OPINION OF THE COURT THORNTON V. UNITED STATES 541 U. S. ____ (2004) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 03-5165 MARCUS THORNTON, PETITIONER v. UNITED
STATES

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the fourth circuit

															[May 24, 2004]

															   Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered
the opinion of the Court except as to footnote 4.

															   In New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), we
held that when a police officer has made a lawful custodial arrest
of an occupant of an automobile, the Fourth Amendment allows the
officer to search the passenger compartment of that vehicle as a
contemporaneous incident of arrest. We have granted certiorari
twice before to determine whether Belton ’s rule is limited
to situations where the officer makes contact with the occupant
while the occupant is inside the vehicle, or whether it applies as
well when the officer first makes contact with the arrestee after
the latter has stepped out of his vehicle. We did not reach the
merits in either of those two cases. Arizona v. Gant , 540 U. S. ___ (2003) (vacating and remanding for
reconsideration in light of State v. Dean , 206
Ariz. 158, 76 P.3d 429 (2003)); Florida v. Thomas, 532
U. S. 774 (2001) (dismissing for lack of jurisdiction). We now
reach that question and conclude that Belton governs even
when an officer does not make contact until the person arrested has
left the vehicle.

															   Officer Deion Nichols of the Norfolk,
Virginia, Police Department, who was in uniform but driving an
unmarked police car, first noticed petitioner Marcus Thornton when
petitioner slowed down so as to avoid driving next to him. Nichols
suspected that petitioner knew he was a police officer and for some
reason did not want to pull next to him. His suspicions aroused,
Nichols pulled off onto a side street and petitioner passed him.
After petitioner passed him, Nichols ran a check on petitioner’s
license tags, which revealed that the tags had been issued to a
1982 Chevy two-door and not to a Lincoln Town Car, the model of car
petitioner was driving. Before Nichols had an opportunity to pull
him over, petitioner drove into a parking lot, parked, and got out
of the vehicle. Nichols saw petitioner leave his vehicle as he
pulled in behind him. He parked the patrol car, accosted
petitioner, and asked him for his driver’s license. He also told
him that his license tags did not match the vehicle that he was
driving.

															   Petitioner appeared nervous. He began rambling
and licking his lips; he was sweating. Concerned for his safety,
Nichols asked petitioner if he had any narcotics or weapons on him
or in his vehicle. Petitioner said no. Nichols then asked
petitioner if he could pat him down, to which petitioner agreed.
Nichols felt a bulge in petitioner’s left front pocket and again
asked him if he had any illegal narcotics on him. This time
petitioner stated that he did, and he reached into his pocket and
pulled out two individual bags, one containing three bags of
marijuana and the other containing a large amount of crack cocaine.
Nichols handcuffed petitioner, informed him that he was under
arrest, and placed him in the back seat of the patrol car. He then
searched petitioner’s vehicle and found a BryCo .9-millimeter
handgun under the driver’s seat.

															   A grand jury charged petitioner with
possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, 84 Stat. 1260,
21 U. S. C. §841(a)(1), possession of a firearm after having
been previously convicted of a crime punishable by a term of
imprisonment exceeding one year, 18 U. S. C. §922(g)(1), and
possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime,
§924(c)(1). Petitioner sought to suppress, inter alia , the
firearm as the fruit of an unconstitutional search. After a
hearing, the District Court denied petitioner’s motion to suppress,
holding that the automobile search was valid under New
York v. Belton, supra, and alternatively
that Nichols could have conducted an inventory search of the
automobile. A jury convicted petitioner on all three counts; he was
sentenced to 180 months’ imprisonment and 8 years of supervised
release.

															   Petitioner appealed, challenging only the
District Court’s denial of the suppression motion. He argued that Belton was limited to situations where the officer
initiated contact with an arrestee while he was still an occupant
of the car. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit affirmed. 325 F. 3d 189 (2003). It held that “the
historical rationales for the search incident to arrest
doctrine—‘the need to disarm the suspect in order to take him into
custody’ and ‘the need to preserve evidence for later use at
trial,’ ” id. , at 195 (quoting Knowles v. Iowa, 525
U. S. 113 , 116 (1998)), did not require Belton to be
limited solely to situations in which suspects were still in their
vehicles when approached by the police. Noting that petitioner
conceded that he was in “close proximity, both temporally and
spatially,” to his vehicle, the court concluded that the car was
within petitioner’s immediate control, and thus Nichols’ search was
reasonable under Belton .[ Footnote 1 ] 325 F. 3d, at 196. We granted certiorari,
540 U. S. ___ (2003), and now affirm.

															   In Belton , an officer overtook a
speeding vehicle on the New York Thruway and ordered its driver to
pull over. 453 U. S., at 455. Suspecting that the occupants
possessed marijuana, the officer directed them to get out of the
car and arrested them for unlawful possession. Id ., at
454–455. He searched them and then searched the passenger
compartment of the car. Id ., at 455. We considered the
constitutionally permissible scope of a search in these
circumstances and sought to lay down a workable rule governing that
situation.

															   We first referred to Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969), a case where the
arrestee was arrested in his home, and we had described the scope
of a search incident to a lawful arrest as the person of the
arrestee and the area immediately surrounding him. 453 U. S., at
457 (citing Chimel , supra, at 763). This rule was
justified by the need to remove any weapon the arrestee might seek
to use to resist arrest or to escape, and the need to prevent the
concealment or destruction of evidence. 453 U. S., at 457. Although
easily stated, the Chimel principle had proved difficult
to apply in specific cases. We pointed out that in United
States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 (1973), a
case dealing with the scope of the search of the arrestee’s person,
we had rejected a suggestion that “ ‘there must be litigated
in each case the issue of whether or not there was present one of
the reasons supporting the authority’ ” to conduct such a
search. 453 U. S., at 459 (quoting Robinson , supra, at 235). Similarly, because “courts ha[d] found no
workable definition of the ‘area within the immediate control of
the arrestee’ when that area arguably include[d] the interior of an
automobile and the arrestee [wa]s its recent occupant,” 453 U. S.,
at 460, we sought to set forth a clear rule for police officers and
citizens alike. We therefore held that “when a policeman has made a
lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may,
as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger
compartment of that automobile.” Ibid. (footnotes
omitted).

															   In so holding, we placed no reliance on the
fact that the officer in Belton ordered the occupants out
of the vehicle, or initiated contact with them while they remained
within it. Nor do we find such a factor persuasive in
distinguishing the current situation, as it bears no logical
relationship to Belton ’s rationale. There is simply no
basis to conclude that the span of the area generally within the
arrestee’s immediate control is determined by whether the arrestee
exited the vehicle at the officer’s direction, or whether the
officer initiated contact with him while he remained in the car. We
recognized as much, albeit in dicta, in Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032 (1983),
where officers observed a speeding car swerve into a ditch. The
driver exited and the officers met him at the rear of his car.
Although there was no indication that the officers initiated
contact with the driver while he was still in the vehicle, we
observed that “[i]t is clear … that if the officers had arrested
[respondent] … they could have searched the passenger compartment
under New York v. Belton .” Id. , at
1035–1036, and n. 1.

															   In all relevant aspects, the arrest of a
suspect who is next to a vehicle presents identical concerns
regarding officer safety and the destruction of evidence as the
arrest of one who is inside the vehicle. An officer may search a
suspect’s vehicle under Belton only if the suspect is
arrested. See Knowles, supra , at 117–118. A custodial
arrest is fluid and “[t]he danger to the police officer flows from the fact of the arrest , and its attendant proximity,
stress, and uncertainty,” Robinson, supra , at
234–235, and n. 5 (emphasis added). See Washington v. Chrisman, 455 U. S. 1 , 7 (1982)
(“Every arrest must be presumed to present a risk of danger to the
arresting officer”). The stress is no less merely because the
arrestee exited his car before the officer initiated contact, nor
is an arrestee less likely to attempt to lunge for a weapon or to
destroy evidence if he is outside of, but still in control of, the
vehicle. In either case, the officer faces a highly volatile
situation. It would make little sense to apply two different rules
to what is, at bottom, the same situation.

															   In some circumstances it may be safer and more
effective for officers to conceal their presence from a suspect
until he has left his vehicle. Certainly that is a judgment
officers should be free to make. But under the strictures of
petitioner’s proposed “contact initiation” rule, officers who do so
would be unable to search the car’s passenger compartment in the
event of a custodial arrest, potentially compromising their safety
and placing incriminating evidence at risk of concealment or
destruction. The Fourth Amendment does not require such a
gamble.

															   Petitioner argues, however, that Belton will fail to provide a “bright-line” rule if it
applies to more than vehicle “occupants.” Brief for Petitioner
29–34. But Belton allows police to search the passenger
compartment of a vehicle incident to a lawful custodial arrest of
both “occupants” and “recent occupants.” 453 U. S., at 460. Indeed,
the respondent in Belton was not inside the car at the
time of the arrest and search; he was standing on the highway. In
any event, while an arrestee’s status as a “recent occupant” may
turn on his temporal or spatial relationship to the car at the time
of the arrest and search,[ Footnote
2 ] it certainly does not turn on whether he was inside or
outside the car at the moment that the officer first initiated
contact with him.

