. S. 675, 682
(1988).  The Chadwick-Sanders rule is the antithesis of a " `clear and
unequivocal' guideline."
    The dissent argues that the decisions of this Court evince a lack of
confusion about the automobile exception.  See post, at 10.  The first case
cited by the the dissent, United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696 (1983),
however, did not involve an automobile at all.  We considered in Place the
temporary detention of luggage in an airport.  Not only was no auto mobile
involved, but the defendant, Place, was waiting at the airport to board his
plane rather than preparing to leave the airport in a car.  Any similarity
to Sanders, in which the defendant was leaving the airport in a car, is
remote at best.  Place had nothing to do with the automobile exception and
is inapposite.
    Nor does the dissent's citation to Oklahoma v. Castle berry, 471 U. S.
146 (1985), support its contention.  Castle berry presented the same
question about the application of the automobile exception to the search of
a closed container that we face here.  In Castleberry, we affirmed by an
equally divided court.  That result illustrates this Court's continued
struggle with the scope of the automobile exception rather than the absence
of confusion in applying it.
    The dissent also argues that law enforcement has not been impeded
because the Court has decided 29 Fourth Amendment cases since Ross in favor
of the government.  See post, at 16.  In each of these cases, the
government appeared as the petitioner.  The dissent fails to explain how
the loss of 29 cases below, not to mention the many others which this Court
did not hear, did not interfere with law enforcement.  The fact that the
state courts and the federal courts of appeals have been reversed in their
Fourth Amendment holdings 29 times since 1982 further demonstrates the
extent to which our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has confused the
courts.
    Most important, with the exception of Johns, supra, and Texas v. Brown,
460 U. S. 730 (1983), the Fourth Amendment cases cited by the dissent do
not concern automobiles or the automobile exception.  From Carroll through
Ross, this Court has explained that automobile searches differ from other
searches.  The dissent fails to acknowledge this basic principle and so
misconstrues and misapplies our Fourth Amendment case law.
    The Chadwick dissenters predicted that the container rule would have
"the perverse result of allowing fortuitous circumstances to control the
outcome" of various searches.  433 U. S., at 22.  The rule also was so
confusing that within two years after Chadwick, this Court found it
necessary to expound on the meaning of that decision and explain its
application to luggage in general.  Sanders, 442 U. S., at 761-764.  Again,
dissenters bemoaned the "inherent opaqueness" of the difference between the
Carroll and Chadwick principles and noted "the confusion to be created for
all concerned."  Id., at 771.  See also Robbins v. California, 453 U. S.
420, 425-426 (1981) (listing cases decided by Federal Courts of Appeals
since Chadwick had been announced).  Three years after Sanders, we returned
in Ross to "this troubled area," 456 U. S., at 817, in order to assert that
Sanders had not cut back on Carroll.
    Although we have recognized firmly that the doctrine of stare decisis
serves profoundly important purposes in our legal system, this Court has
overruled a prior case on the comparatively rare occasion when it has bred
confusion or been a derelict or led to anomalous results.  See, e. g.,
Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, 430 U. S. 274, 288-289 (1977).
Sanders was explicitly undermined in Ross, 456 U. S., at 824, and the
existence of the dual regimes for automobile searches that uncover
containers has proved as confusing as the Chadwick and Sanders dissenters
predicted.  We conclude that it is better to adopt one clear-cut rule to
govern automobile searches and eliminate the warrant requirement for closed
containers set forth in Sanders.

VI
    The interpretation of the Carroll doctrine set forth in Ross now
applies to all searches of containers found in an automobile.  In other
words, the police may search without a warrant if their search is supported
by probable cause.  The Court in Ross put it this way:

"The scope of a warrantless search of an automobile . . . is not defined by
the nature of the container in which the contraband is secreted.  Rather,
it is defined by the object of the search and the places in which there is
probable cause to believe that it may be found."  456 U. S., at 824.


