Also known as: search incident to arrest · searches incident to arrest · incident search · SILA
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A warrantless search exception under the Fourth Amendment that permits officers to search an arrestee's person and the area within immediate control. The exception rests on the need to protect officer safety and preserve evidence. The search must occur substantially contemporaneously in time and place with the arrest and remain limited to the arrestee's wingspan.
Harbor police arrested Sarah Sullivan at the public dock and removed her from the scene. Hours later officers towed the vessel to a fenced pier a mile away and opened locked compartments. The search cannot qualify because the delay and relocation severed any connection to the arrest itself.
An officer arrested Sierra Santos for loitering and immediately patted down her outer clothing, feeling a gun. The limited search was justified because it occurred contemporaneously with the arrest and was confined to the area within Santos's immediate control.
On October 31, 1963, Cleveland police detective Martin McFadden, a 39-year veteran assigned to downtown Cleveland for 30 years, observed John W. Terry and Richard Chilton standing on the corner of Huron Road and Euclid Avenue. McFadden took up a post of observation 300 to 400 feet away. He watched as the two men walked back and forth along Huron Road, pausing repeatedly to look in the window of a store before conferring with each other. This pattern repeated roughly a dozen times over ten to twelve minutes. A third man, Katz, joined them briefly before departing, after which Terry and Chilton followed the same path. By this time McFadden had become thoroughly suspicious that the men were casing the store for a robbery and feared they might be armed. McFadden approached the three men in front of Zucker's store, identified himself as a police officer, and asked their names. When they mumbled responses, he grabbed Terry, spun him around, patted down the outer clothing of his overcoat, and felt a pistol in the left breast pocket. He removed a .38-caliber revolver from Terry's pocket and ordered the men into the store, where he similarly frisked Chilton and discovered another revolver while finding no weapons on Katz. Terry and Chilton were arrested and charged with carrying concealed weapons. Prior to trial they moved to suppress the revolvers as the product of an unlawful search. The trial court denied the motion after hearing McFadden's testimony, finding that the officer had reasonable cause to believe the defendants were acting suspiciously and that the frisk was necessary for his protection. After the denial, Terry and Chilton waived jury trial, were convicted, and sentenced to one to three years in the penitentiary. The Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed, the Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed the appeal, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseOfficers arrested Samantha Stone at her car for a traffic offense and searched the passenger compartment within her wingspan, finding a weapon. The search of the immediate area was permissible to ensure officer safety and preserve evidence.
In a rural area of Michigan one evening shortly after midnight, Deputies Howell and Lewis observed a car traveling erratically and at excessive speed. The officers observed the car turning down a side road, where it swerved off into a shallow ditch. The officers stopped to investigate. Long, the only occupant of the automobile, met the deputies at the rear of the car, which was protruding from the ditch onto the road. The door on the driver's side of the vehicle was left open. Deputy Howell requested Long to produce his operator's license, but he did not respond. After the request was repeated, Long produced his license. Long again failed to respond when Howell requested him to produce the vehicle registration. After another repeated request, Long, who Howell thought appeared to be under the influence of something, turned from the officers and began walking toward the open door of the vehicle. The officers followed Long and both observed a large hunting knife on the floorboard of the driver's side of the car. The officers then stopped Long's progress and subjected him to a Terry protective patdown, which revealed no weapons. Long and Deputy Lewis then stood by the rear of the vehicle while Deputy Howell shined his flashlight into the interior of the vehicle, but did not actually enter it. The purpose of Howell's action was to search for other weapons. The officer noticed that something was protruding from under the armrest on the front seat. He knelt in the vehicle and lifted the armrest. He saw an open pouch on the front seat, and upon flashing his light on the pouch, determined that it contained what appeared to be marihuana. After Deputy Howell showed the pouch and its contents to Deputy Lewis, Long was arrested for possession of marihuana. A further search of the interior of the vehicle, including the glovebox, revealed neither more contraband nor the vehicle registration. The officers decided to impound the vehicle. Deputy Howell opened the trunk, which did not have a lock, and discovered inside it approximately 75 pounds of marihuana. The Barry County Circuit Court denied Long's motion to suppress the marihuana taken from both the interior of the car and its trunk. He was subsequently convicted of possession of marihuana. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed Long's conviction, holding that the search of the passenger compartment was valid as a protective search under Terry. The Michigan Supreme Court reversed. The court held that the sole justification of the Terry search, protection of the police officers and others nearby, cannot justify the search in this case. The marihuana found in Long's trunk was considered by the court below to be the fruit of the illegal search of the interior, and was also suppressed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the authority of a police officer to protect himself by conducting a Terry-type search of the passenger compartment of a motor vehicle during the lawful investigatory stop of the occupant of the vehicle.
View caseOfficers arrested Stella Shapiro inside her home pursuant to a valid warrant and searched the area within her immediate control, discovering incriminating documents. The seizure was lawful because the search remained limited to the arrestee's wingspan and occurred contemporaneously with the arrest.