															   To be sure, not all contraband in the
passenger compartment is likely to be readily accessible to a
“recent occupant.” It is unlikely in this case that petitioner
could have reached under the driver’s seat for his gun once he was
outside of his automobile. But the firearm and the passenger
compartment in general were no more inaccessible than were the
contraband and the passenger compartment in Belton . The
need for a clear rule, readily understood by police officers and
not depending on differing estimates of what items were or were not
within reach of an arrestee at any particular moment, justifies the
sort of generalization which Belton enunciated.[ Footnote 3 ] Once an officer determines
that there is probable cause to make an arrest, it is reasonable to
allow officers to ensure their safety and to preserve evidence by
searching the entire passenger compartment.

															   Rather than clarifying the constitutional
limits of a Belton search, petitioner’s “contact
initiation” rule would obfuscate them. Under petitioner’s proposed
rule, an officer approaching a suspect who has just alighted from
his vehicle would have to determine whether he actually confronted
or signaled confrontation with the suspect while he remained in the
car, or whether the suspect exited his vehicle unaware of, and for
reasons unrelated to, the officer’s presence. This determination
would be inherently subjective and highly fact specific, and would
require precisely the sort of ad hoc determinations on the
part of officers in the field and reviewing courts that Belton sought to avoid. Id., at 459–460.
Experience has shown that such a rule is impracticable, and we
refuse to adopt it. So long as an arrestee is the sort of “recent
occupant” of a vehicle such as petitioner was here, officers may
search that vehicle incident to the arrest.[ Footnote 4 ]

															   The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
affirmed.

															It is so ordered. Footnote 1 The Court of Appeals did not reach the
District Court’s alternative holding that Nichols could have
conducted a lawful inventory search. 325 F. 3d, at 196. Footnote 2 Petitioner argues that if we reject his
proposed “contact initiation” rule, we should limit the scope of Belton to “recent occupants” who are within “reaching
distance” of the car. Brief for Petitioner 35–36. We decline to
address petitioner’s argument, however, as it is outside the
question on which we granted certiorari, see this Court’s Rule
14.1(a), and was not addressed by the Court of Appeals, see Peralta v. Heights Medical Center,
Inc., 485
U. S. 80 , 86 (1988). We note that it is unlikely that
petitioner would even meet his own standard as he apparently
conceded in the Court of Appeals that he was in “close proximity,
both temporally and spatially,” to his vehicle when he was
approached by Nichols. 325 F. 3d 189, 196 (CA4 2003). Footnote 3 Justice Stevens contends that Belton ’s bright-line rule “is not needed for cases in
which the arrestee is first accosted when he is a pedestrian,
because Chimel [v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969),] itself provides
all the guidance that is necessary.” Post , at 4
(dissenting opinion). Under Justice Stevens’ approach, however,
even if the car itself was within the arrestee’s reaching distance
under Chimel , police officers and courts would still have
to determine whether a particular object within the passenger
compartment was also within an arrestee’s reaching distance under Chimel . This is exactly the type of unworkable and
fact-specific inquiry that Belton rejected by holding that
the entire passenger compartment may be searched when “ ‘the area
within the immediate control of the arrestee’ . . . arguably
includes the interior of an automobile and the arrestee is its
recent occupant.” 453 U. S., at 460. Footnote 4 Whatever the merits of Justice Scalia’s
opinion concurring in the judgment, this is the wrong case in which
to address them. Petitioner has never argued that Belton should be limited “to cases where it is reasonable to believe
evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the
vehicle,” post , at 9, nor did any court below consider
Justice Scalia’s reasoning. See Pennsylvania Dept. of
Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U. S. 206 , 212–213
(1998) (“ ‘Where issues are neither raised before nor
considered by the Court of Appeals, this Court will not ordinarily
consider them’ ” (quoting Adickes v. S. H. Kress
& Co., 398 U. S. 144 , 147, n. 2
(1970))). The question presented—“[w]hether the bright-line rule
announced in New York v. Belton is confined to
situations in which the police initiate contact with the occupant
of a vehicle while that person is in the vehicle,” Pet. for
Cert.—does not fairly encompass Justice Scalia’s analysis. See this
Court’s Rule 14.1(a) (“Only the questions set out in the petition,
or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court”). And
the United States has never had an opportunity to respond to such
an approach. See Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519 , 536
(1992). Under these circumstances, it would be imprudent to
overrule, for all intents and purposes, our established
constitutional precedent, which governs police authority in a
common occurrence such as automobile searches pursuant to arrest,
and we decline to do so at this time. 541 U. S. ____ (2004) 541 U. S. ____ (2004) 541 U. S. ____ (2004) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 03-5165 MARCUS THORNTON, PETITIONER v. UNITED
STATES

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the fourth circuit

															[May 24, 2004]

															   Justice O’Connor, concurring in
part.

															   I join all but footnote 4 of the
Court’s opinion. Although the opinion is a logical extension of the
holding of New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), I
write separately to express my dissatisfaction with the state of
the law in this area. As Justice Scalia forcefully argues, post , p. 2-5 (opinion concurring in judgment), lower
court decisions seem now to treat the ability to search a vehicle
incident to the arrest of a recent occupant as a police entitlement
rather than as an exception justified by the twin rationales of Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969).
That erosion is a direct consequence of Belton ’s shaky
foundation. While the approach Justice Scalia proposes appears to
be built on firmer ground, I am reluctant to adopt it in the
context of a case in which neither the Government nor the
petitioner has had a chance to speak to its merit. SCALIA, J., CONCURRING IN JUDGMENT THORNTON V. UNITED STATES 541 U. S. ____ (2004) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 03-5165 MARCUS THORNTON, PETITIONER v. UNITED
STATES

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the fourth circuit

															[May 24, 2004]

															   Justice Scalia, with whom Justice
Ginsburg joins, concurring in the judgment.

															   In Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 , 762–763
(1969), we held that a search incident to arrest was justified only
as a means to find weapons the arrestee might use or evidence he
might conceal or destroy. We accordingly limited such searches to
the area within the suspect’s “ ‘immediate
control’ ”— i.e. , “the area into which an arrestee
might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m].” Id. , at 763. In New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 , 460
(1981), we set forth a bright-line rule for arrests of automobile
occupants, holding that, because the vehicle’s entire passenger
compartment is “in fact generally, even if not inevitably,” within
the arrestee’s immediate control, a search of the whole compartment
is justified in every case.

															   When petitioner’s car was searched in this
case, he was neither in, nor anywhere near, the passenger
compartment of his vehicle. Rather, he was handcuffed and secured
in the back of the officer’s squad car. The risk that he would
nevertheless “grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m]” from his car was
remote in the extreme. The Court’s effort to apply our current
doctrine to this search stretches it beyond its breaking point, and
for that reason I cannot join the Court’s opinion.

															I

															   I see three reasons why the
search in this case might have been justified to protect officer
safety or prevent concealment or destruction of evidence. None
ultimately persuades me.

															   The first is that, despite being
handcuffed and secured in the back of a squad car, petitioner might
have escaped and retrieved a weapon or evidence from his vehicle—a
theory that calls to mind Judge Goldberg’s reference to the
mythical arrestee “possessed of the skill of Houdini and the
strength of Hercules.” United States v. Frick ,
490 F. 2d 666, 673 (CA5 1973) (opinion concurring in part and
dissenting in part). The United States, endeavoring to ground this
seemingly speculative fear in reality, points to a total of seven
instances over the past 13 years in which state or federal officers
were attacked with weapons by handcuffed or formerly handcuffed
arrestees. Brief for United States 38–39, and n. 12. These
instances do not, however, justify the search authority claimed.
Three involved arrestees who retrieved weapons concealed on
their own person . See United States v. Sanders , 994 F. 2d 200, 210, n. 60 (CA5 1993) (two
instances); U. S. Dept. of Justice, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Officers
Killed and Assaulted 49 (2001). Three more involved arrestees who
seized a weapon from the arresting officer . See Sanders , supra , at 210, n. 60 (two instances); U.
S. Dept. of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime
Reports: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 49 (1998).
Authority to search the arrestee’s own person is beyond question;
and of course no search could prevent seizure of the officer’s gun.
Only one of the seven instances involved a handcuffed arrestee who
escaped from a squad car to retrieve a weapon from somewhere else:
In Plakas v. Drinski , 19 F. 3d 1143,
1144–1146 (CA7 1994), the suspect jumped out of the squad car and
ran through a forest to a house, where (still in handcuffs) he
struck an officer on the wrist with a fireplace poker before
ultimately being shot dead.

															   Of course, the Government need not document
specific instances in order to justify measures that avoid obvious
risks. But the risk here is far from obvious, and in a context as
frequently recurring as roadside arrests, the Government’s
inability to come up with even a single example of a handcuffed
arrestee’s retrieval of arms or evidence from his vehicle
undermines its claims. The risk that a suspect handcuffed in the
back of a squad car might escape and recover a weapon from his
vehicle is surely no greater than the risk that a suspect
handcuffed in his residence might escape and recover a weapon from
the next room—a danger we held insufficient to justify a search in Chimel , supra , at 763.