It went on to note: "Probable cause to believe that a container placed in
the trunk of a taxi contains contraband or evidence does not justify a
search of the entire cab."  Ibid.  We reaffirm that principle.  In the case
before us, the police had probable cause to believe that the paper bag in
the automobile's trunk contained marijuana.  That probable cause now allows
a warrantless search of the paper bag.  The facts in the record reveal that
the police did not have probable cause to believe that contraband was
hidden in any other part of the automobile and a search of the entire
vehicle would have been without probable cause and unreasonable under the
Fourth Amendment.
    Our holding today neither extends the Carroll doctrine nor broadens the
scope of the permissible automobile search delineated in Carroll, Chambers,
and Ross.  It remains a "cardinal principle that `searches conducted
outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or
magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment -- subject
only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.' "
Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 390 (1978), quoting Katz v. United
States, 389 U. S. 347, 357 (1967) (footnote omitted).  We held in Ross:
"The exception recognized in Carroll is unquestionably one that is
`specifically established and well delineated.' "  456 U. S., at 825.
    Until today, this Court has drawn a curious line between the search of
an automobile that coincidentally turns up a container and the search of a
container that coincidentally turns up in an automobile.  The protections
of the Fourth Amendment must not turn on such coincidences.  We therefore
interpret Carroll as providing one rule to govern all automobile searches.
The police may search an automobile and the containers within it where they
have probable cause to believe contraband or evidence is contained.
    The judgment of the California Court of Appeal is reversed and the case
is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with
this opinion.

It is so ordered.


 
 
 
 
 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1
    When Officer Coleman returned with a warrant, the apartment was
searched and bags of marijuana were found there.  We are here concerned, of
course, only with what was discovered in the automobile.

2
    Although respondent now challenges this holding, we decline to
second-guess the California courts, which have found probable cause.
Respondent did not raise the probable-cause question in his Brief in
Opposition nor did he cross-petition for resolution of the issue.  He also
did not raise the point in a cross-petition to the Supreme Court of
California.  We therefore do not consider the issue here.  See Lytle v.
Household Mfg., Inc., 494 U. S. ---, ---, n. 3 (1990); Heckler v. Campbell,
461 U. S. 458, 468-469, n. 12 (1983).





Subject: 89-1690 -- DISSENT, CALIFORNIA v. ACEVEDO

 


 
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


No. 89-1690



CALIFORNIA, PETITIONER v. CHARLES STEVEN ACEVEDO

on writ of certiorari to the court of appeal of california, fourth
appellate district

[May 30, 1991]



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




Subject: 89-1690 -- DISSENT, CALIFORNIA v. ACEVEDO

 


    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES


No. 89-1690



CALIFORNIA, PETITIONER v. CHARLES STEVEN ACEVEDO

on writ of certiorari to the court of appeal of california, fourth
appellate district


[May 30, 1991]



    Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.

    At the end of its opinion, the Court pays lip service to the
proposition that should provide the basis for a correct analysis of the
legal question presented by this case: It is " `a cardinal principle that
"searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by
judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment --
subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated
exceptions." '  Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 390 (1978), quoting Katz
v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357 (1967) (footnote omitted)."  Ante, at
13.

    Relying on arguments that conservative judges have repeatedly rejected
in past cases, the Court today -- despite its disclaimer to the contrary,
ibid. -- enlarges the scope of the automobile exception to this "cardinal
principle," which undergirded our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence prior to
the retirement of the author of the landmark opinion in United States v.
Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1 (1977).  As a preface to my response to the Court's
arguments, it is appropriate to restate the basis for the warrant
requirement, the significance of the Chadwick case, and the reasons why the
limitations on the automobile exception that were articulated in United
States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798 (1982), represent a fair accommodation
between the basic rule requiring prior judicial approval of searches and
the automobile exception.

I
    The Fourth Amendment is a restraint on Executive power.  The Amendment
constitutes the Framers' direct constitutional response to the unreasonable
law enforcement practices employed by agents of the British Crown.  See
Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 389-391 (1914); Boyd v. United
States, 116 U. S. 616, 624-625 (1886); 1 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure 3-5
(2d ed. 1987).  Over the years -- particularly in the period immediately
after World War II and particularly in opinions authored by Justice Jackson
after his service as a special prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials -- the
Court has recognized the importance of this restraint as a bulwark against
police practices that prevail in totalitarian regimes.  See, e. g., United
States v. Di Re, 332 U. S. 581, 595 (1948); Johnson v. United States, 333
U. S. 10, 17 (1948).

    This history is, however, only part of the explanation for the warrant
requirement.  The requirement also reflects the sound policy judgment that,
absent exceptional circumstances, the decision to invade the privacy of an
individual's personal effects should be made by a neutral magistrate rather
than an agent of the Executive.  In his opinion for the Court in Johnson v.
United States, id., at 13-14, Justice Jackson explained:


    "The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by
zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the
usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence.  Its protection
consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and
detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the
often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime."


