§ 13.03 Automobile Search Warrant Exception: Lesser Privacy, a New Rationale

• Jurisdiction: North Carolina

§ 13.03 Automobile Search Warrant Exception: Lesser Privacy, a New Rationale

Coolidge v. New Hampshire³⁴ arguably made good sense from a mobility perspective, but it did not muster a majority vote. As to unoccupied vehicles no longer on the road at the time of the search, it was difficult for the Court after Chambers v. Maroney³⁵ to justify the automobile exception exclusively on the mobility principle. In 1982, the justices acknowledged in Michigan v. Thomas³⁶ that the right to search a car without a warrant does not "depend upon a reviewing court's assessment of the likelihood in each particular case that the car would have been driven away, or that its contents would have been tampered with, during the period required for the police to obtain a warrant."

In view of this acknowledgement, the Court needed a new theory to explain its willingness to permit warrantless car searches. The seeds of the new theory were sown in Cady v. Dombrowski.³⁷ In Cady, a car driven by D, an off-duty police officer, was involved in a traffic accident. D was arrested for drunk driving, and the car was towed to a private garage. Shortly thereafter, an officer investigating the accident learned that D's service revolver was probably still in the car. Because the gun was vulnerable to theft in the parking lot, the officer searched the car for the weapon. Inadvertently, he discovered evidence that tied D to a homicide.

In a 5-4 opinion, the Court held that the warrantless search — "standard police procedure" in the department under such community caretaking circumstances — was reasonable. However, Cadys long-term significance is found in the Court's discussion of the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. It conceded that although the original justification for the exception "was the [car's] vagrant and mobile nature," subsequent warrantless searches were upheld in cases in which mobility was "remote, if not non-existent." Cady provided an explanation of why, mobility aside, automobiles are different from houses:

Because of the extensive regulation of motor vehicles and traffic, and also because of the frequency with which a vehicle can become disabled or involved in an accident on public highways, the extent of police-citizen contact involving automobiles will be substantially greater than police-citizen contact in a home or office.

A year later, in Cardwell v. Lewis,³⁸ a four-justice plurality developed this argument further. After noting the mobility of cars, the...