															   The second defense of the search in this case
is that, since the officer could have conducted the search at the
time of arrest (when the suspect was still near the car), he should
not be penalized for having taken the sensible precaution of
securing the suspect in the squad car first. As one Court of
Appeals put it: “ ‘[I]t does not make sense to prescribe a
constitutional test that is entirely at odds with safe and sensible
police procedures.’ ” United States v. Mitchell , 82 F. 3d 146, 152 (CA7 1996) (quoting United States v. Karlin , 852 F. 2d 968, 971
(CA7 1988)); see also United States v. Wesley ,
293 F. 3d 541, 548–549 (CADC 2002). The weakness of this
argument is that it assumes that, one way or another, the search
must take place. But conducting a Chimel search is not the
Government’s right; it is an exception—justified by necessity—to a
rule that would otherwise render the search unlawful. If “sensible
police procedures” require that suspects be handcuffed and put in
squad cars, then police should handcuff suspects, put them in squad
cars, and not conduct the search. Indeed, if an officer leaves a
suspect unrestrained nearby just to manufacture authority to
search, one could argue that the search is unreasonable precisely because the dangerous conditions justifying it
existed only by virtue of the officer’s failure to follow sensible
procedures.

															   The third defense of the search is that, even
though the arrestee posed no risk here, Belton searches in
general are reasonable, and the benefits of a bright-line rule
justify upholding that small minority of searches that, on their
particular facts, are not reasonable. The validity of this argument
rests on the accuracy of Belton ’s claim that the passenger
compartment is “in fact generally, even if not inevitably,” within
the suspect’s immediate control. 453 U. S., at 460. By the United
States’ own admission, however, “[t]he practice of restraining an
arrestee on the scene before searching a car that he just occupied
is so prevalent that holding that Belton does not apply in
that setting would … ‘largely render Belton a dead
letter.’ ” Brief for United States 36–37 (quoting Wesley , supra , at 548). Reported cases involving
this precise factual scenario—a motorist handcuffed and secured in
the back of a squad car when the search takes place—are legion.
See, e.g. , United States v. Doward , 41
F. 3d 789, 791 (CA1 1994); United States v. White , 871 F. 2d 41, 44 (CA6 1989); Mitchell , supra , at 152; United States v. Snook , 88 F. 3d 605, 606 (CA8 1996); United
States v. McLaughlin , 170 F. 3d 889, 890 (CA9
1999); United States v. Humphrey , 208 F. 3d
1190, 1202 (CA10 2000); Wesley , supra , at 544;
see also 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure §7.1(c), pp. 448–449, n.
79 (3d ed. 1996 and Supp. 2004) (citing cases). Some courts uphold
such searches even when the squad car carrying the handcuffed
arrestee has already left the scene. See, e.g. , McLaughlin , supra , at 890–891 (upholding search
because only five minutes had elapsed since squad car left).

															   The popularity of the practice is not hard to
fathom. If Belton entitles an officer to search a vehicle
upon arresting the driver despite having taken measures that
eliminate any danger, what rational officer would not take those
measures? Cf. Moskovitz, A Rule in Search of a Reason: An Empirical
Reexamination of Chimel and Belton , 2002 Wis.
L. Rev. 657, 665–666 (citing police training materials). If it
was ever true that the passenger compartment is “in fact generally,
even if not inevitably,” within the arrestee’s immediate control at
the time of the search, 453 U. S., at 460, it certainly is not true
today. As one judge has put it: “[I]n our search for clarity, we
have now abandoned our constitutional moorings and floated to a
place where the law approves of purely exploratory searches of
vehicles during which officers with no definite objective or reason
for the search are allowed to rummage around in a car to see what
they might find.” McLaughlin , supra , at 894
(Trott, J., concurring). I agree entirely with that assessment.

															II

															   If Belton searches are
justifiable, it is not because the arrestee might grab a weapon or
evidentiary item from his car, but simply because the car might
contain evidence relevant to the crime for which he was arrested.
This more general sort of evidence-gathering search is not without
antecedent. For example, in United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56 (1950), we
upheld a search of the suspect’s place of business after he was
arrested there. We did not restrict the officers’ search authority
to “the area into which [the] arrestee might reach in order to grab
a weapon or evidentiary ite[m],” Chimel , 395 U. S., at
763, and we did not justify the search as a means to prevent
concealment or destruction of evidence.[ Footnote 1 ] Rather, we relied on a more general interest
in gathering evidence relevant to the crime for which the suspect
had been arrested. See 339 U. S., at 60–64; see also Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145 , 151–152
(1947); Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192 , 199
(1927); Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20 , 30 (1925);
cf. Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 , 392
(1914).

															   Numerous earlier authorities
support this approach, referring to the general interest in
gathering evidence related to the crime of arrest with no mention
of the more specific interest in preventing its concealment or
destruction. See United States v. Wilson , 163 F.
338, 340, 343 (CC SDNY 1908); Smith v. Jerome , 47
Misc. 22, 23–24, 93 N. Y. S. 202, 202–203 (1905); Thornton v. State , 117 Wis. 338, 346–347, 93
N. W. 1107, 1110 (1903); Ex parte Hurn , 92 Ala. 102,
112, 9 So. 515, 519–520 (1891); Thatcher v. Weeks , 79 Me. 547, 548–549, 11 A. 599, 599–600 (1887); 1
F. Wharton, Criminal Procedure §97, pp. 136–137 (J. Kerr 10th ed.
1918); 1 J. Bishop, Criminal Procedure §211, p. 127 (2d ed. 1872);
cf. Spalding v. Preston , 21 Vt. 9, 15 (1848)
(seizure authority); Queen v. Frost , 9 Car. &
P. 129, 131–134 (1839) (same); King v. Kinsey , 7
Car. & P. 447 (1836) (same); King v. O’Donnell , 7 Car. & P. 138 (1835) (same); King v. Barnett , 3 Car. & P. 600, 601 (1829)
(same). Bishop’s 1872 articulation is typical:

															“The officer who arrests a man on a criminal charge
should consider the nature of the charge; and, if he finds about
the prisoner’s person, or otherwise in his possession, either goods
or moneys which there is reason to believe are connected with the
supposed crime as its fruits, or as the instruments with which it
was committed, or as directly furnishing evidence relating to the
transaction, he may take the same, and hold them to be disposed of
as the court may direct.” Bishop, supra , §211, at 127.

															Only in the years leading up to Chimel did
we start consistently referring to the narrower interest in
frustrating concealment or destruction of evidence. See Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40 , 67 (1968); Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364 , 367
(1964).

															   There is nothing irrational about broader
police authority to search for evidence when and where the
perpetrator of a crime is lawfully arrested. The fact of prior
lawful arrest distinguishes the arrestee from society at large, and
distinguishes a search for evidence of his crime from
general rummaging. Moreover, it is not illogical to assume that
evidence of a crime is most likely to be found where the suspect
was apprehended.

															   Nevertheless, Chimel ’s narrower focus
on concealment or destruction of evidence also has historical
support. See Holker v. Hennessey , 141 Mo. 527,
539–540, 42 S. W. 1090, 1093 (1897); Dillon v. O’Brien , 16 Cox C. C. 245, 250 (Ex. Div. Ire. 1887); Reifsnyder v. Lee , 44 Iowa 101, 103 (1876); S.
Welch, Essay on the Office of Constable 17 (1758).[ Footnote 2 ] And some of the authorities
supporting the broader rule address only searches of the arrestee’s person , as to which Chimel ’s limitation might
fairly be implicit. Moreover, carried to its logical end, the
broader rule is hard to reconcile with the influential case of Entick v. Carrington , 19 How. St. Tr. 1029, 1031,
1063–1074 (C. P. 1765) (disapproving search of plaintiff’s
private papers under general warrant, despite arrest). But cf. Dillon , supra , at 250–251 (distinguishing Entick ); Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294 , 303–304
(1967).

															   In short, both Rabinowitz and Chimel are plausible accounts of what the Constitution
requires, and neither is so persuasive as to justify departing from
settled law. But if we are going to continue to allow Belton searches on stare decisis grounds, we
should at least be honest about why we are doing so. Belton cannot reasonably be explained as a mere
application of Chimel . Rather, it is a return to the
broader sort of search incident to arrest that we allowed before Chimel —limited, of course, to searches of motor vehicles,
a category of “effects” which give rise to a reduced expectation of
privacy, see Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U. S. 295 , 303
(1999), and heightened law enforcement needs, see id. , at
304; Rabinowitz , 339 U. S., at 73 (Frankfurter, J.,
dissenting).

															   Recasting Belton in these terms would
have at least one important practical consequence. In United
States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 , 235
(1973), we held that authority to search an arrestee’s person does
not depend on the actual presence of one of Chimel ’s two
rationales in the particular case; rather, the fact of arrest alone
justifies the search. That holding stands in contrast to Rabinowitz , where we did not treat the fact of arrest
alone as sufficient, but upheld the search only after noting that
it was “not general or exploratory for whatever might be turned up”
but reflected a reasonable belief that evidence would be found. 339
U. S., at 62–63; see also Smith , supra , at 24, 93
N. Y. S., at 203 (“This right and duty of search and
seizure extend, however, only to articles which furnish evidence
against the accused”); cf. Barnett , supra , at 601
(seizure authority limited to relevant evidence); Bishop, supra , §211, at 127 (officer should “consider the nature
of the charge” before searching). The two different rules make
sense: When officer safety or imminent evidence concealment or
destruction is at issue, officers should not have to make fine
judgments in the heat of the moment. But in the context of a
general evidence-gathering search, the state interests that might
justify any overbreadth are far less compelling. A motorist may be
arrested for a wide variety of offenses; in many cases, there is no
reasonable basis to believe relevant evidence might be found in the
car. See Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U. S. 318 , 323–324
(2001); cf. Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113 , 118
(1998). I would therefore limit Belton searches to cases
where it is reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of
arrest might be found in the vehicle.