    Our decisions have always acknowledged that the warrant requirement
imposes a burden on law enforcement.  And our cases have not questioned
that trained professionals normally make reliable assessments of the
existence of probable cause to conduct a search.  We have repeatedly held,
however, that these factors are outweighed by the individual interest in
privacy that is protected by advance judicial approval.  The Fourth
Amendment dictates that the privacy interest is paramount, no matter how
marginal the risk of error might be if the legality of warrantless searches
were judged only after the fact.

    In the concluding paragraph of his opinion in Chadwick, Chief Justice
Burger made the point this way:


"Even though on this record the issuance of a warrant by a judicial officer
was reasonably predictable, a line must be drawn.  In our view, when no
exigency is shown to support the need for an immediate search, the Warrant
Clause places the line at the point where the property to be searched comes
under the exclusive dominion of police authority.  Respondents were
therefore entitled to the protection of the Warrant Clause with the
evaluation of a neutral magistrate, before their privacy interests in the
contents of [their luggage] were invaded."  433 U. S., at 15-16.


    In Chadwick, the Department of Justice had mounted a frontal attack on
the warrant requirement.  The Government's principal contention was that
"the Fourth Amendment Warrant Clause protects only interests traditionally
identified with the home."  Id., at 6.  We categorically rejected that
contention, relying on the history and text of the amendment, {1} the
policy underlying the warrant requirement, {2} and a line of cases spanning
over a century of our jurisprudence. {3}  We also rejected the Government's
alternative argument that the rationale of our automobile search cases
demonstrated the reasonableness of permitting warrantless searches of
luggage.

    We concluded that neither of the justifications for the automobile
exception could support a similar exception for luggage.  We first held
that the privacy interest in luggage is "substantially greater than in an
automobile."  Id., at 13.  Unlike automobiles and their contents, we
reasoned, "[l]uggage contents are not open to public view, except as a
condition to a border entry or common carrier travel; nor is luggage
subject to regular inspections and official scrutiny on a continuing
basis."  Ibid.  Indeed, luggage is specifically intended to safeguard the
privacy of personal effects, unlike an automobile, "whose primary function
is transportation."  Ibid.

    We then held that the mobility of luggage did not justify creating an
additional exception to the Warrant Clause.  Unlike an automobile, luggage
can easily be seized and detained pending judicial approval of a search.
Once the police have luggage "under their exclusive control, there [i]s not
the slightest danger that the [luggage] or its contents could [be] removed
before a valid search warrant could be obtained. . . .  With the [luggage]
safely immobilized, it [i]s unreasonable to undertake the additional and
greater intrusion of a search without a warrant" (footnote omited).  Ibid.


    Two Terms after Chadwick, we decided a case in which the relevant facts
were identical to those before the Court today.  In Arkansas v. Sanders,
442 U. S. 753 (1979), the police had probable cause to search a green
suitcase that had been placed in the trunk of a taxicab at the Little Rock
Airport.  Several blocks from the airport, they stopped the cab, arrested
the passengers, seized the suitcase and, without obtaining a warrant,
opened and searched it.
    The Arkansas Supreme Court held that the search was unconstitutional.
Relying on Chadwick, the state court had no difficulty in concluding that
there was "nothing in this set of circumstances that would lend credence to
an assertion of impracticability in obtaining a search warrant."  Sanders
v. State, 262 Ark. 595, 600, 559 S. W. 2d 704, 706 (1977).  Over the
dissent of Justice Blackmun and then Justice Rehnquist, both of whom had
also dissented in Chadwick, this Court affirmed.  In his opinion for the
Court, Justice Powell noted that the seizure of the green suitcase was
entirely proper, {4} but that the State nevertheless had the burden of
justifying the warrantless search, {5} and that it had "failed to carry its
burden of demonstrating the need for warrantless searches of luggage
properly taken from automobiles."  442 U. S., at 763.

    Chief Justice Burger wrote separately to identify the distinction
between cases in which police have probable cause to believe contraband is
located somewhere in a vehicle -- the typical automobile exception case --
and cases like Chadwick and Sanders in which they had probable cause to
search a particular container before it was placed in the car.  He wrote:



    "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.
. . .

