OPINION OF THE COURT ARIZONA V. GANT 556 U. S. ____ (2009) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 07-542 ARIZONA, PETITIONER v. RODNEY JOSEPH
GANT

															on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
arizona

															[April 21, 2009]

															   Justice Stevens delivered the
opinion of the Court.

															   After Rodney Gant was arrested
for driving with a suspended license, handcuffed, and locked in the
back of a patrol car, police officers searched his car and
discovered cocaine in the pocket of a jacket on the backseat.
Because Gant could not have accessed his car to retrieve weapons or
evidence at the time of the search, the Arizona Supreme Court held
that the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth
Amendment’s warrant requirement, as defined in Chimel v. California , 395 U. S. 752 (1969),
and applied to vehicle searches in New York v. Belton , 453
U. S. 454 (1981), did not justify the search in this case. We
agree with that conclusion.

															   Under Chimel , police may search
incident to arrest only the space within an arrestee’s
“ ‘immediate control,’ ” meaning “the area from within
which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible
evidence.” 395 U. S., at 763. The safety and evidentiary
justifications underlying Chimel ’s reaching-distance rule
determine Belton ’s scope. Accordingly, we hold that Belton does not authorize a vehicle search incident to a
recent occupant’s arrest after the arrestee has been secured and
cannot access the interior of the vehicle. Consistent with the
holding in Thornton v. United States , 541
U. S. 615 (2004), and following the suggestion in Justice
Scalia’s opinion concurring in the judgment in that case, id. , at 632, we also conclude that circumstances unique to
the automobile context justify a search incident to arrest when it
is reasonable to believe that evidence of the offense of arrest
might be found in the vehicle.

															I

															   On August 25, 1999, acting on an
anonymous tip that the residence at 2524 North Walnut Avenue was
being used to sell drugs, Tucson police officers Griffith and Reed
knocked on the front door and asked to speak to the owner. Gant
answered the door and, after identifying himself, stated that he
expected the owner to return later. The officers left the residence
and conducted a records check, which revealed that Gant’s driver’s
license had been suspended and 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.
The officers recognized his car as it entered the driveway, and
Officer Griffith confirmed that Gant was the driver by shining a
flashlight into the car as it drove by him. Gant parked at the end
of the driveway, got out of his car, and shut the door. Griffith,
who was about 30 feet away, called to Gant, and they approached
each other, meeting 10-to-12 feet from Gant’s car. Griffith
immediately arrested Gant and handcuffed him.

															   Because the other arrestees were secured in
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—possession
of a narcotic drug for sale and possession of drug paraphernalia
( i.e. , the plastic bag in which the cocaine was found). He
moved to suppress the evidence seized from his car on the ground
that the warrantless search violated the Fourth Amendment. Among
other things, Gant argued that Belton did not authorize
the search of his vehicle because he posed no threat to the
officers after he was handcuffed in the patrol car and because he
was arrested for a traffic offense for which no evidence could be
found in his vehicle. When asked at the suppression hearing why the
search was conducted, Officer Griffith responded: “Because the law
says we can do it.” App. 75.

															   The trial court rejected the State’s
contention that the officers had probable cause to search Gant’s
car for contraband when the search began, id. , at 18, 30,
but it denied the motion to suppress. Relying on the fact that the
police saw Gant commit the crime of driving without a license and
apprehended him only shortly after he exited his car, the court
held that the search was permissible as a search incident to
arrest. Id. , at 37. 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
court’s opinion discussed at length our decision in Belton , which held that police may search the passenger
compartment of a vehicle and any containers therein as a
contemporaneous incident of an arrest of the vehicle’s recent
occupant. 216 Ariz. 1, 3–4, 162 P. 3d 640, 642–643 (2007)
(citing 453 U. S., at 460). The court distinguished Belton as a case concerning the permissible scope of a vehicle search
incident to arrest and concluded that it did not answer “the
threshold question whether the police may conduct a search incident
to arrest at all once the scene is secure.” 216 Ariz., at 4, 162
P. 3d, at 643. Relying on our earlier decision in Chimel , the court observed that the
search-incident-to-arrest exception to the warrant requirement is
justified by interests in officer safety and evidence preservation.
216 Ariz., at 4, 162 P. 3d, at 643 . When “the
justifications underlying Chimel no longer exist because
the scene is secure and the arrestee is handcuffed, secured in the
back of a patrol car, and under the supervision of an officer,” the
court concluded, a “warrantless search of the arrestee’s car cannot
be justified as necessary to protect the officers at the scene or
prevent the destruction of evidence.” Id., at 5, 162
P. 3d, at 644. Accordingly, the court held that the search of
Gant’s car was unreasonable.

															   The dissenting justices would have upheld the
search of Gant’s car based on their view that “the validity of a Belton search … clearly does not depend on the presence of
the Chimel rationales in a particular case.” Id. ,
at 8, 162 P. 3d, at 647. Although they disagreed with the
majority’s view of Belton, the dissenting justices
acknowledged that “[t]he bright-line rule embraced in Belton has long been criticized and probably merits
reconsideration.” 216 Ariz., at 10, 162 P. 3d, at 649. They
thus “add[ed their] voice[s] to the others that have urged the
Supreme Court to revisit Belton .” Id. , at 11, 163
P. 3d, at 650.

															   The chorus that has called for us to revisit Belton includes courts, scholars, and Members of this
Court who have questioned that decision’s clarity and its fidelity
to Fourth Amendment principles. We therefore granted the State’s
petition for certiorari. 552 U. S. ___ (2008).