															   In this case, as in Belton ,
petitioner was lawfully arrested for a drug offense. It was
reasonable for Officer Nichols to believe that further contraband
or similar evidence relevant to the crime for which he had been
arrested might be found in the vehicle from which he had just
alighted and which was still within his vicinity at the time of
arrest. I would affirm the decision below on that ground.[ Footnote 3 ] Footnote 1 We did characterize the entire office as
under the defendant’s “immediate control,” 339 U. S., at 61, but we
used the term in a broader sense than the one it acquired in Chimel . Compare 339 U. S., at 61, with 395 U. S., at
763. Footnote 2 Chimel ’s officer-safety rationale
has its own pedigree. See Thornton v. State , 117
Wis. 338, 346–347, 93 N. W. 1107, 1110 (1903); Ex parte
Hurn , 92 Ala. 102, 112, 9 So. 515, 519–520 (1891); Closson v. Morrison , 47 N. H. 482, 484–485
(1867); Leigh v. Cole , 6 Cox C. C. 329, 332
(Oxford Cir. 1853); Welch, Essay on the Office of Constable, at
17. Footnote 3 The Court asserts that my opinion goes beyond
the scope of the question presented, citing this Court’s Rule
14.1(a). Ante , at 8, n. 4. That Rule, however, does
not constrain our authority to reach issues presented by the case,
see Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U. S. 252 , 259,
n. 5 (1980); Tennessee Student Assistance Corp. v. Hood , 541 U. S. ___, ___ (2004) (slip op., at 1), and in
any event does not apply when the issue is necessary to an
intelligent resolution of the question presented, see Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U. S. 33 , 38
(1996). STEVENS, J., DISSENTING THORNTON V. UNITED STATES 541 U. S. ____ (2004) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 03-5165 MARCUS THORNTON, PETITIONER v. UNITED
STATES

															on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the fourth circuit

															[May 24, 2004]

															   Justice Stevens, with whom
Justice Souter joins, dissenting.

															   Prior to our decision in New
York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981),
there was a widespread conflict among both federal and state courts
over the question “whether, in the course of a search incident to
the lawful custodial arrest of the occupants of an automobile,
police may search inside the automobile after the arrestees are no
longer in it.” Id., at 459. In answering that question,
the Court expanded the authority of the police in two important
respects. It allowed the police to conduct a broader search than
our decision in Chimel v. California , 395 U. S. 752 , 762–763
(1969), would have permitted,[ Footnote 1 ] and it authorized them to open closed
containers that might be found in the vehicle’s passenger
compartment.[ Footnote 2 ] Belton ’s basic rationale for both
expansions rested not on a concern for officer safety, but rather
on an overriding desire to hew “to a straightforward rule, easily
applied, and predictably enforced.” 453 U. S., at 459.[ Footnote 3 ] When the case was decided, I was
persuaded that the important interest in clarity and certainty
adequately justified the modest extension of the Chimel rule to permit an officer to examine the interior of a car pursuant
to an arrest for a traffic violation. But I took a different view
with respect to the search of containers within the car absent
probable cause, because I thought “it palpably unreasonable to
require the driver of a car to open his briefcase or his luggage
for inspection by the officer.” Robbins v. California, 453 U. S. 420 , 451–452
(1981) (dissenting opinion).[ Footnote 4 ] I remain convinced that this aspect of the Belton opinion was both unnecessary and erroneous. Whether
one agrees or disagrees with that view, however, the interest in
certainty that supports Belton ’s bright-line rule surely
does not justify an expansion of the rule that only blurs those
clear lines. Neither the rule in Chimel nor Belton ’s modification of that rule would have allowed the
search of petitioner’s car.

															   A fair reading of the Belton opinion
itself, and of the conflicting cases that gave rise to our grant of
certiorari, makes clear that we were not concerned with the
situation presented in this case. The Court in Belton noted that the lower courts had discovered Chimel ’s
reaching-distance principle difficult to apply in the context of
automobile searches incident to arrest, and that “no
straightforward rule ha[d] emerged from the litigated cases.” 453
U. S., at 458–459. None of the cases cited by the Court to
demonstrate the disarray in the lower courts involved a pedestrian
who was in the vicinity, but outside the reaching distance, of his
or her car.[ Footnote 5 ] Nor did
any of the decisions cited in the petition for a writ of
certiorari[ Footnote 6 ] present
such a case.[ Footnote 7 ] Thus, Belton was demonstrably concerned only with the narrow but
common circumstance of a search occasioned by the arrest of a
suspect who was seated in or driving an automobile at the time the
law enforcement official approached. Normally, after such an arrest
has occurred, the officer’s safety is no longer in jeopardy, but he
must decide what, if any, search for incriminating evidence he
should conduct. Belton provided previously unavailable and
therefore necessary guidance for that category of cases.

															   The bright-line rule crafted in Belton is not needed for cases in which the arrestee is
first accosted when he is a pedestrian, because Chimel itself provides all the guidance that is necessary. The only
genuine justification for extending Belton to cover such
circumstances is the interest in uncovering potentially valuable
evidence. In my opinion, that goal must give way to the citizen’s
constitutionally protected interest in privacy when there is
already in place a well-defined rule limiting the permissible scope
of a search of an arrested pedestrian. The Chimel rule
should provide the same protection to a “recent occupant” of a
vehicle as to a recent occupant of a house.

															   Unwilling to confine the Belton rule
to the narrow class of cases it was designed to address, the Court
extends Belton ’s reach without supplying any guidance for
the future application of its swollen rule. We are told that
officers may search a vehicle incident to arrest “[s]o long as
[the] arrestee is the sort of ‘recent occupant’ of a vehicle such
as petitioner was here.” Ante , at 8. But we are not told
how recent is recent, or how close is close, perhaps because in
this case “the record is not clear.” 325 F. 3d 189, 196 (CA4
2003). As the Court cautioned in Belton itself, “[w]hen a
person cannot know how a court will apply a settled principle to a
recurring factual situation, that person cannot know the scope of
his constitutional protection, nor can a policeman know the scope
of his authority.” 453 U. S., at 459–460. Without some limiting
principle, I fear that today’s decision will contribute to “a
massive broadening of the automobile exception,” Robbins ,
453 U. S., at 452 (Stevens, J., dissenting), when officers have
probable cause to arrest an individual but not to search his
car.

															   Accordingly, I respectfully dissent. Footnote 1 The Court gleaned from the case law “the
generalization that articles inside the relatively narrow compass
of the passenger compartment of an automobile are in fact
generally, even if not inevitably, within ‘the area into which an
arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary
ite[m].’ ” Belton , 453 U. S., at 460 (quoting Chimel , 395 U. S., at 763). “In order to establish the
workable rule this category of cases require[d],” the Court then
read “ Chimel’ s definition of the limits of the area that
may be searched in light of that generalization.” Thus, Belton held “that when a policeman has made a lawful
custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a
contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger
compartment of that automobile.” 453 U. S., at 460 (footnote
omitted). Footnote 2 Because police lawfully may search the
passenger compartment of the automobile, the Court reasoned, it
followed “that the police may also examine the contents of any
containers found within the passenger compartment, for if the
passenger compartment is within reach of the arrestee, so also will
containers in it be within his reach… . Such a container may,
of course, be searched whether it is open or closed, since the
justification for the search is not that the arrestee has no
privacy interest in the container, but that the lawful custodial
arrest justifies the infringement of any privacy interest the
arrestee may have.” Id., at 460–461 (footnote
omitted). Footnote 3 The Court extolled the virtues of “ ‘[a]
single, familiar standard … to guide police officers, who have only
limited time and expertise to reflect on and balance the social and
individual interests involved in the specific circumstances they
confront.’ ” Id ., at 458 (quoting Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200 , 213–214
(1979)). Footnote 4 In Robbins , a companion case to Belton , the Court held that police officers cannot open
closed, opaque containers found in the trunk of a car during a
lawful but warrantless search. 453 U. S., at 428 (plurality
opinion). Because the officer in Robbins had probable
cause to believe the car contained marijuana, I would have applied
the automobile exception to sustain the search. Id ., at
452 (dissenting opinion). But I expressed concern that authorizing
police officers to search containers in the passenger compartment
without probable cause would “provide the constitutional predicate
for broader vehicle searches than any neutral magistrate could
authorize by issuing a warrant.” Ibid . Footnote 5 See United States v. Benson , 631 F. 2d 1336, 1337 (CA8 1980) (defendant
arrested “while sitting in a car”); United States v. Sanders , 631 F. 2d 1309, 1311-1312 (CA8 1980)
(occupants in car at time officers approached); United
States v. Rigales , 630 F. 2d 364, 365 (CA5 1980)
(defendant apprehended during traffic stop); United States v. Dixon , 558 F. 2d 919, 922 (CA9 1977) (“[T]he
agents placed appellant under arrest while he was still in his
car”); United States v. Frick , 490 F. 2d
666, 668, 669 (CA5 1973) (defendant arrested “at his car in the
parking lot adjacent to his apartment building”; at time of arrest,
attaché case in question was lying on back seat of car
“approximately two feet from the defendant” and “readily
accessible” to him); Hinkel v. Anchorage , 618
P. 2d 1069 (Alaska 1980) (defendant arrested while in car
immediately following collision); Ulesky v. State , 379 So. 2d 121, 123 (Fla. App. 1979)
(defendant arrested while in car during traffic stop). Footnote 6 Pet. for Cert. in New York v. Belton , O. T. 1980, No. 80–328, p. 7. Footnote 7 See United States v. Agostino , 608 F.2d 1035, 1036 (CA5 1979) (suspect in car
when notified of police presence); United States v. Neumann , 585 F. 2d 355, 356 (CA8 1978) (defendant
stopped by police while in car); United States v. Foster , 584 F. 2d 997, 999–1000 (CADC 1978) (suspects
seated in parked car when approached by officer); State v. Hunter , 299 N. C. 29, 33, 261 S. E. 2d 189, 192
(1980) (defendant pulled over and arrested while in car); State v. Wilkens , 364 So. 2d 934, 936 (La.
1978) (defendant arrested in automobile).