In January 1964, fourteen-year-old Pamela Mason disappeared from her home in Manchester, New Hampshire, during a heavy snowstorm after receiving a telephone call about a babysitting job. Her body was discovered eight days later beside a major highway, prompting a massive police investigation. On January 28, officers visited Edward Coolidge at his home after learning he had been absent on the night of the disappearance. Coolidge produced three guns for inspection and agreed to take a lie-detector test. On February 2, while Coolidge was at the police station undergoing the test, two plainclothes officers arrived at his house and spoke with his wife. Mrs. Coolidge provided four guns belonging to her husband and some clothing she believed he might have worn on the night in question. Coolidge was held overnight on an unrelated charge but released the next day. Over the following two and a half weeks, the State accumulated evidence implicating Coolidge. On February 19, the results of the investigation were presented at a meeting between the police officers working on the case and the State Attorney General, who had personally taken charge of all police activities relating to the murder, and was later to serve as chief prosecutor at the trial. Coolidge was arrested at his home that day. His 1951 Pontiac automobile parked in the driveway was seized and towed to the police station two and a half hours later. The Pontiac was searched and vacuumed on February 21, again in January 1965, and a third time in April 1965. At Coolidge's subsequent jury trial for murder, vacuum sweepings from the car were introduced into evidence. One of the guns taken from the home was also introduced. Vacuum sweepings from the clothing were introduced into evidence. The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the conviction after upholding the admissibility of the evidence, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseOfficers entered Samuel Soto's apartment without a warrant, arrested him for burglary, and searched the area within his immediate control. Evidence found during the subsequent search was suppressed because the initial entry violated the Fourth Amendment.
In January 1970, New York detectives conducted a two-day investigation into the murder of a gas station manager. On January 14 they assembled evidence sufficient to establish probable cause to believe that Theodore Payton had committed the crime. On the morning of January 15 at about 7:30 a.m., six officers went to Payton’s apartment in the Bronx without having obtained a warrant. Although light and music emanated from inside, there was no response to their knock on the metal door. They summoned emergency assistance and approximately thirty minutes later used crowbars to break open the door and enter. No one was present, but the officers seized a .30-caliber shell casing that lay in plain view and that was later admitted into evidence at Payton’s murder trial. In a companion case, on March 14, 1974, police officers acting with probable cause went to the Queens house where Obie Riddick was living to arrest him for two armed robberies that had occurred in 1971. When Riddick’s young son opened the door the officers saw Riddick sitting in bed. They entered the house, placed him under arrest, and before permitting him to dress opened a chest of drawers two feet from the bed. They discovered narcotics and related paraphernalia that were later admitted at his trial on narcotics charges. In both cases the New York trial courts upheld the warrantless entries and plain-view seizures under provisions of the New York Code of Criminal Procedure that authorized such actions, and the Appellate Divisions affirmed. The New York Court of Appeals, in a single 4-3 opinion, affirmed the convictions of both Payton and Riddick. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in both cases, which were argued together.
View caseOfficers arrested Spencer Silver for drug possession and placed him in the back of a patrol car. They then searched the passenger compartment of his vehicle and found a firearm. The search exceeded the exception because Silver was already secured and posed no threat to the officers or evidence.
On August 25, 1999, Tucson police officers Griffith and Reed responded to an anonymous tip that the residence at 2524 North Walnut Avenue was being used to sell drugs by knocking on the front door and speaking with Rodney Gant, who identified himself and stated that he expected the owner to return later. The officers left and conducted a records check revealing that Gant's driver's license had been suspended and that there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest for driving with a suspended license. When the officers returned to the house that evening, they found a man near the back of the house and a woman in a car parked in front of it. After a third officer arrived, they arrested the man for providing a false name and the woman for possessing drug paraphernalia. Both arrestees were handcuffed and secured in separate patrol cars when Gant arrived. Gant arrived in his car, parked at the end of the driveway, and got out. Officer Griffith recognized the car, confirmed Gant's identity with a flashlight, called to him, and arrested him 10 to 12 feet from the vehicle before handcuffing him. Because the other arrestees occupied the only patrol cars at the scene, Griffith called for backup. When two more officers arrived, they locked Gant in the backseat of their vehicle. After Gant had been handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car, two officers searched his car. One of them found a gun, and the other discovered a bag of cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on the backseat. Gant was charged with two offenses of possession of a narcotic drug for sale and possession of drug paraphernalia. He moved to suppress the evidence seized from his car on the ground that the warrantless search violated the Fourth Amendment. The trial court denied the motion to suppress. A jury found Gant guilty on both drug counts, and he was sentenced to a 3-year term of imprisonment. After protracted state-court proceedings, the Arizona Supreme Court concluded that the search of Gant's car was unreasonable within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. The United States Supreme Court granted the State's petition for certiorari.
View caseYes. The search must be substantially contemporaneous in both time and place with the arrest. A search conducted hours later at a different location after the vehicle has been towed falls outside the exception.
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No. An actual custodial arrest is required. A search following only a citation is unlawful even if state law would have permitted an arrest instead.
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Officers may search the arrestee's person and any area from which the arrestee could reasonably reach a weapon or destroy evidence. Areas beyond immediate physical control, such as a locked cabinet across a room, are outside the scope.
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Yes. The Fourth Amendment requires only probable cause for the arrest. A search incident to that arrest remains valid even if the arrest violated state procedural rules.
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…concealed weapons. On the motion to suppress the guns the prosecution took the position that they had been seized following a search incident to a lawful arrest. The trial court rejected this theory, stating that it "would be stretching the facts beyond reasonable comprehension" to find that Officer McFadden had had probable cause to arrest the men…