Supreme Court To Hear Charlottesville Warrantless Search Case

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case over whether Albemarle County police lawfully conducted a warrantless search of a motorcycle that was parked just feet away from a house in Charlottesville. The nation's highest court hopes to answer the question of whether police officers can go onto private property without an invitation or a warrant and search a vehicle.

Arguments are slated for Tuesday in the Virginia case, which could push the boundaries of one exception to a Fourth Amendment requirement that police obtain a warrant before searching a person, their home, papers or personal effects.

The Virginia case started with a pair of high-speed police chases of a unique orange and black Suzuki motorcycle driven by Ryan Austin Collins. During one of the chases, an Albemarle County police officer wrote down the motorcycle's license plate and snapped pictures of it using his dashboard camera. The plate number led police to a man who said he sold the motorcycle to Collins after telling Collins it had been stolen.

Police then found Collins's Facebook page and saw he had posted several pictures of an orange and black motorcycle parked in the driveway of a house his girlfriend rented.

A police officer walked onto the driveway and pulled back a tarp covering a motorcycle, recorded the license-plate number and vehicle identification number, and determined the motorcycle was stolen. He then replaced the cover and police arrested Collins. Collins was later convicted of receiving stolen property and sentenced to three years in prison. All but two months were suspended.

Matthew Fitzgerald, an attorney with McGuireWoods, said the prominent Richmond law firm asked the Supreme Court to hear the case because lower courts split on whether the automobile exception applies on vehicles parked on private, residential property. The nearly century-old exception was instituted after federal agents performed a warrantless search of a suspected bootlegger's car, looking for illegal alcohol. In that case, the Supreme Court said a vehicle could be searched without a warrant as long as police have probable cause to believe it contains contraband or evidence of a crime. The court reasoned that because cars are readily mobile, they can be moved before police are able to obtain a warrant to search them.

Fitzgerald argues that the exception does not apply in the Collins case because the motorcycle was parked within feet of the house. He argues that that falls within the curtilage — the immediate area around the house — so should have been protected by the Fourth Amendment search warrant requirement.

If officers are allowed to search vehicles within curtilage without obtaining a warrant, they could also creep into garages and carports to look for contraband in glove boxes, Fitzgerald said.

"This area around your house is really important. And so whether police come onto your property with probable cause alone and search your vehicles wherever they find them is something that should matter to a lot of people," Fitzgerald said.

"If the vehicle exception applies wherever you find the vehicle, then that is a big hole in the warrant requirement."

The Virginia Supreme Court, however, said that the officer's warrantless search of the motorcycle was justified, finding that "there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a vehicle parked on private property yet exposed to public view."

The Virginia Attorney General's Office argues that the officer had "undisputed probable cause" to believe the motorcycle was stolen and had twice escaped police by taking off at dangerously fast speeds of up to 140 miles per hour.

"The officer's daytime search of the motorcycle was brief, unintrusive, and limited in scope," Acting Solicitor General Trevor Cox wrote in a brief filed with the Supreme Court.

Because of the automobile exception, "he was authorized to do it before the vehicle could be moved and elude police once again," Cox wrote.

The case that prompted the Supreme Court to establish the automobile exception dates back to 1921, when Prohibition banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol in the U.S. Federal prohibition agents stopped two suspected bootleggers driving on a highway from Detroit to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

There was no visible contraband in the Oldsmobile roadster, but when one of the agents pounded his fist on the rear seat, he noticed it was harder than usual. He cut open the seat cushion and found 68 bottles of whiskey and gin.

The defendants tried to have the evidence suppressed, but the high court found that a vehicle could be searched without a warrant if there is probable cause to believe it contains evidence.

Cornell Law School professor Sherry Colb, whose research centers on the Fourth Amendment, said it's surprising that the Supreme Court hasn't settled the issue earlier.

"The automobile exception has been with us for a while, and this one area has remained unclear — whether the automobile exception to the warrant requirement applies to an automobile on a private driveway," she said.

By DENISE LAVOIE, AP Legal Affairs Writer

Photo credit: Zach Gibson/Getty Images