OPINION OF THE COURT ILLINOIS V. CABALLES 543 U. S. ____ (2005) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 03-923 ILLINOIS, PETITIONER v. ROY I.
CABALLES

															on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
illinois

															[January 24, 2005]

															   Justice Stevens delivered the
opinion of the Court.

															   Illinois State Trooper Daniel
Gillette stopped respondent for speeding on an interstate highway.
When Gillette radioed the police dispatcher to report the stop, a
second trooper, Craig Graham, a member of the Illinois State Police
Drug Interdiction Team, overheard the transmission and immediately
headed for the scene with his narcotics-detection dog. When they
arrived, respondent’s car was on the shoulder of the road and
respondent was in Gillette’s vehicle. While Gillette was in the
process of writing a warning ticket, Graham walked his dog around
respondent’s car. The dog alerted at the trunk. Based on that
alert, the officers searched the trunk, found marijuana, and
arrested respondent. The entire incident lasted less than 10
minutes.

															   Respondent was convicted of a narcotics
offense and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment and a $256,136
fine. The trial judge denied his motion to suppress the seized
evidence and to quash his arrest. He held that the officers had not
unnecessarily prolonged the stop and that the dog alert was
sufficiently reliable to provide probable cause to conduct the
search. Although the Appellate Court affirmed, the Illinois Supreme
Court reversed, concluding that because the canine sniff was
performed without any “ ‘specific and articulable
facts’ ” to suggest drug activity, the use of the dog
“unjustifiably enlarg[ed] the scope of a routine traffic stop into
a drug investigation.” 207 Ill. 2d 504, 510, 802 N. E. 2d 202,
205 (2003).

															   The question on which we granted certiorari, 541 U. S. 972 (2004), is narrow: “Whether the Fourth Amendment requires
reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify using a drug-detection
dog to sniff a vehicle during a legitimate traffic stop.” Pet. for
Cert. i. Thus, we proceed on the assumption that the officer
conducting the dog sniff had no information about respondent except
that he had been stopped for speeding; accordingly, we have omitted
any reference to facts about respondent that might have triggered a
modicum of suspicion.

															   Here, the initial seizure of respondent when
he was stopped on the highway was based on probable cause, and was
concededly lawful. It is nevertheless clear that a seizure that is
lawful at its inception can violate the Fourth Amendment if its
manner of execution unreasonably infringes interests protected by
the Constitution. United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109 ,
124 (1984). A seizure that is justified solely by the interest in
issuing a warning ticket to the driver can become unlawful if it is
prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete that
mission. In an earlier case involving a dog sniff that occurred
during an unreasonably prolonged traffic stop, the Illinois Supreme
Court held that use of the dog and the subsequent discovery of
contraband were the product of an unconstitutional seizure. People v. Cox , 202 Ill. 2d 462, 782 N. E. 2d 275
(2002). We may assume that a similar result would be warranted in
this case if the dog sniff had been conducted while respondent was
being unlawfully detained.

															   In the state-court proceedings, however, the
judges carefully reviewed the details of Officer Gillette’s
conversations with respondent and the precise timing of his radio
transmissions to the dispatcher to determine whether he had
improperly extended the duration of the stop to enable the dog
sniff to occur. We have not recounted those details because we
accept the state court’s conclusion that the duration of the stop
in this case was entirely justified by the traffic offense and the
ordinary inquiries incident to such a stop.

															   Despite this conclusion, the Illinois Supreme
Court held that the initially lawful traffic stop became an
unlawful seizure solely as a result of the canine sniff that
occurred outside respondent’s stopped car. That is, the court
characterized the dog sniff as the cause rather than the
consequence of a constitutional violation. In its view, the use of
the dog converted the citizen-police encounter from a lawful
traffic stop into a drug investigation, and because the shift in
purpose was not supported by any reasonable suspicion that
respondent possessed narcotics, it was unlawful. In our view,
conducting a dog sniff would not change the character of a traffic
stop that is lawful at its inception and otherwise executed in a
reasonable manner, unless the dog sniff itself infringed
respondent’s constitutionally protected interest in privacy. Our
cases hold that it did not.

															   Official conduct that does not “compromise any
legitimate interest in privacy” is not a search subject to the
Fourth Amendment. Jacobsen, 466 U. S., at 123 . We
have held that any interest in possessing contraband cannot be
deemed “legitimate,” and thus, governmental conduct that only reveals the possession of contraband “compromises no
legitimate privacy interest.” Ibid. This is because the
expectation “that certain facts will not come to the attention of
the authorities” is not the same as an interest in “privacy that
society is prepared to consider reasonable.” Id., at 122
(punctuation omitted). In United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696 (1983), we treated a canine sniff by a well-trained
narcotics-detection dog as " sui generis " because it
"discloses only the presence or absence of narcotics, a contraband
item." Id., at 707; see also Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531
U. S. 32 , 40 (2000). Respondent likewise concedes that “drug
sniffs are designed, and if properly conducted are generally
likely, to reveal only the presence of contraband.” Brief for
Respondent 17. Although respondent argues that the error rates,
particularly the existence of false positives, call into question
the premise that drug-detection dogs alert only to contraband, the
record contains no evidence or findings that support his argument.
Moreover, respondent does not suggest that an erroneous alert, in
and of itself, reveals any legitimate private information, and, in
this case, the trial judge found that the dog sniff was
sufficiently reliable to establish probable cause to conduct a
full-blown search of the trunk.

															   Accordingly, the use of a well-trained
narcotics-detection dog—one that "does not expose noncontraband
items that otherwise would remain hidden from public view," Place , 462 U. S., at 707—during a lawful traffic stop,
generally does not implicate legitimate privacy interests. In this
case, the dog sniff was performed on the exterior of respondent’s
car while he was lawfully seized for a traffic violation. Any
intrusion on respondent’s privacy expectations does not rise to the
level of a constitutionally cognizable infringement.

															   This conclusion is entirely consistent with
our recent decision that the use of a thermal-imaging device to
detect the growth of marijuana in a home constituted an unlawful
search. Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27 (2001).
Critical to that decision was the fact that the device was capable
of detecting lawful activity—in that case, intimate details in a
home, such as “at what hour each night the lady of the house takes
her daily sauna and bath.” Id ., at 38. The legitimate
expectation that information about perfectly lawful activity will
remain private is categorically distinguishable from respondent’s
hopes or expectations concerning the nondetection of contraband in
the trunk of his car. A dog sniff conducted during a concededly
lawful traffic stop that reveals no information other than the
location of a substance that no individual has any right to possess
does not violate the Fourth Amendment.

															   The judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court is
vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion.

															It is so ordered.

															   The Chief Justice took no part in
the decision of this case. SOUTER, J., DISSENTING ILLINOIS V. CABALLES 543 U. S. ____ (2005) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 03-923 ILLINOIS, PETITIONER v. ROY I.
CABALLES

															on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
illinois

															[January 24, 2005]

															   Justice Souter, dissenting.

															   I would hold that using the dog
for the purposes of determining the presence of marijuana in the
car’s trunk was a search unauthorized as an incident of the
speeding stop and unjustified on any other ground. I would
accordingly affirm the judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois,
and I respectfully dissent.

															   In United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696 (1983), we categorized
the sniff of the narcotics-seeking dog as “sui generis” under the Fourth Amendment and held it was not a search. Id., at 707. The classification rests not only upon the
limited nature of the intrusion, but on a further premise that
experience has shown to be untenable, the assumption that trained
sniffing dogs do not err. What we have learned about the
fallibility of dogs in the years since Place was decided
would itself be reason to call for reconsidering Place ’s
decision against treating the intentional use of a trained dog as a
search. The portent of this very case, however, adds insistence to
the call, for an uncritical adherence to Place would
render the Fourth Amendment indifferent to suspicionless and
indiscriminate sweeps of cars in parking garages and pedestrians on
sidewalks; if a sniff is not preceded by a seizure subject to
Fourth Amendment notice, it escapes Fourth Amendment review
entirely unless it is treated as a search. We should not wait for
these developments to occur before rethinking Place ’s
analysis, which invites such untoward consequences.[ Footnote 1 ]

															   At the heart both of Place and the
Court’s opinion today is the proposition that sniffs by a trained
dog are sui generis because a reaction by the dog in going
alert is a response to nothing but the presence of
contraband.[ Footnote 2 ] See ibid. (“[T]he sniff discloses only the presence or absence
of narcotics, a contraband item”); ante, at 3–4 (assuming
“that a canine sniff by a well-trained narcotics dog will only
reveal ‘the presence or absence of narcotics, a contraband
item’ ” (quoting Place, supra, at 707)). Hence, the
argument goes, because the sniff can only reveal the presence of
items devoid of any legal use, the sniff “does not implicate
legitimate privacy interests” and is not to be treated as a search. Ante, at 4.