    "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."  442 U. S., at 766-767 (Burger,
C. J., concurring in judgment).


    Chief Justice Burger thus carefully explained that Sanders, which the
Court overrules today, "simply d[id] 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."  Id., at 767.  We confronted that question in United States v.
Ross, 456 U. S. 798 (1982). {6}

    We held in Ross that "the scope of the warrantless search authorized by
[the automobile] exception is no broader and no narrower than a magistrate
could legitimately authorize by warrant."  See id., at 825.  The inherent
mobility of the vehicle justified the immediate search without a warrant,
but did not affect the scope of the search.  See id., at 822.  Thus, the
search could encompass containers, which might or might not conceal the
object of the search, as well as the remainder of the vehicle.  See id., at
821.

    Our conclusion was supported not only by prior cases defining the
proper scope of searches authorized by warrant, as well as cases involving
the automobile exception, but also by practical considerations that apply
to searches in which the police have only generalized probable cause to
believe that contraband is somewhere in a vehicle.  We explained that, in
such instances, "prohibiting police from opening immediately a container in
which the object of the search is most likely to be found and instead
forcing them first to comb the entire vehicle would actually exacerbate the
intrusion on privacy interests."  Id., at 821, n. 28.  Indeed, because "the
police could never be certain that the contraband was not secreted in a yet
undiscovered portion of the vehicle," the most likely result would be that
"the vehicle would need to be secured while a warrant was obtained."
Ibid.

    These concerns that justified our holding in Ross are not implicated in
cases like Chadwick and Sanders in which the police have probable cause to
search a particular container rather than the entire vehicle.  Because the
police can seize the container which is the object of their search, they
have no need either to search or to seize the entire vehicle.  Indeed, as
even the Court today recognizes, they have no authority to do so.  See 456
U. S., at 824; ante, at 13.

    In reaching our conclusion in Ross, we therefore did not retreat at all
from the holding in either Chadwick or Sanders.  Instead, we expressly
endorsed the reasoning in Chief Justice Burger's separate opinion in
Sanders.  456 U. S., at 813-814. {7}  We explained repeatedly that Ross
involved the scope of the warrantless search authorized by the automobile
exception, id., at 800, 809, 817, 825, and, unlike Chadwick and Sanders,
did not involve the applicability of the exception to closed containers.
456 U. S., at 809-817.

    Thus, we recognized in Ross that Chadwick and Sanders had not created a
special rule for container searches, but rather had merely applied the
cardinal principle that warrantless searches are per se unreasonable unless
justified by an exception to the general rule.  See 456 U. S., at 811812.
{8}  Ross dealt with the scope of the automobile exception; Chadwick and
Sanders were cases in which the exception simply did not apply.

II
    In its opinion today, the Court recognizes that the police did not have
probable cause to search respondent's vehicle and that a search of anything
but the paper bag that respondent had carried from Daza's apartment and
placed in the trunk of his car would have been unconstitutional.  Ante, at
13.  Moreover, as I read the opinion, the Court assumes that the police
could not have made a warrantless inspection of the bag before it was
placed in the car.  See ibid.  Finally, the Court also does not question
the fact that, under our prior cases, it would have been lawful for the
police to seize the container and detain it (and respondent) until they
obtained a search warrant.  Ante, at 9.  Thus, all of the relevant facts
that governed our decisions in Chadwick and Sanders are present here
whereas the relevant fact that justified the vehicle search in Ross is not
present.

    The Court does not attempt to identify any exigent circumstances that
would justify its refusal to apply the general rule against warrantless
searches.  Instead, it advances these three arguments: First, the rules
identified in the foregoing cases are confusing and anomalous.  Ante, at
10-12.  Second, the rules do not protect any significant interest in
privacy.  Ante, at 8-10.  And, third, the rules impede effective law
enforcement.  Ante, at 10-11.  None of these arguments withstands
scrutiny.

The "Confusion"

    In the nine years since Ross was decided, the Court has considered
three cases in which the police had probable cause to search a particular
container and one in which they had probable cause to search two vehicles.
The decisions in all four of those cases were perfectly straightforward and
provide no evidence of confusion in the state or lower federal courts.