															II

															   Consistent with our precedent,
our analysis begins, as it should in every case addressing the
reasonableness of a warrantless search, with the basic rule that
“searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior
approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable
under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few specifically
established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States , 389 U. S. 347 , 357
(1967) (footnote omitted). Among the exceptions to the warrant
requirement is a search incident to a lawful arrest. See Weeks v. United States , 232 U. S. 383 , 392 (1914). The
exception derives from interests in officer safety and evidence
preservation that are typically implicated in arrest situations.
See United States v. Robinson , 414 U. S. 218 , 230–234
(1973); Chimel , 395 U. S., at 763.

															   In Chimel , we held that
a search incident to arrest may only include “the arrestee’s person
and the area ‘within his immediate control’—construing that phrase
to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a
weapon or destructible evidence.” Ibid. That limitation,
which continues to define the boundaries of the exception, ensures
that the scope of a search incident to arrest is commensurate with
its purposes of protecting arresting officers and safeguarding any
evidence of the offense of arrest that an arrestee might conceal or
destroy. See ibid. (noting that searches incident to
arrest are reasonable “ in order to remove any weapons [the
arrestee] might seek to use” and “ in order to prevent [the] concealment or destruction” of evidence (emphasis added)). If
there is no possibility that an arrestee could reach into the area
that law enforcement officers seek to search, both justifications
for the search-incident-to-arrest exception are absent and the rule
does not apply. E.g. , Preston v. United
States , 376 U.
S. 364 , 367–368 (1964).

															   In Belton , we considered Chimel ’s application to the automobile context. A lone
police officer in that case stopped a speeding car in which Belton
was one of four occupants. While asking for the driver’s license
and registration, the officer smelled burnt marijuana and observed
an envelope on the car floor marked “Supergold”—a name he
associated with marijuana. Thus having probable cause to believe
the occupants had committed a drug offense, the officer ordered
them out of the vehicle, placed them under arrest, and patted them
down. Without handcuffing the arrestees,[ Footnote 1 ] the officer “ ‘split them up into four
separate areas of the Thruway … so they would not be in physical
touching area of each other’ ” and searched the vehicle,
including the pocket of a jacket on the backseat, in which he found
cocaine. 453 U. S., at 456.

															   The New York Court of Appeals found the search
unconstitutional, concluding that after the occupants were arrested
the vehicle and its contents were “safely within the exclusive
custody and control of the police.” State v. Belton , 50 N. Y. 2d 447, 452, 407 N. E. 2d 420,
423 (1980). The State asked this Court to consider whether the
exception recognized in Chimel permits an officer to
search “a jacket found inside an automobile while the automobile’s
four occupants, all under arrest, are standing unsecured around the
vehicle.” Brief in No. 80–328, p. i . We granted
certiorari because “courts ha[d] found no workable definition of
‘the area within the immediate control of the arrestee’ when that
area arguably includes the interior of an automobile.” 453 U. S.,
at 460.

															   In its brief, the State argued that the Court
of Appeals erred in concluding that the jacket was under the
officer’s exclusive control. Focusing on the number of arrestees
and their proximity to the vehicle, the State asserted that it was
reasonable for the officer to believe the arrestees could have
accessed the vehicle and its contents, making the search
permissible under Chimel . Brief in No. 80–328,
at 7–8. The United States, as amicus curiae in
support of the State, argued for a more permissive standard, but it
maintained that any search incident to arrest must be
“ ‘substantially contemporaneous’ ” with the arrest—a
requirement it deemed “satisfied if the search occurs during the
period in which the arrest is being consummated and before the
situation has so stabilized that it could be said that the arrest
was completed.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in New York v. Belton , O. T. 1980, No.
80–328, p. 14. There was no suggestion by the parties or amici that Chimel authorizes a vehicle search
incident to arrest when there is no realistic possibility that an
arrestee could access his vehicle.

															   After considering these arguments, we held
that when an officer lawfully arrests “the occupant of an
automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest,
search the passenger compartment of the automobile” and any
containers therein. Belton , 453 U. S., at 460 (footnote
omitted) . That holding was based in large part on our
assumption “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.’ ” Ibid. The Arizona Supreme Court read our decision in Belton as merely delineating “the proper scope of a search
of the interior of an automobile” incident to an arrest, id. , at 459. That is, when the passenger
compartment is within an arrestee’s reaching distance, Belton supplies the generalization that the entire
compartment and any containers therein may be reached. On that view
of Belton , the state court concluded that the search of
Gant’s car was unreasonable because Gant clearly could not have
accessed his car at the time of the search. It also found that no
other exception to the warrant requirement applied in this
case.

															   Gant now urges us to adopt the reading of Belton followed by the Arizona Supreme Court. III Despite the textual and
evidentiary support for the Arizona Supreme Court’s reading of
Belton , our opinion has been widely understood to allow a
vehicle search incident to the arrest of a recent occupant even if
there is no possibility the arrestee could gain access to the
vehicle at the time of the search. This reading may be attributable
to Justice Brennan’s dissent in Belton , in which he
characterized the Court’s holding as resting on the “fiction … that
the interior of a car is always within the immediate
control of an arrestee who has recently been in the car.” 453 U.
S., at 466. Under the majority’s approach, he argued, “the result
would presumably be the same even if [the officer] had handcuffed
Belton and his companions in the patrol car” before conducting the
search. Id. , at 468.

															   Since we decided Belton ,
Courts of Appeals have given different answers to the question
whether a vehicle must be within an arrestee’s reach to justify a
vehicle search incident to arrest,[ Footnote 2 ] but Justice Brennan’s reading of the Court’s
opinion has predominated. As Justice O’Connor observed, “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 .” Thornton , 541 U. S., at 624 (opinion
concurring in part). Justice Scalia has similarly noted that,
although it is improbable that an arrestee could gain access to
weapons stored in his vehicle after he has been handcuffed and
secured in the backseat of a patrol car, cases allowing a search in
“this precise factual scenario … are legion.” Id. , at 628
(opinion concurring in judgment) (collecting cases).[ Footnote 3 ] Indeed, some courts have upheld
searches under Belton “even when … the handcuffed arrestee
has already left the scene.” 541 U. S., at 628 (same).

