§ 12.01 Warrant Exception: In General

• Jurisdiction: North Carolina

§ 12.01 Warrant Exception: In General¹

[A] Rule

A police officer who makes a lawful full custodial arrest² may conduct a contemporaneous³ warrantless search of: (1) the arrestee's person; and (2) the area within the arrestee's immediate control (sometimes called the "grabbing" or "lunging" area).⁴There are two additional aspects to the rule, which depend on the site of the arrest: (3) if the arrest occurs in a home, the police may also conduct a warrantless search of "closets and other spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be immediately launched";⁵ and (4) if the police arrest a recent occupant of a vehicle, they may search the passenger compartment of the vehicle, even if the arrestee does not have immediate access to it, if the officers have reason to believe that evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be discovered there.⁶

This rule, subject to substantial clarification in § 12.02, constitutes the "search incident to lawful arrest" (or, for short, "SILA") exception to the search warrant requirement.

[B] Rationale of the Warrant Exception

The leading SILA cases were handed down during a period in which the Supreme Court typically declared that there was a "warrant requirement," i.e., that warrantless searches are unreasonable in the absence of a compelling justification for permitting the police to act without prior judicial authorization.⁷ In the SILA cases, the Court's "compelling justification" for dispensing with the warrant requirement was explained in Chimel v. California⁸ as follows: A custodial arrest provides the suspect with the incentive to use any available weapon to resist the officer or to flee, and to destroy or conceal evidence of the crime.⁹ Further, an in-home arrest "puts the officer at the disadvantage of being on his adversary's 'turf,'"¹⁰ because the arrest creates the risk that an accomplice, relative, or friend of the arrestee might attack the officer. In view of these risks, it is reasonable for arresting officers immediately — without a warrant — to search a suspect and his "grabbing area" (the areas to which he could lunge) for weapons or destructible evidence, and (if in a house) to search the immediately adjoining spaces for dangerous persons.

Searches outside these areas cannot be justified on these grounds. Therefore, as to searches outside these areas, the ordinary rule — that searches should be conducted with warrants — comes back into play (unless another warrant exception applies). In modern terms, we may say that the requirement of a warrant is the constitutional "default position": It applies until a compelling justification for acting without a warrant is...