    In United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696 (1983), we held that, although
reasonable suspicion justifies the temporary detention of an airline
passenger's luggage, the seizure in that particular case was unreasonable
because of the prolonged delay in ascertaining the existence of probable
cause.  In the course of our opinion, we noted that the then-recent
decision in Ross had not modified the holding in Sanders.  462 U. S., at
701, n. 3.  We also relied on Chadwick for our conclusion that the
temporary seizure of luggage is substantially less intrusive than a search
of its contents.  462 U. S., at 706-707.

    In Oklahoma v. Castleberry, 471 U. S. 146 (1985), police officers had
probable cause to believe the defendant carried narcotics in blue suitcases
in the trunk of his car.  After arresting him, they opened the trunk,
seized the suitcases, and searched them without a warrant.  The state court
held that the search was invalid, explaining:

"If the officer has probable cause to believe there is contraband somewhere
in the car, but he does not know exactly where, he may search the entire
car as well as any containers found therein.  See United States v. Ross,
456 U. S. 798 . . . (1982); Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, . . .
(1970); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132 . . . (1925).  If, on the
other hand, the officer only has probable cause to believe there is
contraband in a specific container in the car, he must detain the container
and delay his search until a search warrant is obtained.  See United States
v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798 . . . (1982); Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S. 743 . .
. (1979); United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1 . . . (1977)."
Castleberry v. State, 678 P. 2d 720, 724 (Okla. 1984).


This Court affirmed by an equally-divided court.  471 U. S. 146 (1985).

    In the case the Court decides today, the California Court of Appeal
also had no difficulty applying the critical distinction.  Relying on
Chadwick, it explained that "the officers had probable cause to believe
marijuana would be found only in a brown lunch bag and nowhere else in the
car.  We are compelled to hold they should have obtained a search warrant
before opening it."  216 Cal. App. 3d 586, 592, 265 Cal. Rptr. 23, 27
(1990).

    In the case in which the police had probable cause to search two
vehicles, United States v. Johns, 469 U. S. 478 (1985), {9} we rejected the
respondent's reliance on Chadwick with a straightforward explanation of why
that case, unlike Ross, did not involve an exception to the warrant
requirement.  We first expressed our agreement with the Court of Appeals
that the Customs officers who had conducted the search had probable cause
to search the vehicles.  Id., at 482.  We then explained:


"Under the circumstances of this case, respondents' reliance on Chadwick is
misplaced. . . .  Chadwick . . . did not involve the exception to the
warrant requirement recognized in Carroll v. United States, supra, because
the police had no probable cause to believe that the automobile, as
contrasted to the footlocker, contained contraband.  See 433 U. S., at
11-12.  This point is underscored by our decision in Ross, which held that
notwithstanding Chadwick police officers may conduct a warrantless search
of containers discovered in the course of a lawful vehicle search.  See 456
U. S., at 810-814.  Given our conclusion that the Customs officers had
probable cause to believe that the pickup trucks contained contraband,
Chadwick is simply inapposite.  See 456 U. S., at 817."  469 U. S., at
482-483.


    The decided cases thus provide no support for the Court's concern about
"confusion."  The Court instead relies primarily on predictions that were
made by Justice Blackmun in his dissenting opinions in Chadwick and
Sanders. {10}  The Court, however, cites no evidence that these predictions
have in fact materialized or that anyone else has been unable to understand
the "inherent opaqueness," ante, at 12, of this uncomplicated issue.  The
only support offered by the Court, other than the unsubstantiated
allegations of prior dissents, is three law review comments and a sentence
from Professor LaFave's treatise.  None of the law review pieces criticizes
the holdings in Chadwick and Sanders. {11}  The sentence from Professor
LaFave's treatise, at most, indicates that, as is often the case, there may
be some factual situations at the margin of the relevant rules that are
difficult to decide.  Moreover, to the extent Professor LaFave criticizes
our jurisprudence in this area, he is critical of Ross rather than Chadwick
or Sanders.  And he ultimately concludes that even Ross was correctly
decided.  See 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure 55-56 (2d ed. 1987).

    The Court summarizes the alleged "anomaly" created by the coexistence
of Ross, Chadwick, and Sanders with the statement that "the more likely the
police are to discover drugs in a container, the less authority they have
to search it."  Ante, at 11.  This juxtaposition is only anomalous,
however, if one accepts the flawed premise that the degree to which the
police are likely to discover contraband is correlated with their authority
to search without a warrant.  Yet, even proof beyond a reasonable doubt
will not justify a warrantless search that is not supported by one of the
exceptions to the warrant requirement.  And, even when the police have a
warrant or an exception applies, once the police possess probable cause,
the extent to which they are more or less certain of the contents of a
container has no bearing on their authority to search it.