															   Under this broad reading of Belton , a
vehicle search would be authorized incident to every arrest of a
recent occupant notwithstanding that in most cases the vehicle’s
passenger compartment will not be within the arrestee’s reach at
the time of the search. To read Belton as authorizing a
vehicle search incident to every recent occupant’s arrest would
thus untether the rule from the justifications underlying the Chimel exception—a result clearly incompatible with our
statement in Belton that it “in no way alters the
fundamental principles established in the Chimel case
regarding the basic scope of searches incident to lawful custodial
arrests.” 453 U. S., at 460, n. 3. Accordingly, we reject this
reading of Belton and hold that the Chimel rationale authorizes police to search a vehicle incident to a
recent occupant’s arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured and
within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time
of the search.[ Footnote 4 ]

															   Although it does not follow from Chimel , we also conclude that circumstances unique to the
vehicle context justify a search incident to a lawful arrest when
it is “reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of
arrest might be found in the vehicle.” Thornton , 541 U.
S., at 632 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). In many cases, as
when a recent occupant is arrested for a traffic violation, there
will be no reasonable basis to believe the vehicle contains
relevant evidence. See, e.g. , Atwater v. Lago
Vista , 532 U.
S. 318 , 324 (2001); Knowles v. Iowa , 525 U. S. 113 , 118
(1998). But in others, including Belton and Thornton , the offense of arrest will supply a basis for
searching the passenger compartment of an arrestee’s vehicle and
any containers therein.

															   Neither the possibility of access nor the
likelihood of discovering offense-related evidence authorized the
search in this case. Unlike in Belton , which involved a
single officer confronted with four unsecured arrestees, the five
officers in this case outnumbered the three arrestees, all of whom
had been handcuffed and secured in separate patrol cars before the
officers searched Gant’s car. Under those circumstances, Gant
clearly was not within reaching distance of his car at the time of
the search. An evidentiary basis for the search was also lacking in
this case. Whereas Belton and Thornton were arrested for drug
offenses, Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended license—an
offense for which police could not expect to find evidence in the
passenger compartment of Gant’s car. Cf. Knowles , 525 U.
S., at 118. Because police could not reasonably have believed
either that Gant could have accessed his car at the time of the
search or that evidence of the offense for which he was arrested
might have been found therein, the search in this case was
unreasonable.

															IV

															   The State does not seriously
disagree with the Arizona Supreme Court’s conclusion that Gant
could not have accessed his vehicle at the time of the search, but
it nevertheless asks us to uphold the search of his vehicle under
the broad reading of Belton discussed above. The State
argues that Belton searches are reasonable regardless of
the possibility of access in a given case because that expansive
rule correctly balances law enforcement interests, including the
interest in a bright-line rule, with an arrestee’s limited privacy
interest in his vehicle.

															   For several reasons, we reject
the State’s argument. First, the State seriously undervalues the
privacy interests at stake. Although we have recognized that a
motorist’s privacy interest in his vehicle is less substantial than
in his home, see New York v. Class , 475 U. S. 106 , 112–113
(1986), the former interest is nevertheless important and deserving
of constitutional protection, see Knowles , 525 U. S., at
117. It is particularly significant that Belton searches
authorize police officers to search not just the passenger
compartment but every purse, briefcase, or other container within
that space. A rule that gives police the power to conduct such a
search whenever an individual is caught committing a traffic
offense, when there is no basis for believing evidence of the
offense might be found in the vehicle, creates a serious and
recurring threat to the privacy of countless individuals. Indeed,
the character of that threat implicates the central concern
underlying the Fourth Amendment—the concern about giving police
officers unbridled discretion to rummage at will among a person’s
private effects.[ Footnote
5 ]

															   At the same time as it undervalues these
privacy concerns, the State exaggerates the clarity that its
reading of Belton provides. Courts that have read Belton expansively are at odds regarding how close in time
to the arrest and how proximate to the arrestee’s vehicle an
officer’s first contact with the arrestee must be to bring the
encounter within Belton ’s purview[ Footnote 6 ] and whether a search is reasonable when it
commences or continues after the arrestee has been removed from the
scene.[ Footnote 7 ] The rule has
thus generated a great deal of uncertainty, particularly for a rule
touted as providing a “bright line.” See 3 LaFave, §7.1(c), at
514–524.

															   Contrary to the State’s suggestion, a broad
reading of Belton is also unnecessary to protect law
enforcement safety and evidentiary interests. Under our view, Belton and Thornton permit an officer to conduct
a vehicle search when an arrestee is within reaching distance of
the vehicle or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains
evidence of the offense of arrest. Other established exceptions to
the warrant requirement authorize a vehicle search under additional
circumstances when safety or evidentiary concerns demand. For
instance, Michigan v. Long , 463 U. S. 1032 (1983),
permits an officer to search a vehicle’s passenger compartment when
he has reasonable suspicion that an individual, whether or not the
arrestee, is “dangerous” and might access the vehicle to “gain
immediate control of weapons.” Id. , at 1049 (citing Terry v. Ohio , 392 U. S. 1 , 21 (1968)).
If there is probable cause to believe a vehicle contains evidence
of criminal activity, United States v. Ross , 456 U. S. 798 ,
820–821 (1982), authorizes a search of any area of the vehicle in
which the evidence might be found. Unlike the searches permitted by
Justice Scalia’s opinion concurring in the judgment in Thornton , which we conclude today are reasonable for
purposes of the Fourth Amendment, Ross allows searches for
evidence relevant to offenses other than the offense of arrest, and
the scope of the search authorized is broader. Finally, there may
be still other circumstances in which safety or evidentiary
interests would justify a search. Cf. Maryland v. Buie , 494
U. S. 325 , 334 (1990) (holding that, incident to arrest, an
officer may conduct a limited protective sweep of those areas of a
house in which he reasonably suspects a dangerous person may be
hiding).