															   The infallible dog, however, is a creature of
legal fiction. Although the Supreme Court of Illinois did not get
into the sniffing averages of drug dogs, their supposed
infallibility is belied by judicial opinions describing
well-trained animals sniffing and alerting with less than perfect
accuracy, whether owing to errors by their handlers, the
limitations of the dogs themselves, or even the pervasive
contamination of currency by cocaine. See, e.g. , United States v. Kennedy , 131 F. 3d 1371,
1378 (CA10 1997) (describing a dog that had a 71% accuracy rate); United States v. Scarborough , 128 F. 3d
1373, 1378, n. 3 (CA10 1997) (describing a dog that
erroneously alerted 4 times out of 19 while working for the postal
service and 8% of the time over its entire career); United
States v. Limares , 269 F. 3d 794, 797 (CA7 2001)
(accepting as reliable a dog that gave false positives between 7
and 38% of the time); Laime v. State , 347 Ark.
142, 159, 60 S. W. 3d 464, 476 (2001) (speaking of a dog that made
between 10 and 50 errors); United States v. $242,484.00 , 351 F. 3d 499, 511 (CA11 2003) (noting
that because as much as 80% of all currency in circulation contains
drug residue, a dog alert “is of little value”), vacated on other
grounds by rehearing en banc, 357 F. 3d 1225 (CA11 2004); United States v. Carr , 25 F. 3d 1194,
1214–1217 (CA3 1994) (Becker, J., concurring in part and dissenting
in part) (“[A] substantial portion of United States currency … is
tainted with sufficient traces of controlled substances to cause a
trained canine to alert to their presence”). Indeed, a study cited
by Illinois in this case for the proposition that dog sniffs are
“generally reliable” shows that dogs in artificial testing
situations return false positives anywhere from 12.5 to 60% of the
time, depending on the length of the search. See Reply Brief for
Petitioner 13; K. Garner et al., Duty Cycle of the Detector
Dog: A Baseline Study 12 (Apr. 2001) (prepared under Federal
Aviation Administration grant by the Institute for Biological
Detection Systems of Auburn University). In practical terms, the
evidence is clear that the dog that alerts hundreds of times will
be wrong dozens of times.

															   Once the dog’s fallibility is recognized,
however, that ends the justification claimed in Place for
treating the sniff as sui generis under the Fourth
Amendment: the sniff alert does not necessarily signal hidden
contraband, and opening the container or enclosed space whose
emanations the dog has sensed will not necessarily reveal
contraband or any other evidence of crime. This is not, of course,
to deny that a dog’s reaction may provide reasonable suspicion, or
probable cause, to search the container or enclosure; the Fourth
Amendment does not demand certainty of success to justify a search
for evidence or contraband. The point is simply that the sniff and
alert cannot claim the certainty that Place assumed, both
in treating the deliberate use of sniffing dogs as sui
generis and then taking that characterization as a reason to
say they are not searches subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny. And
when that aura of uniqueness disappears, there is no basis in Place ’s reasoning, and no good reason otherwise, to ignore
the actual function that dog sniffs perform. They are conducted to
obtain information about the contents of private spaces beyond
anything that human senses could perceive, even when conventionally
enhanced. The information is not provided by independent third
parties beyond the reach of constitutional limitations, but
gathered by the government’s own officers in order to justify
searches of the traditional sort, which may or may not reveal
evidence of crime but will disclose anything meant to be kept
private in the area searched. Thus in practice the government’s use
of a trained narcotics dog functions as a limited search to reveal
undisclosed facts about private enclosures, to be used to justify a
further and complete search of the enclosed area. And given the
fallibility of the dog, the sniff is the first step in a process
that may disclose “intimate details” without revealing contraband,
just as a thermal-imaging device might do, as described in Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27 (2001).[ Footnote 3 ]

															   It makes sense, then, to treat a sniff as the
search that it amounts to in practice, and to rely on the body of
our Fourth Amendment cases, including Kyllo , in deciding
whether such a search is reasonable. As a general proposition,
using a dog to sniff for drugs is subject to the rule that the
object of enforcing criminal laws does not, without more, justify
suspicionless Fourth Amendment intrusions. See Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32 , 41–42
(2000). Since the police claim to have had no particular suspicion
that Caballes was violating any drug law,[ Footnote 4 ] this sniff search must stand or fall on its
being ancillary to the traffic stop that led up to it. It is true
that the police had probable cause to stop the car for an offense
committed in the officer’s presence, which Caballes concedes could
have justified his arrest. See Brief for Respondent 31. There is no
occasion to consider authority incident to arrest, however, see Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113 (1998),
for the police did nothing more than detain Caballes long enough to
check his record and write a ticket. As a consequence, the
reasonableness of the search must be assessed in relation to the
actual delay the police chose to impose, and as Justice Ginsburg
points out in her opinion, post, at 3–4, the Fourth
Amendment consequences of stopping for a traffic citation are
settled law.

															   In Berkemer v. McCarty , 468 U. S. 420 ,
439–440 (1984), followed in Knowles, supra, at 488, we
held that the analogue of the common traffic stop was the limited
detention for investigation authorized by Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968). While Terry authorized a restricted incidental search for weapons when
reasonable suspicion warrants such a safety measure, id., at 25–26, the Court took care to keep a Terry stop from
automatically becoming a foot in the door for all investigatory
purposes; the permissible intrusion was bounded by the
justification for the detention, id., at 29–30.[ Footnote 5 ] Although facts disclosed by
enquiry within this limit might give grounds to go further, the
government could not otherwise take advantage of a suspect’s
immobility to search for evidence unrelated to the reason for the
detention. That has to be the rule unless Terry is going
to become an open-sesame for general searches, and that rule
requires holding that the police do not have reasonable grounds to
conduct sniff searches for drugs simply because they have stopped
someone to receive a ticket for a highway offense. Since the police
had no indication of illegal activity beyond the speed of the car
in this case, the sniff search should be held unreasonable under
the Fourth Amendment and its fruits should be suppressed.

															   Nothing in the case relied upon by the Court, United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U. S. 109 (1984),
unsettled the limit of reasonable enquiry adopted in Terry. In Jacobsen , the Court found that no
Fourth Amendment search occurred when federal agents analyzed
powder they had already lawfully obtained. The Court noted that
because the test could only reveal whether the powder was cocaine,
the owner had no legitimate privacy interest at stake. 466 U. S.,
at 123. As already explained, however, the use of a sniffing dog in
cases like this is significantly different and properly treated as
a search that does indeed implicate Fourth Amendment
protection.

															   In Jacobsen , once the powder was
analyzed, that was effectively the end of the matter: either the
powder was cocaine, a fact the owner had no legitimate interest in
concealing, or it was not cocaine, in which case the test revealed
nothing about the powder or anything else that was not already
legitimately obvious to the police. But in the case of the dog
sniff, the dog does not smell the disclosed contraband; it smells a
closed container. An affirmative reaction therefore does not
identify a substance the police already legitimately possess, but
informs the police instead merely of a reasonable chance of finding
contraband they have yet to put their hands on. The police will
then open the container and discover whatever lies within, be it
marijuana or the owner’s private papers. Thus, while Jacobsen could rely on the assumption that the enquiry in
question would either show with certainty that a known substance
was contraband or would reveal nothing more, both the certainty and
the limit on disclosure that may follow are missing when the dog
sniffs the car.[ Footnote 6 ]