    To the extent there was any "anomaly" in our prior jurisprudence, the
Court has "cured" it at the expense of creating a more serious paradox.
For, surely it is anomalous to prohibit a search of a briefcase while the
owner is carrying it exposed on a public street yet to permit a search once
the owner has placed the briefcase in the locked trunk of his car.  One's
privacy interest in one's luggage can certainly not be diminished by one's
removing it from a public thoroughfare and placing it -- out of sight -- in
a privately owned vehicle.  Nor is the danger that evidence will escape
increased if the luggage is in a car rather than on the street.  In either
location, if the police have probable cause, they are authorized to seize
the luggage and to detain it until they obtain judicial approval for a
search.  Any line demarking an exception to the warrant requirement will
appear blurred at the edges, but the Court has certainly erred if it
believes that, by erasing one line and drawing another, it has drawn a
clearer boundary.

The Privacy Argument

    The Court's statement that Chadwick and Sanders provide only "minimal
protection to privacy," ante, at 10, is also unpersuasive.  Every citizen
clearly has an interest in the privacy of the contents of his or her
luggage, briefcase, handbag or any other container that conceals private
papers and effects from public scrutiny.  That privacy interest has been
recognized repeatedly in cases spanning more than a century.  See, e. g.,
Chadwick, 433 U. S., at 6-11; United States v. Van Leeuwen, 397 U. S. 249,
251 (1970); Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, 733 (1878).

    Under the Court's holding today, the privacy interest that protects the
contents of a suitcase or a briefcase from a warrantless search when it is
in public view simply vanishes when its owner climbs into a taxicab.
Unquestionably the rejection of the Sanders line of cases by today's
decision will result in a significant loss of individual privacy.

    To support its argument that today's holding works only a minimal
intrusion on privacy, the Court suggests that "[i]f the police know that
they may open a bag only if they are actually searching the entire car,
they may search more extensively than they otherwise would in order to
establish the general probable cause required by Ross."  Ante, at 9.  As I
have already noted, see n. 9, supra, this fear is unexplained and
inexplicable.  Neither evidence uncovered in the course of a search nor the
scope of the search conducted can be used to provide post hoc justification
for a search unsupported by probable cause at its inception.

    The Court also justifies its claim that its holding inflicts only minor
damage by suggesting that, under New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981),
the police could have arrested respondent and searched his bag if
respondent had placed the bag in the passenger compartment of the
automobile instead of the trunk.  In Belton, however, the justification for
stopping the car and arresting the driver had nothing to do with the
subsequent search, which was based on the potential danger to the arresting
officer.  The holding in Belton was supportable under a straightforward
application of the automobile exception.  See Robbins v. California, 453 U.
S. 420, 449-453 (1981) (Stevens, J., dissenting).  I would not extend
Belton's holding to this case, in which the container -- which was
protected from a warrantless search before it was placed in the car --
provided the only justification for the arrest.  Even accepting Belton's
application to a case like this one, however, the Court's logic extends its
holding to a container placed in the trunk of a vehicle, rather than in the
passenger compartment.  And the Court makes this extension without any
justification whatsoever other than convenience to law enforcement.


The Burden on Law Enforcement

    The Court's suggestion that Chadwick and Sanders have created a
significant burden on effective law enforcement is unsupported, inaccurate,
and, in any event, an insufficient reason for creating a new exception to
the warrant requirement.

    Despite repeated claims that Chadwick and Sanders have "impeded
effective law enforcement," ante, at 8, 10, the Court cites no authority
for its contentions.  Moreover, all evidence that does exist points to the
contrary conclusion.  In the years since Ross was decided, the Court has
heard argument in 30 Fourth Amendment cases involving narcotics. {12}  In
all but one, the government was the petitioner. {13}  All save two involved
a search or seizure without a warrant or with a defective warrant. {14}
And, in all except three, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the
search or seizure. {15}

    In the meantime, the flow of narcotics cases through the courts has
steadily and dramatically increased. {16}  See Annual Report of the
Attorney General of the United States 21 (1989).  No impartial observer
could criticize this Court for hindering the progress of the war on drugs.
On the contrary, decisions like the one the Court makes today will support
the conclusion that this Court has become a loyal foot soldier in the
Executive's fight against crime.