															   These exceptions together ensure that officers
may search a vehicle when genuine safety or evidentiary concerns
encountered during the arrest of a vehicle’s recent occupant
justify a search. Construing Belton broadly to allow
vehicle searches incident to any arrest would serve no purpose
except to provide a police entitlement, and it is anathema to the
Fourth Amendment to permit a warrantless search on that basis. For
these reasons, we are unpersuaded by the State’s arguments that a
broad reading of Belton would meaningfully further law
enforcement interests and justify a substantial intrusion on
individuals’ privacy.[ Footnote
8 ]

															V

															   Our dissenting colleagues argue
that the doctrine of stare decisis requires adherence to a
broad reading of Belton even though the justifications for
searching a vehicle incident to arrest are in most cases
absent.[ Footnote 9 ] The
doctrine of stare decisis is of course “essential to the
respect accorded to the judgments of the Court and to the stability
of the law,” but it does not compel us to follow a past decision
when its rationale no longer withstands “careful analysis.” Lawrence v. Texas , 539 U. S. 558 , 577
(2003).

															   We have never relied on stare
decisis to justify the continuance of an unconstitutional
police practice. And we would be particularly loath to uphold an
unconstitutional result in a case that is so easily distinguished
from the decisions that arguably compel it. The safety and
evidentiary interests that supported the search in Belton simply are not present in this case. Indeed, it is hard to imagine
two cases that are factually more distinct, as Belton involved one officer confronted by four unsecured arrestees
suspected of committing a drug offense and this case involves
several officers confronted with a securely detained arrestee
apprehended for driving with a suspended license. This case is also
distinguishable from Thornton , in which the petitioner was
arrested for a drug offense. It is thus unsurprising that Members
of this Court who concurred in the judgments in Belton and Thornton also concur in the decision in this
case.[ Footnote 10 ]

															   We do not agree with the contention in Justice
Alito’s dissent (hereinafter dissent) that consideration of police
reliance interests requires a different result. Although it appears
that the State’s reading of Belton has been widely taught
in police academies and that law enforcement officers have relied
on the rule in conducting vehicle searches during the past 28
years,[ Footnote 11 ] many of
these searches were not justified by the reasons underlying the Chimel exception. Countless individuals guilty of nothing
more serious than a traffic violation have had their constitutional
right to the security of their private effects violated as a
result. The fact that the law enforcement community may view the
State’s version of the Belton rule as an entitlement does
not establish the sort of reliance interest that could outweigh the
countervailing interest that all individuals share in having their
constitutional rights fully protected. If it is clear that a
practice is unlawful, individuals’ interest in its discontinuance
clearly outweighs any law enforcement “entitlement” to its
persistence. Cf. Mincey v. Arizona , 437 U. S. 385 , 393
(1978) (“[T]he mere fact that law enforcement may be made more
efficient can never by itself justify disregard of the Fourth
Amendment”). The dissent’s reference in this regard to the reliance
interests cited in Dickerson v. United States , 530 U. S. 428 (2000), is misplaced. See post , at 5. In observing that
“ Miranda has become embedded in routine police practice to
the point where the warnings have become part of our national
culture,” 530 U. S., at 443, the Court was referring not to police
reliance on a rule requiring them to provide warnings but to the
broader societal reliance on that individual right.

															   The dissent also ignores the checkered history
of the search-incident-to-arrest exception. Police authority to
search the place in which a lawful arrest is made was broadly
asserted in Marron v. United States , 275 U. S. 192 (1927),
and limited a few years later in Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States , 282 U. S. 344 (1931),
and United States v. Lefkowitz , 285 U. S. 452 (1932).
The limiting views expressed in Go-Bart and Lefokwitz were in turn abandoned in Harris v. United States , 331 U. S. 145 (1947),
which upheld a search of a four-room apartment incident to the
occupant’s arrest. Only a year later the Court in Trupiano v. United States , 334 U. S. 699 , 708
(1948), retreated from that holding, noting that the
search-incident-to-arrest exception is “a strictly limited” one
that must be justified by “something more in the way of necessity
than merely a lawful arrest.” And just two years after that, in United States v. Rabinowitz , 339 U. S. 56 (1950), the
Court again reversed course and upheld the search of an entire
apartment. Finally, our opinion in Chimel overruled Rabinowitz and what remained of Harris and
established the present boundaries of the search-incident-to-arrest
exception. Notably, none of the dissenters in Chimel or
the cases that preceded it argued that law enforcement reliance
interests outweighed the interest in protecting individual
constitutional rights so as to warrant fidelity to an unjustifiable
rule.

															   The experience of the 28 years since we
decided Belton has shown that the generalization
underpinning the broad reading of that decision is unfounded. We
now know that articles inside the passenger compartment are rarely
“within ‘the area into which an arrestee might reach,’ ” 453
U. S., at 460, and blind adherence to Belton ’s faulty
assumption would authorize myriad unconstitutional searches. The
doctrine of stare decisis does not require us to approve
routine constitutional violations.

															VI

															   Police may search a vehicle
incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only if the arrestee is
within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time
of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains
evidence of the offense of arrest. When these justifications are
absent, a search of an arrestee’s vehicle will be unreasonable
unless police obtain a warrant or show that another exception to
the warrant requirement applies. The Arizona Supreme Court
correctly held that this case involved an unreasonable search.
Accordingly, the judgment of the State Supreme Court is
affirmed.

