Supreme Court Says 4th Amendment -- Not The Automobile Exception -- Covers Vehicles Parked In Driveways

from the stay-off-my-lawn dept

Depending on your view, the Supreme Court has either restored a bit of the Fourth Amendment with its recent decision, or simply reiterated its protections. Either way, the decision [PDF] in Collins v. Virginia does halt the expansion of the "automobile exception." The State of Virginia was hoping to see this extended all the way up people's driveways, but that runs contrary to the exception itself, which only grants law enforcement plenty of warrant-free searches if the vehicle is on a public road.

There's a difference between houses and vehicles in Fourth Amendment caselaw, but this case combines them both. Decisions at multiple lower levels all found for the state. The Supreme Court disagrees. The automobile exception is predicated on a few traits specific to vehicles on public roads.

In announcing each of the automobile exception’s justifications—i.e., the “ready mobility of the automobile” and “the pervasive regulation of vehicles capable of traveling on the public highways,” California v. Carney, 471 U. S. 386, 390, 392—the Court emphasized that the rationales applied only to automobiles and not to houses, and therefore supported their different treatment as a constitutional matter. When these justifications are present, officers may search an automobile without a warrant so long as they have probable cause.

The state wanted this read to include parked vehicles in driveways of private residences. Further than that, it wanted the exception to cover Officer David Rhodes' actions. In the course of an investigation of a stolen motorcycle (one that leaps, with zero explanation, from two officers seeing the same bike engage in moving violations to scanning Facebook for photos of the bike), Officer Rhodes ended up at the house petitioner Ryan Collins' was staying at. Rhodes had spotted photos of the bike on Collins' Facebook page and suspected the bike was stolen.

Rhodes spotted what appeared to be the stolen motorcycle under a tarp parked close to the house. He walked up the driveway, lifted the tarp, and ran the plates to confirm it was stolen. With the tarp still removed, Rhodes took pictures of the bike and returned to his vehicle to await Collins' return to the house. Collins was arrested and charged.

As the Supreme Court points out, the automobile exception does not allow warrantless searches anywhere a vehicle can be found. To perform this search, Officer Rhodes had to violate Fourth Amendment protections given to residences.

As an initial matter, the part of the driveway where Collins’ motorcycle was parked and subsequently searched is curtilage. When Officer Rhodes searched the motorcycle, it was parked inside a partially enclosed top portion of the driveway that abuts the house. Just like the front porch, side garden, or area “outside the front window,” that enclosure constitutes “an area adjacent to the home and ‘to which the activity of home life extends.’ ” Jardines, 569 U. S., at 6, 7.

This immediately made the search performed by Rhodes unconstitutional, and the court notes there is nothing precedential that supports the state's arguments.

Because the scope of the automobile exception extends no further than the automobile itself, it did not justify Officer Rhodes’ invasion of the curtilage. Nothing in this Court’s case law suggests that the automobile exception gives an officer the right to enter a home or its curtilage to access a vehicle without a warrant. Such an expansion would both undervalue the core Fourth Amendment protection afforded to the home and its curtilage and “ ‘untether’ ” the exception “ ‘from the justifications underlying’ ” it.

The court uses the example of plain view to explain the violation and its refusal to extend the automobile exception further than public streets. If an officer sees contraband or evidence of illegal activity through the window of a house, he still must obtain a warrant to search the residences. What has been seen in plain view can support the warrant request, but it does not give officers permission to perform warrantless searches. Even if Officer Rhodes could see enough of the bike to suspect it was the stolen bike he was searching for (as the dissent asserts), that's still only reasonable suspicion, which is not enough to overcome the Fourth Amendment's requirements.

Imagine a motorcycle parked inside the living room of a house, visible through a window to a passerby on the street. Imagine further that an officer has probable cause to believe that the motorcycle was involved in a traffic infraction. Can the officer, acting without a warrant, enter the house to search the motorcycle and confirm whether it is the right one? Surely not.

The reason is that the scope of the automobile exception extends no further than the automobile itself.

The state suggested the Supreme Court draw its bright line elsewhere, allowing it to retain the fruits of Officer Rhodes' illegal search. Its proposal would allow officers to traipse all over Constitutional rights and porches or whatever, so long as they did not enter houses or outbuildings, like garages. The court points out this suggested bright line is not only stupid, but would unequally apply Fourth Amendment protections.

This Court has long been clear that curtilage is afforded constitutional protection, and creating a carveout for certain types of curtilage seems more likely to create confusion than does uniform application of the Court’s doctrine. Virginia’s rule also rests on a mistaken premise, for the ability to observe inside curtilage from a lawful vantage point is not the same as the right to enter curtilage without a warrant to search for information not otherwise accessible. Finally, Virginia’s rule automatically would grant constitutional rights to those persons with the financial means to afford residences with garages but deprive those persons without such resources of any individualized consideration as to whether the areas in which they store their vehicles qualify as curtilage.

This draws the bright line where it should be drawn: at the edge of private property. Certainly officers are still free to look at the exteriors of vehicles parked in private driveways. They can even run the plates to see if they're stolen or legitimately owned. But they can't do what Officer Rhodes did -- walk up a driveway and lift a tarp to expose a partially-hidden vehicle. Just because it's a vehicle doesn't make the intrusion any less unconstitutional.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, automobile exception, curtilage, supreme court