    Even if the warrant requirement does inconvenience the police to some
extent, that fact does not distinguish this constitutional requirement from
any other procedural protection secured by the Bill of Rights.  It is
merely a part of the price that our society must pay in order to preserve
its freedom.  Thus, in a unanimous opinion that relied on both Johnson and
Chadwick, Justice Stewart wrote:


    "Moreover, the mere fact that law enforcement may be made more
efficient can never by itself justify disregard of the Fourth Amendment.
Cf. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, supra, at 481.  The investigation of crime
would always be simplified if warrants were unnecessary.  But the Fourth
Amendment reflects the view of those who wrote the Bill of Rights that the
privacy of a person's home and property may not be totally sacrificed in
the name of maximum simplicity in enforcement of the criminal law.  See
United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 6-11."  Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.
S. 385, 393 (1978).


    It is too early to know how much freedom America has lost today.  The
magnitude of the loss is, however, not nearly as significant as the Court's
willingness to inflict it without even a colorable basis for its rejection
of prior law.

    I respectfully dissent.

 
 
 
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1
    "Although the searches and seizures which deeply concerned the
colonists, and which were foremost in the minds of the Framers, were those
involving invasions of the home, it would be a mistake to conclude, as the
Government contends, that the Warrant Clause was therefore intended to
guard only against intrusions into the home.  First, the Warrant Clause
does not in terms distinguish between searches conducted in private homes
and other searches.  There is also a strong historical connection between
the Warrant Clause and the initial clause of the Fourth Amendment, which
draws no distinctions among `persons, houses, papers, and effects' in
safeguarding against unreasonable searches and seizures."  United States v.
Chadwick, 433 U. S. 1, 8 (1977).

2
    "The judicial warrant has a significant role to play in that it
provides the detached scrutiny of a neutral magistrate, which is a more
reliable safeguard against improper searches than the hurried judgment of a
law enforcement officer `engaged in the often competitive enterprise of
ferreting out crime.'  Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 14 (1948).
Once a lawful search has begun, it is also far more likely that it will not
exceed proper bounds when it is done pursuant to a judicial authorization
`particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things
to be seized.'  Further, a warrant assures the individual whose property is
searched or seized of the lawful authority of the executing officer, his
need to search, and the limits of his power to search."  Id., at 9.

3
    See id., at 10-11.  The earliest case cited by Chief Justice Burger was
Justice Field's opinion in Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 727, 733 (1878).

4
    "Having probable cause to believe that contraband was being driven away
in the taxi, the police were justified in stopping the vehicle, searching
it on the spot, and seizing the suitcase they suspected contained
contraband.  See Chambers v. Maroney, supra, at 52.  At oral argument,
respondent conceded that the stopping of the taxi and the seizure of the
suitcase were constitutionally unobjectionable.  See Tr. of Oral Arg. 30,
44-46."  Arkansas v. Sanders, 442 U. S., at 761-762.

5
    "[B]ecause each exception to the warrant requirement invariably
impinges to some extent on the protective purpose of the Fourth Amendment,
the few situations in which a search may be conducted in the absence of a
warrant have been carefully delineated and `the burden is on those seeking
the exemption to show the need for it.'  United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.
S. 48, 51 (1951)."  Id., at 759-760.

6
    In framing the question for decision we stated: "Unlike Chadwick and
Sanders, in this case police officers had probable cause to search
respondent's entire vehicle."  456 U. S., at 817.

7
    Moreover, we quoted the following paragraph from Justice Powell's
opinion in the intervening case of Robbins v. California, 453 U. S. 420
(1981):

"[W]hen 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 cause to search the double-locked footlocker and the suitcase
respectively before either came near an automobile."  Id., at 435, quoted
in United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798, 816 (1982).

8
    Although the Court today purports to acknowledge that the warrant
requirement is the general rule, ante, at 13, it nonetheless inexplicably
persists in referring to Chadwick and Sanders as announcing a "separate
rule, unique to luggage and other closed packages, bags, and containers."
Ante, at 5.  Equally inexplicable is the Court's contention that, in
overruling Sanders, it has not "extend[ed] the Carroll doctrine" that
created the automobile exception.  Ante, at 13.