															It is so ordered. Footnote 1 The officer was unable to handcuff the
occupants because he had only one set of handcuffs. See Brief for
Petitioner in New York v. Belton , O. T. 1980, No.
80–328, p. 3 (hereinafter Brief in No. 80–328). Footnote 2 Compare United States v. Green , 324 F. 3d 375, 379 (CA5 2003) (holding that Belton did not authorize a search of an arrestee’s vehicle
when he was handcuffed and lying facedown on the ground surrounded
by four police officers 6-to-10 feet from the vehicle), United
States v. Edwards , 242 F. 3d 928, 938 (CA10
2001) (finding unauthorized a vehicle search conducted while the
arrestee was handcuffed in the back of a patrol car), United
States v. Vasey , 834 F. 2d 782, 787 (CA9 1987)
(finding unauthorized a vehicle search conducted 30-to-45 minutes
after an arrest and after the arrestee had been handcuffed and
secured in the back of a police car), with United States v. Hrasky , 453 F. 3d 1099, 1102 (CA8 2006) (upholding
a search conducted an hour after the arrestee was apprehended and
after he had been handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol
car); United States v. Weaver , 433 F. 3d
1104, 1106 (CA9 2006) (upholding a search conducted 10-to-15
minutes after an arrest and after the arrestee had been handcuffed
and secured in the back of a patrol car), and United
States v. White , 871 F. 2d 41, 44 (CA6 1989)
(upholding a search conducted after the arrestee had been
handcuffed and secured in the back of a police cruiser). Footnote 3 The practice of searching vehicles incident
to arrest after the arrestee has been handcuffed and secured in a
patrol car has not abated since we decided Thornton . See, e.g. , United States v. Murphy , 221 Fed.
Appx. 715, 717 (CA10 2007); Hrasky , 453 F. 3d, at
1100; Weaver , 433 F. 3d, at 1105; United
States v. Williams , 170 Fed. Appx. 399, 401 (CA6
2006); United States v. Dorsey , 418 F. 3d
1038, 1041 (CA9 2005); United States v. Osife ,
398 F. 3d 1143, 1144 (CA9 2005); United States v. Sumrall , 115 Fed. Appx. 22, 24 (CA10 2004). Footnote 4 Because officers have many means of ensuring
the safe arrest of vehicle occupants, it will be the rare case in
which an officer is unable to fully effectuate an arrest so that a
real possibility of access to the arrestee’s vehicle remains. Cf. 3
W. LaFave, Search and Seizure §7.1(c), p. 525 (4th ed. 2004)
(hereinafter LaFave) (noting that the availability of protective
measures “ensur[es] the nonexistence of circumstances in which the
arrestee’s ‘control’ of the car is in doubt”). But in such a case a
search incident to arrest is reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment. Footnote 5 See Maryland v. Garrison , 480 U. S. 79 , 84
(1987); Chimel , 395 U. S., at 760–761; Stanford v. Texas , 379 U. S. 476 , 480–484
(1965); Weeks v. United States , 232 U. S. 383 , 389–392 (1914); Boyd v. United States , 116 U. S. 616 , 624–625
(1886); see also 10 C. Adams, The Works of John Adams 247–248
(1856). Many have observed that a broad reading of Belton gives police limitless discretion to conduct exploratory searches.
See 3 LaFave §7.1(c), at 527 (observing that Belton creates the risk “that police will make custodial arrests which
they otherwise would not make as a cover for a search which the
Fourth Amendment otherwise prohibits”); see also United
States v. McLaughlin , 170 F. 3d 889, 894 (CA9
1999) (Trott, J., concurring) (observing that Belton has
been applied to condone “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”); State v. Pallone , 2001 WI 77,
¶¶87–90, 236 Wis. 2d 162, 203–204, and n. 9, 613
N. W. 2d 568, 588, and n. 9 (2000) (Abrahamson,
C. J., dissenting) (same); State v. Pierce ,
136 N. J. 184, 211, 642 A. 2d 947, 961 (1994) (same). Footnote 6 Compare United States v. Caseres , 533 F. 3d 1064, 1072 (CA9 2008) (declining to
apply Belton when the arrestee was approached by police
after he had exited his vehicle and reached his residence), with Rainey v. Commonwealth , 197 S. W. 3d 89, 94–95
(Ky. 2006) (applying Belton when the arrestee was
apprehended 50 feet from the vehicle), and Black v. State , 810 N. E. 2d 713, 716 (Ind. 2004) (applying Belton when the arrestee was apprehended inside an auto
repair shop and the vehicle was parked outside). Footnote 7 Compare McLaughlin , 170 F. 3d,
at 890–891 (upholding a search that commenced five minutes after
the arrestee was removed from the scene), United States v. Snook , 88 F. 3d 605, 608 (CA8 1996) (same), and United States v. Doward , 41 F. 3d 789, 793
(CA1 1994) (upholding a search that continued after the arrestee
was removed from the scene), with United States v. Lugo , 978 F. 2d 631, 634 (CA10 1992) (holding invalid
a search that commenced after the arrestee was removed from the
scene), and State v. Badgett , 200 Conn. 412,
427–428, 512 A. 2d 160, 169 (1986) (holding invalid a search
that continued after the arrestee was removed from the scene). Footnote 8 At least eight States have reached the same
conclusion. Vermont, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania,
New York, Oregon, and Wyoming have declined to follow a broad
reading of Belton under their state constitutions. See State v. Bauder , 181 Vt. 392, 401, 924 A. 2d
38, 46–47 (2007); State v. Eckel, 185 N. J.
523, 540, 888 A. 2d 1266, 1277 (2006); Camacho v. State , 119 Nev. 395, 399–400, 75 P. 3d 370, 373–374
(2003); Vasquez v. State , 990 P. 2d 476,
488–489 (Wyo. 1999); State v. Arredondo ,
1997–NMCA–081, 123 N. M. 628, 636 (Ct. App.), overruled on
other grounds by State v. Steinzig ,
1999–NMCA–107, 127 N. M. 752 (Ct. App.); Commonwealth v. White , 543 Pa. 45, 57, 669 A. 2d 896, 902 (1995); People v. Blasich , 73 N. Y. 2d 673, 678, 541
N. E. 2d 40, 43 (1989); State v. Fesler , 68
Ore. App. 609, 612, 685 P. 2d 1014, 1016–1017 (1984). And a
Massachusetts statute provides that a search incident to arrest may
be made only for the purposes of seizing weapons or evidence of the
offense of arrest. See Commonwealth v. Toole , 389
Mass. 159, 161–162, 448 N. E. 2d 1264, 1266–1267 (1983)
(citing Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 276, §1 (West 2007)). Footnote 9 Justice Alito’s dissenting opinion also
accuses us of “overrul[ing]” Belton and Thornton v. United States , 541
U. S. 615 (2004), “even though respondent Gant has not asked us
to do so.” Post , at 1. Contrary to that claim, the narrow
reading of Belton we adopt today is precisely the result
Gant has urged. That Justice Alito has chosen to describe this
decision as overruling our earlier cases does not change the fact
that the resulting rule of law is the one advocated by
respondent. Footnote 10 Justice Stevens concurred in the judgment in Belton , 453 U. S., at 463, for the reasons stated in his
dissenting opinion in Robbins v. California , 453 U. S. 420 ,
444 (1981), Justice Thomas joined the Court’s opinion in Thornton , 541
U. S. 615 , and Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg concurred in
the judgment in that case, id. , at 625. Footnote 11 Because a broad reading of Belton has been widely accepted, the doctrine of qualified immunity will
shield officers from liability for searches conducted in reasonable
reliance on that understanding. 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 556 U. S. ____ (2009) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 07-542 ARIZONA, PETITIONER v. RODNEY JOSEPH
GANT