															   The Court today does not go so far as to say
explicitly that sniff searches by dogs trained to sense contraband
always get a free pass under the Fourth Amendment, since it
reserves judgment on the constitutional significance of sniffs
assumed to be more intrusive than a dog’s walk around a stopped
car, ante, at 4. For this reason, I do not take the
Court’s reliance on Jacobsen as actually signaling
recognition of a broad authority to conduct suspicionless sniffs
for drugs in any parked car, about which Justice Ginsburg is
rightly concerned, post, at 5–6, or on the person of any
pedestrian minding his own business on a sidewalk. But the Court’s
stated reasoning provides no apparent stopping point short of such
excesses. For the sake of providing a workable framework to analyze
cases on facts like these, which are certain to come along, I would
treat the dog sniff as the familiar search it is in fact, subject
to scrutiny under the Fourth Amendment.[ Footnote 7 ] Footnote 1 I also join Justice Ginsburg’s dissent, post, p. ___ . Without directly reexamining the
soundness of the Court’s analysis of government dog sniffs in Place , she demonstrates that investigation into a matter
beyond the subject of the traffic stop here offends the rule in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), the analysis I, too,
adopt. Footnote 2 Another proffered justification for sui
generis status is that a dog sniff is a particularly
nonintrusive procedure. United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696 , 707 (1983). I agree
with Justice Ginsburg that the introduction of a dog to a traffic
stop (let alone an encounter with someone walking down the street)
can in fact be quite intrusive. Post, at 4–5 (dissenting
opinion). Footnote 3 Kyllo was concerned with whether a
search occurred when the police used a thermal-imaging device on a
house to detect heat emanations associated with high-powered
marijuana-growing lamps. In concluding that using the device was a
search, the Court stressed that the “Government [may not] us[e] a
device … to explore details of the home that would previously have
been unknowable without physical intrusion.” 533 U. S., at 40. Any
difference between the dwelling in Kyllo and the trunk of
the car here may go to the issue of the reasonableness of the
respective searches, but it has no bearing on the question of
search or no search. Nor is it significant that Kyllo’ s
imaging device would disclose personal details immediately, whereas
they would be revealed only in the further step of opening the
enclosed space following the dog’s alert reaction; in practical
terms the same values protected by the Fourth Amendment are at
stake in each case. The justifications required by the Fourth
Amendment may or may not differ as between the two practices, but
if constitutional scrutiny is in order for the imager, it is in
order for the dog. Footnote 4 Despite the remarkable fact that the police
pulled over a car for going 71 miles an hour on I–80, the State
maintains that excessive speed was the only reason for the stop,
and the case comes to us on that assumption. Footnote 5 Thus, in Place itself, the
Government officials had independent grounds to suspect that the
luggage in question contained contraband before they employed the
dog sniff. 462 U. S., at 698 (describing how Place had acted
suspiciously in line at the airport and had labeled his luggage
with inconsistent and fictional addresses). Footnote 6 It would also be error to claim that some
variant of the plain-view doctrine excuses the lack of
justification for the dog sniff in this case. When an officer
observes an object left by its owner in plain view, no search
occurs because the owner has exhibited “no intention to keep [the
object] to himself.” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 ,
361 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). In contrast, when an
individual conceals his possessions from the world, he has grounds
to expect some degree of privacy. While plain view may be enhanced
somewhat by technology, see, e.g., Dow Chemical
Co. v. United States, 476 U. S. 227 (1986)
(allowing for aerial surveillance of an industrial complex), there
are limits. As Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27 , 33 (2001), explained in
treating the thermal-imaging device as outside the plain-view
doctrine, “[w]e have previously reserved judgment as to how much
technological enhancement of ordinary perception” turns mere
observation into a Fourth Amendment search. While Kyllo laid special emphasis on the heightened privacy expectations that
surround the home, closed car trunks are accorded some level of
privacy protection. See, e.g., New York v. Belton, 453
U. S. 454 , 460, n. 4 (1981) (holding that even a search
incident to arrest in a vehicle does not itself permit a search of
the trunk). As a result, if Fourth Amendment protections are to
have meaning in the face of superhuman, yet fallible, techniques
like the use of trained dogs, those techniques must be justified on
the basis of their reasonableness, lest everything be deemed in
plain view. Footnote 7 I should take care myself to reserve judgment
about a possible case significantly unlike this one. All of us are
concerned not to prejudge a claim of authority to detect explosives
and dangerous chemical or biological weapons that might be carried
by a terrorist who prompts no individualized suspicion. Suffice it
to say here that what is a reasonable search depends in part on
demonstrated risk. Unreasonable sniff searches for marijuana are
not necessarily unreasonable sniff searches for destructive or
deadly material if suicide bombs are a societal risk. GINSBURG, J., DISSENTING ILLINOIS V. CABALLES 543 U. S. ____ (2005) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 03-923 ILLINOIS, PETITIONER v. ROY I.
CABALLES

															on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
illinois

															[January 24, 2005]

															   Justice Ginsburg, with whom
Justice Souter joins, dissenting.

															   Illinois State Police Trooper
Daniel Gillette stopped Roy Caballes for driving 71 miles per hour
in a zone with a posted speed limit of 65 miles per hour. Trooper
Craig Graham of the Drug Interdiction Team heard on the radio that
Trooper Gillette was making a traffic stop. Although Gillette
requested no aid, Graham decided to come to the scene to conduct a
dog sniff. Gillette informed Caballes that he was speeding and
asked for the usual documents—driver’s license, car registration,
and proof of insurance. Caballes promptly provided the requested
documents but refused to consent to a search of his vehicle. After
calling his dispatcher to check on the validity of Caballes’
license and for outstanding warrants, Gillette returned to his
vehicle to write Caballes a warning ticket. Interrupted by a radio
call on an unrelated matter, Gillette was still writing the ticket
when Trooper Graham arrived with his drug-detection dog. Graham
walked the dog around the car, the dog alerted at Caballes’ trunk,
and, after opening the trunk, the troopers found marijuana. 207
Ill. 2d 504, 506–507, 802 N. E. 2d 202, 203 (2003).

															   The Supreme Court of Illinois held that the
drug evidence should have been suppressed. Id., at 506,
802 N. E. 2d, at 202. Adhering to its decision in People v. Cox , 202 Ill. 2d 462, 782 N. E. 2d
275 (2002), the court employed a two-part test taken from Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), to
determine the overall reasonableness of the stop. 207 Ill. 2d, at
508, 802 N. E. 2d, at 204. The court asked first “whether the
officer’s action was justified at its inception,” and second
“whether it was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances
which justified the interference in the first place.” Ibid. (quoting People v. Brownlee , 186
Ill. 2d 501, 518–519, 713 N. E. 2d 556, 565 (1999) (in turn
quoting Terry , 392 U. S., at 19–20)). “[I]t is
undisputed,” the court observed, “that the traffic stop was
properly initiated”; thus, the dispositive inquiry trained on the
“second part of the Terry test,” in which “[t]he State
bears the burden of establishing that the conduct remained within
the scope of the stop.” 207 Ill. 2d, at 509, 802 N. E. 2d, at
204.

															   The court concluded that the State failed to
offer sufficient justification for the canine sniff: “The police
did not detect the odor of marijuana in the car or note any other
evidence suggesting the presence of illegal drugs.” Ibid. Lacking “specific and articulable facts” supporting the canine
sniff, ibid. (quoting Cox , 202 Ill. 2d, at
470–471, 782 N. E. 2d, at 281), the court ruled, “the police
impermissibly broadened the scope of the traffic stop in this case
into a drug investigation.” 207 Ill. 2d, at 509, 802 N. E. 2d,
at 204.[ Footnote 1 ] I would
affirm the Illinois Supreme Court’s judgment and hold that the drug
sniff violated the Fourth Amendment.

															   In Terry v. Ohio , the Court
upheld the stop and subsequent frisk of an individual based on an
officer’s observation of suspicious behavior and his reasonable
belief that the suspect was armed. See 392 U. S., at 27–28. In a Terry -type investigatory stop, “the officer’s action [must
be] justified at its inception, and … reasonably related in scope
to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first
place.” Id., at 20. In applying Terry , the Court
has several times indicated that the limitation on “scope” is not
confined to the duration of the seizure; it also encompasses the
manner in which the seizure is conducted. See, e.g., Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nev., Humboldt
Cty., 542 U. S. ___, ___ (2004) (slip op., at 9) (an officer’s
request that an individual identify himself “has an immediate
relation to the purpose, rationale, and practical demands of a Terry stop”); United States v. Hensley, 469 U. S. 221 ,
235 (1985) (examining, under Terry , both “the length and
intrusiveness of the stop and detention”); Florida v. Royer, 460
U. S. 491 , 500 (1983) (plurality opinion) (“[A]n investigative
detention must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to
effectuate the purpose of the stop [and] … the investigative
methods employed should be the least intrusive means reasonably
available to verify or dispel the officer’s suspicion
… .”).

															   “A routine traffic stop,” the Court has
observed, “is a relatively brief encounter and ‘is more analogous
to a so-called Terry stop … than to a formal
arrest.’ ” Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113 , 117
(1998) (quoting Berkemer v. McCarty , 468 U. S. 420 , 439
(1984)); see also ante , at 6 (Souter, J., dissenting) (The
government may not “take advantage of a suspect’s immobility to
search for evidence unrelated to the reason for the
detention.”).[ Footnote 2 ] I
would apply Terry ’s reasonable-relation test, as the
Illinois Supreme Court did, to determine whether the canine sniff
impermissibly expanded the scope of the initially valid seizure of
Caballes.

															   It is hardly dispositive that the dog sniff in
this case may not have lengthened the duration of the stop. Cf. ante , at 2 (“A seizure … can become unlawful if it is
prolonged beyond the time reasonably required to complete [the
initial] mission.”). Terry , it merits repetition,
instructs that any investigation must be “reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the
interference in the first place.” 392 U. S., at 20 (emphasis
added). The unwarranted and nonconsensual expansion of the seizure
here from a routine traffic stop to a drug investigation broadened
the scope of the investigation in a manner that, in my judgment,
runs afoul of the Fourth Amendment.[ Footnote 3 ]

															   The Court rejects the Illinois Supreme Court’s
judgment and, implicitly, the application of Terry to a
traffic stop converted, by calling in a dog, to a drug search. The
Court so rules, holding that a dog sniff does not render a seizure
that is reasonable in time unreasonable in scope. Ante , at
2–3. Dog sniffs that detect only the possession of contraband may
be employed without offense to the Fourth Amendment, the Court
reasons, because they reveal no lawful activity and hence disturb
no legitimate expectation of privacy. Ante , at 3–4.