9
    In its discussion of the Johns case, the Court makes the puzzling
statement that it "cannot see the benefit of a rule that requires law
enforcement officers to conduct a more intrusive search in order to justify
a less intrusive one."  See ante, at 9.  I assume that the Court does not
mean to suggest that evidence found during the course of a search may
provide the probable cause that justifies the search.  Our cases have
unequivocally rejected this bootstrap justification for a search which was
not lawful when it commenced.  See, e. g., United States v. Di Re, 332 U.
S. 581, 595 (1948); Byars v. United States, 273 U. S. 28, 29-30 (1927).
Perhaps the Court fears that defendants will attempt similar post hoc
reasoning and argue that, when the police have searched only a container
rather than the whole car, they must have had probable cause only to search
the container.  If so, the Court's fear is unwarranted, for Johns itself
foreclosed this argument.  See 469 U. S., at 482-483.

10
    See ante, at 11 (referring to the undocumented prediction made by
Justice Blackmun, joined by Justice Rehnquist, in dissent in Chadwick);
ante, at 12 (referring to the fact that the dissenters had "bemoaned the
`inherent opaqueness' of the difference between the Carroll and Chadwick
principles and noted `the confusion to be created for all concerned' ").
11
    One of the three pieces, Kamisar, The "Automobile Search" Cases: The
Court Does Little to Clarify the "Labyrinth" of Judicial Uncertainty, in 3
J. Choper, Y. Kamisar, & L. Tribe, The Supreme Court: Trends and
Developments 1980-1981 (1982), was written prior to the decision in Ross.
Moreover, rather than criticizing Chadwick and Sanders, the article
expressly endorses Justice Brennan's refutation of the arguments advanced
by Justice Blackmun in his dissent in Chadwick.  See id., at 83-85.  The
other two articles were written shortly after Ross, and both criticize Ross
rather than Chadwick or Sanders.  See Gardner, Searches and Seizures of
Automobiles and Their Contents: Fourth Amendment Considerations in a
Post-Ross World, 62 Neb. L. Rev. 1 (1983); Latzer, Searching Cars and Their
Contents, 18 Crim. L. Bull. 381 (1982).

12
    Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U. S. --- (1990); Florida v. Wells, 495 U.
S. --- (1990); United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. --- (1990);
Skinner v. Railway Labor Executives' Assn., 489 U. S. 602 (1989); Treasury
Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656 (1989); Florida v. Riley, 488 U. S.
445 (1989); Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S. 567 (1988); California v.
Greenwood, 486 U. S. 35 (1988); United States v. Dunn, 480 U. S. 294
(1987); Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79 (1987); Colorado v. Bertine, 479
U. S. 367 (1987); California v. Ciraolo, 476 U. S. 207 (1986); United
States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U. S. 531 (1985); California v. Carney,
471 U. S. 386 (1985); United States v. Sharpe, 470 U. S. 675 (1985); United
States v. Johns, 469 U. S. 478 (1985); New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S.
325 (1985); United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897 (1984); United States v.
Karo, 468 U. S. 705 (1984); Oliver v. United States, together with Maine v.
Thornton, 466 U. S. 170 (1984); United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109
(1984); Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032 (1983); Illinois v. Andreas, 463
U. S. 765 (1983); Illinois v. Lafayette, 462 U. S. 640 (1983); United
States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696 (1983); United States v. Villamonte-Marquez,
462 U. S. 579 (1983); Texas v. Brown, 460 U. S. 730 (1983); Illinois v.
Gates, 462 U. S. 213 (1983); Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491 (1983); United
States v. Knotts, 460 U. S. 276 (1983).

13
    See Treasury Employees v. Von Raab, 489 U. S. 656 (1989).

14
    See Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U. S. 79 (1987); Illinois v. Gates, 462
U. S. 213 (1983).

15
    See Florida v. Wells, 495 U. S. --- (1990); United States v. Place, 462
U. S. 696 (1983); Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491 (1983).

16
    The number of defendants charged with drug law violations who were
convicted in federal courts increased 134% between 1980 and 1986.  The
corresponding increase in convictions for nondrug offenses was 27%.  Bureau
of Justice Statistics Special Report, Drug Law Violators, 1980-86, p. 1
(June 1988).  The percentage of drug cases dismissed by district courts
declined from 22.2% in 1980 to 13.8% in 1989.  See Bureau of Justice
Statistics, Federal Criminal Case Processing, 1980-87, Addendum for 1988
and Preliminary 1989, p. 12 (Nov. 1990).