															on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
arizona

															[April 21, 2009]

															   Justice Scalia, concurring.

															   To determine what is an
“unreasonable” search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment,
we look first to the historical practices the Framers sought to
preserve; if those provide inadequate guidance, we apply
traditional standards of reasonableness. See Virginia v. Moore , 553 U. S. ___, ___ (2008) (slip op., at 3–6). Since
the historical scope of officers’ authority to search vehicles
incident to arrest is uncertain, see Thornton v. United States , 541 U. S. 615 , 629–631
(2004) (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment), traditional standards
of reasonableness govern. It is abundantly clear that those
standards do not justify what I take to be the rule set forth in New York v. Belton , 453 U. S. 454 (1981),
and Thornton: that arresting officers may always search an
arrestee’s vehicle in order to protect themselves from hidden
weapons. When an arrest is made in connection with a roadside stop,
police virtually always have a less intrusive and more effective
means of ensuring their safety—and a means that is virtually always
employed: ordering the arrestee away from the vehicle, patting him
down in the open, handcuffing him, and placing him in the squad
car.

															   Law enforcement officers face a risk of being
shot whenever they pull a car over. But that risk is at its height
at the time of the initial confrontation; and it is not at
all reduced by allowing a search of the stopped vehicle after
the driver has been arrested and placed in the squad car. I
observed in Thornton that the government had failed to
provide a single instance in which a formerly restrained arrestee
escaped to retrieve a weapon from his own vehicle, 541 U. S., at
626; Arizona and its amici have not remedied that
significant deficiency in the present case.

															   It must be borne in mind that we are speaking
here only of a rule automatically permitting a search when the
driver or an occupant is arrested. Where no arrest is made, we have
held that officers may search the car if they reasonably believe
“the suspect is dangerous and … may gain immediate control of
weapons.” Michigan v. Long , 463 U. S. 1032 , 1049
(1983). In the no-arrest case, the possibility of access to weapons
in the vehicle always exists, since the driver or passenger will be
allowed to return to the vehicle when the interrogation is
completed. The rule of Michigan v. Long is not at
issue here.

															   Justice Stevens acknowledges that an
officer-safety rationale cannot justify all vehicle searches
incident to arrest, but asserts that that is not the rule Belton and Thornton adopted. (As described above,
I read those cases differently). Justice Stevens would therefore
retain the application of Chimel v. California , 395 U. S. 752 (1969), in the car-search context but would apply in the future
what he believes our cases held in the past: that officers making a
roadside stop may search the vehicle so long as the “arrestee is
within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time
of the search.” Ante , at 18. I believe that this standard
fails to provide the needed guidance to arresting officers and also
leaves much room for manipulation, inviting officers to leave the
scene unsecured (at least where dangerous suspects are not
involved) in order to conduct a vehicle search. In my view we
should simply abandon the Belton-Thornton charade of
officer safety and overrule those cases. I would hold that a
vehicle search incident to arrest is ipso facto “reasonable” only when the object of the search is evidence of the
crime for which the arrest was made, or of another crime that the
officer has probable cause to believe occurred. Because respondent
was arrested for driving without a license (a crime for which no
evidence could be expected to be found in the vehicle), I would
hold in the present case that the search was unlawful.

															   Justice Alito insists that the Court must
demand a good reason for abandoning prior precedent. That is true
enough, but it seems to me ample reason that the precedent was
badly reasoned and produces erroneous (in this case
unconstitutional) results. See Payne v. Tennessee , 501 U. S. 808 , 827
(1991). We should recognize Belton ’s fanciful reliance
upon officer safety for what it was: “a return to the broader sort
of [evidence-gathering] search incident to arrest that we allowed
before Chimel .” Thornton, supra, at 631 (Scalia,
J., concurring in judgment; citations omitted).

															   Justice Alito argues that there is no reason
to adopt a rule limiting automobile-arrest searches to those cases
where the search’s object is evidence of the crime of arrest. Post, at 10 (dissenting opinion). I disagree. This
formulation of officers’ authority both preserves the outcomes of
our prior cases and tethers the scope and rationale of the doctrine
to the triggering event. Belton , by contrast, allowed
searches precisely when its exigency-based rationale was least
applicable: The fact of the arrest in the automobile context makes
searches on exigency grounds less reasonable, not more. I
also disagree with Justice Alito’s conclusory assertion that this
standard will be difficult to administer in practice, post , at 7; the ease of its application in this case would
suggest otherwise.