															   In my view, the Court diminishes the Fourth
Amendment’s force by abandoning the second Terry inquiry
(was the police action “reasonably related in scope to the
circumstances [justifiying] the [initial] interference”). 392 U.
S., at 20. A drug-detection dog is an intimidating animal. Cf. United States v. Williams , 356 F. 3d 1268,
1276 (CA10 2004) (McKay, J., dissenting) (“drug dogs are not lap
dogs”). Injecting such an animal into a routine traffic stop
changes the character of the encounter between the police and the
motorist. The stop becomes broader, more adversarial, and (in at
least some cases) longer. Caballes—who, as far as Troopers Gillette
and Graham knew, was guilty solely of driving six miles per hour
over the speed limit—was exposed to the embarrassment and
intimidation of being investigated, on a public thoroughfare, for
drugs. Even if the drug sniff is not characterized as a Fourth
Amendment “search,” cf. Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32 , 40 (2000); United
States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696 , 707
(1983), the sniff surely broadened the scope of the
traffic-violation-related seizure.

															   The Court has never removed police action from
Fourth Amendment control on the ground that the action is well
calculated to apprehend the guilty. See, e.g., United
States v. Karo, 468 U. S. 705 , 717
(1984) (Fourth Amendment warrant requirement applies to police
monitoring of a beeper in a house even if “the facts [justify]
believing that a crime is being or will be committed and that
monitoring the beeper wherever it goes is likely to produce
evidence of criminal activity.”); see also Minnesota v. Carter, 525
U. S. 83 , 110 (1998) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (“Fourth
Amendment protection, reserved for the innocent only, would have
little force in regulating police behavior toward either the
innocent or the guilty.”). Under today’s decision, every traffic
stop could become an occasion to call in the dogs, to the distress
and embarrassment of the law-abiding population.

															   The Illinois Supreme Court, it seems to me,
correctly apprehended the danger in allowing the police to search
for contraband despite the absence of cause to suspect its
presence. Today’s decision, in contrast, clears the way for
suspicionless, dog-accompanied drug sweeps of parked cars along
sidewalks and in parking lots. Compare, e.g., United
States v. Ludwig , 10 F. 3d 1523, 1526–1527 (CA10
1993) (upholding a search based on a canine drug sniff of a parked
car in a motel parking lot conducted without particular suspicion),
with United States v. Quinn , 815 F. 2d 153,
159 (CA1 1987) (officers must have reasonable suspicion that a car
contains narcotics at the moment a dog sniff is performed), and Place , 462 U. S., at 706–707 (Fourth Amendment not
violated by a dog sniff of a piece of luggage that was seized,
pre-sniff, based on suspicion of drugs). Nor would motorists have
constitutional grounds for complaint should police with dogs,
stationed at long traffic lights, circle cars waiting for the red
signal to turn green.

															   Today’s decision also undermines this Court’s
situation-sensitive balancing of Fourth Amendment interests in
other contexts. For example, in Bond v. United
States, 529 U.
S. 334 , 338–339 (2000), the Court held that a bus passenger had
an expectation of privacy in a bag placed in an overhead bin and
that a police officer’s physical manipulation of the bag
constituted an illegal search. If canine drug sniffs are entirely
exempt from Fourth Amendment inspection, a sniff could substitute
for an officer’s request to a bus passenger for permission to
search his bag, with this significant difference: The passenger
would not have the option to say “No.”

															   The dog sniff in this case, it bears emphasis,
was for drug detection only. A dog sniff for explosives, involving
security interests not presented here, would be an entirely
different matter. Detector dogs are ordinarily trained not as
all-purpose sniffers, but for discrete purposes. For example, they
may be trained for narcotics detection or for explosives detection
or for agricultural products detection. See, e.g., U. S.
Customs & Border Protection, Canine Enforcement Training
Center, Training Program Course Descriptions,
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/border_security/
canines/training_program.xml (all Internet materials as visited
Dec. 16, 2004, and available in the Clerk of Court’s case file)
(describing Customs training courses in narcotics detection);
Transportation Security Administration, Canine and Explosives
Program, http://www.tsa.gov/ public/display? theme=32 (describing
Transportation Security Administration’s explosives detection
canine program); U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service, USDA’s Detector Dogs: Pro- tecting
American Agriculture (Oct. 2001), available at
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/oa/pubs/detdogs.pdf (describing USDA
Beagle Brigade detector dogs trained to detect prohibited fruits,
plants, and meat); see also Jennings, Origins and History of
Security and Detector Dogs, in Canine Sports Medicine and Surgery
16, 18–19 (M. Bloomberg, J. Dee, & R. Taylor eds. 1998)
(describing narcotics detector dogs used by Border Patrol and
Customs, and bomb detector dogs used by the Federal Aviation
Administration and the Secret Service, but noting the possibility
in some circumstances of cross training dogs for multiple tasks);
S. Chapman, Police Dogs in North America 64, 70–79 (1990)
(describing narcotics- and explosives-detection dogs and noting the
possibility of cross training). There is no indication in this case
that the dog accompanying Trooper Graham was trained for anything
other than drug detection. See 207 Ill. 2d, at 507, 802 N. E.
2d, at 203 (“Trooper Graham arrived with his drug-detection dog
… .”); Brief for Petitioner 3 (“Trooper Graham arrived with a
drug-detection dog … .”).

															   This Court has distinguished between the
general interest in crime control and more immediate threats to
public safety. In Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz, 496
U. S. 444 (1990), this Court upheld the use of a sobriety
traffic checkpoint. Balancing the State’s interest in preventing
drunk driving, the extent to which that could be accomplished
through the checkpoint program, and the degree of intrusion the
stops involved, the Court determined that the State’s checkpoint
program was consistent with the Fourth Amendment. Id., at
455. Ten years after Sitz , in Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32 , this Court held that a
drug interdiction checkpoint violated the Fourth Amendment. Despite
the illegal narcotics traffic that the Nation is struggling to
stem, the Court explained, a “general interest in crime control”
did not justify the stops. Id., at 43–44. The Court
distinguished the sobriety checkpoints in Sitz on the
ground that those checkpoints were designed to eliminate an
“immediate, vehicle-bound threat to life and limb.” 531 U. S., at
43.

															   The use of bomb-detection dogs to check
vehicles for explosives without doubt has a closer kinship to the
sobriety checkpoints in Sitz than to the drug checkpoints
in Edmond . As the Court observed in Edmond: “[T]he Fourth Amendment would almost certainly permit an
appropriately tailored roadblock set up to thwart an imminent
terrorist attack … .” 531 U. S., at 44. Even if the Court were
to change course and characterize a dog sniff as an independent
Fourth Amendment search, see ante , p. ___ (Souter, J.,
dissenting), the immediate, present danger of explosives would
likely justify a bomb sniff under the special needs doctrine. See, e.g., ante , at 8, n. 7 (Souter, J.,
dissenting); Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U. S. 868 , 873
(1987) (permitting exceptions to the warrant and probable-cause
requirements for a search when “special needs, beyond the normal
need for law enforcement,” make those requirements impracticable
(quoting New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325 ,
351 (1985) (Blackmun, J., concurring in judgment))).

															***

															   For the reasons stated, I would
hold that the police violated Caballes’ Fourth Amendment rights
when, without cause to suspect wrongdoing, they conducted a dog
sniff of his vehicle. I would therefore affirm the judgment of the
Illinois Supreme Court. Footnote 1 The Illinois Supreme Court held insufficient
to support a canine sniff Gillette’s observations that (1) Caballes
said he was moving to Chicago, but his only visible belongings were
two sport coats in the backseat; (2) the car smelled of air
freshener; (3) Caballes was dressed for business, but was
unemployed; and (4) Caballes seemed nervous. Even viewed together,
the court said, these observations gave rise to “nothing more than
a vague hunch” of “possible wrongdoing.” 207 Ill. 2d 504, 509–510,
802 N. E. 2d 202, 204–205 (2003). This Court proceeds on “the
assumption that the officer conducting the dog sniff had no
information about [Caballes].” Ante , at 2. Footnote 2 The Berkemer Court cautioned that by
analogizing a traffic stop to a Terry stop, it did “not
suggest that a traffic stop supported by probable cause may not
exceed the bounds set by the Fourth Amendment on the scope of a Terry stop.” 468 U. S., at 439, n. 29. This Court,
however, looked to Terry earlier in deciding that an
officer acted reasonably when he ordered a motorist stopped for
driving with expired license tags to exit his car, Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U. S. 106 , 109–110
(1977) (per curiam) , and later reaffirmed the Terry analogy when evaluating a police officer’s authority
to search a vehicle during a routine traffic stop, Knowles , 525 U. S., at 117. Footnote 3 The question whether a police officer
inquiring about drugs without reasonable suspicion
unconstitutionally broadens a traffic investigation is not before
the Court. Cf. Florida v. Bostick, 501 U. S. 429 , 434
(1991) (police questioning of a bus passenger, who might have just
said “No,” did not constitute a seizure).