															   No other Justice, however, shares my view that
application of Chimel in this context should be entirely
abandoned. It seems to me unacceptable for the Court to come forth
with a 4-to-1-to-4 opinion that leaves the governing rule
uncertain. I am therefore confronted with the choice of either
leaving the current understanding of Belton and Thornton in effect, or acceding to what seems to me the
artificial narrowing of those cases adopted by Justice Stevens. The
latter, as I have said, does not provide the degree of certainty I
think desirable in this field; but the former opens the field to
what I think are plainly unconstitutional searches—which is the
greater evil. I therefore join the opinion of the Court. 556 U. S. ____ (2009) ARIZONA V. GANT 556 U. S. ____ (2009) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 07-542 ARIZONA, PETITIONER v. RODNEY JOSEPH
GANT

															on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
arizona

															[April 21, 2009]

															   Justice Breyer, dissenting.

															   I agree with Justice Alito that New York v. Belton , 453 U. S. 454 (1981), is
best read as setting forth a bright-line rule that permits a
warrantless search of the passenger compartment of an automobile
incident to the lawful arrest of an occupant—regardless of the
danger the arrested individual in fact poses. I also agree with
Justice Stevens, however, that the rule can produce results
divorced from its underlying Fourth Amendment rationale. Compare Belton , supra , with Chimel v. California , 395 U. S. 752 , 764
(1969) (explaining that the rule allowing contemporaneous searches
is justified by the need to prevent harm to a police officer or
destruction of evidence of the crime). For that reason I would look
for a better rule—were the question before us one of first
impression.

															   The matter, however, is not one of first
impression, and that fact makes a substantial difference. The Belton rule has been followed not only by this Court in Thornton v. United States , 541 U. S. 615 (2004),
but also by numerous other courts. Principles of stare
decisis must apply, and those who wish this Court to change a
well-established legal precedent—where, as here, there has been
considerable reliance on the legal rule in question—bear a heavy
burden. Cf. Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc. , 551 U. S. 877 , ___
(2007) (slip op., at 17–19) (Breyer, J., dissenting). I have not
found that burden met. Nor do I believe that the other
considerations ordinarily relevant when determining whether to
overrule a case are satisfied. I consequently join Justice Alito’s
dissenting opinion with the exception of Part II-E. ALITO, J., DISSENTING ARIZONA V. GANT 556 U. S. ____ (2009) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES NO. 07-542 ARIZONA, PETITIONER v. RODNEY JOSEPH
GANT

															on writ of certiorari to the supreme court of
arizona

															[April 21, 2009]

															   Justice Alito, with whom The
Chief Justice and Justice Kennedy join, and with whom Justice
Breyer joins except as to Part II – E, dissenting.

															   Twenty-eight years ago, in New York v. Belton , 453 U. S. 454 , 460
(1981), this Court 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.” (Footnote omitted.) Five years
ago, in Thornton v. United States , 541 U. S. 615 (2004)—a
case involving a situation not materially distinguishable from the
situation here—the Court not only reaffirmed but extended the
holding of Belton, making it applicable to recent
occupants. Today’s decision effectively overrules those important
decisions, even though respondent Gant has not asked us to do
so.

															   To take the place of the overruled precedents,
the Court adopts a new two-part rule under which a police officer
who arrests a vehicle occupant or recent occupant may search the
passenger compartment if (1) the arrestee is within reaching
distance of the vehicle at the time of the search or (2) the
officer has reason to believe that the vehicle contains evidence of
the offense of arrest. Ante , at 18. The first part of this
new rule may endanger arresting officers and is truly endorsed by
only four Justices; Justice Scalia joins solely for the purpose of
avoiding a “4-to-1-to 4 opinion.” Ante, at 4 (concurring
opinion). The second part of the new rule is taken from Justice
Scalia’s separate opinion in Thornton without any
independent explanation of its origin or justification and is
virtually certain to confuse law enforcement officers and judges
for some time to come. The Court’s decision will cause the
suppression of evidence gathered in many searches carried out in
good-faith reliance on well-settled case law, and although the
Court purports to base its analysis on the landmark decision in Chimel v. California , 395 U. S. 752 (1969),
the Court’s reasoning undermines Chimel . I would follow Belton , and I therefore respectfully dissent.

															I

															   Although the Court refuses to
acknowledge that it is overruling Belton and Thornton , there can be no doubt that it does so.

															   In Belton , an officer on
the New York Thruway removed the occupants from a car and placed
them under arrest but did not handcuff them. See 453 U. S., at 456;
Brief for Petitioner in New York v. Belton ,
O. T. 1980, No. 80–328, p. 3. The officer then searched a
jacket on the car’s back seat and found drugs. 453 U. S., at 455.
By a divided vote, the New York Court of Appeals held that the
search of the jacket violated Chimel , in which this Court
held that an arresting officer may search the area within an
arrestee’s immediate control. See State v. Belton , 50 N. Y. 2d 447, 407 N. E. 2d 420
(1980). The justices of the New York Court of Appeals disagreed on
the factual question whether the Belton arrestees could
have gained access to the car. The majority thought that they could
not have done so, id. , at 452, n. 2, 407 N. E.
2d, at 423, n. 2, but the dissent thought that this was a real
possibility. Id. , at 453, 407 N. E. 2d, at 424
(opinion of Gabrielli, J.).

															   Viewing this disagreement about the
application of the Chimel rule as illustrative of a
persistent and important problem, the Belton Court
concluded that “ ‘[a] single familiar standard’ ” was
“ ‘essential to guide police officers’ ” who make
roadside arrests. 453 U. S., at 458 (quoting Dunaway v. New York , 442 U. S. 200 , 213–214
(1979)). The Court acknowledged that articles in the passenger
compartment of a car are not always within an arrestee’s reach, but
“[i]n order to establish the workable rule this category of cases
requires,” the Court adopted a rule that categorically permits the
search of a car’s passenger compartment incident to the lawful
arrest of an occupant. 453 U. S., at 460.

															   The precise holding in Belton could
not be clearer. The Court stated unequivocally: “[W]e hold 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. (footnote omitted).

															   Despite this explicit statement, the opinion
of the Court in the present case curiously suggests that Belton may reasonably be read as adopting a holding that
is narrower than the one explicitly set out in the Belton opinion, namely, that an officer arresting a vehicle occupant may
search the passenger compartment “when the passenger
compartment is within an arrestee’s reaching distance.” Ante , at 7–8 (emphasis in original). According to the
Court, the broader reading of Belton that has gained wide
acceptance “may be attributable to Justice Brennan’s dissent.” Ante , at 8.

															   Contrary to the Court’s suggestion, however,
Justice Brennan’s Belton dissent did not mischaracterize
the Court’s holding in that case or cause that holding to be
misinterpreted. As noted, the Belton Court explicitly
stated precisely what it held. In Thornton , the Court
recognized the scope of Belton ’s holding. See 541 U. S.,
at 620. So did Justice Scalia’s separate opinion. See id. ,
at 625 (opinion concurring in judgment) (“In [Belton] we
set forth a bright-line rule for arrests of automobile occupants,
holding that … a search of the whole [passenger] compartment is
justified in every case”). So does Justice Scalia’s opinion in the
present case. See ante , at 1 ( Belton and Thornton held that “arresting officers may always search
an arrestee’s vehicle in order to protect themselves from hidden
weapons”). This “bright-line rule” has now been interred.

															II

															   Because the Court has
substantially overruled Belton and Thornton, the
Court must explain why its departure from the usual rule of stare decisis is justified. I recognize that stare decisis
is not an “inexorable command,” Payne v. Tennessee , 501 U. S. 808 , 828
(1991), and applies less rigidly in constitutional cases, Glidden Co. v. Zdanok , 370 U. S. 530 , 543
(1962) (plurality opinion). But the Court has said that a
constitutional precedent should be followed unless there is a
“ ‘special justification’ ” for its abandonment. Dickerson v. United States , 530 U. S. 428 , 443
(2000). Relevant factors identified in prior cases include whether
the precedent has engendered reliance, id ., at 442,
whether there has been an important change in circumstances in the
outside world, Randall v. Sorrell , 548 U. S. 230 , 244
(2006) (plurality opinion); Burnet v. Coronado Oil
& Gas Co. , 285 U. S. 393 , 412
(1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting), whether the precedent has proved
to be unworkable, Vieth v. Jubelirer , 541 U. S. 267 , 306
(2004) (plurality opinion) (citing Payne , supra ,
at 827), whether the precedent has been undermined by later
decisions, see, e.g. , Patterson v. McLean
Credit Union , 491 U. S. 164 , 173–174
(1989), and whether the decision was badly reasoned. Vieth , supra , at 306 (plurality opinion). These
factors weigh in favor of retaining the rule established in Belton .

															A Reliance . While reliance
is most important in “cases involving property and contract
rights,” Payne , supra , at 828, the Court has
recognized that reliance by law enforcement officers is also
entitled to weight. In Dickerson , the Court held that
principles of stare decisis “weigh[ed]” heavily against
overruling Miranda v . Arizona , 384 U. S. 436 (1966),
because the Miranda rule had become “embedded in routine
police practice.” 530 U. S., at 443.

															   If there was reliance in Dickerson , there certainly is substantial reliance here.
The Belton rule has been taught to police officers for
more than a quarter century. Many searches—almost certainly
including more than a few that figure in cases now on appeal—were
conducted in scrupulous reliance on that precedent. It is likely
that, on the very day when this opinion is announced, numerous
vehicle searches will be conducted in good faith by police officers
who were taught the Belton rule.

															   The opinion of the Court recognizes that
“ Belton has been widely taught in police academies and
that law enforcement officers have relied on the rule in conducting
vehicle searches during the past 28 years.” Ante , at 16.
But for the Court, this seemingly counts for nothing. The Court
states that “[w]e have never relied on stare decisis to
justify the continuance of an unconstitutional police practice,” ante, at 15, but of course the Court routinely relies on
decisions sustaining the constitutionality of police practices
without doing what the Court has done here— sua sponte considering whether those decisions should be overruled. And the
Court cites no authority for the proposition that stare
decisis may be disregarded or provides only lesser protection
when the precedent that is challenged is one that sustained the
constitutionality of a law enforcement practice.

															   The Court also errs in arguing that the
reliance interest that was given heavy weight in Dickerson was not “police reliance on a rule requiring them to provide
warnings but to the broader societal reliance on that individual
right.” Ante , at 17. The Dickerson opinion makes
no reference to “societal reliance,” and petitioner in that case
contended that there had been reliance on Miranda because,
among other things, “[f]or nearly thirty-five years, Miranda ’s requirements ha[d] shaped law enforcement
training [and] police conduct.” See Brief for Petitioner in Dickerson v. United States , O. T. 1999, No.
99–5525, p. 33.

															B Changed circumstances.
A bandonment of the Belton rule cannot be justified on
the ground that the dangers surrounding the arrest of a vehicle
occupant are different today than they were 28 years ago. The Court
claims that “[w]e now know that articles inside the passenger
compartment are rarely ‘within “the area into which an arrestee
might reach,” ’ ” ante , at 17–18, but surely it
was well known in 1981 that a person who is taken from a vehicle,
handcuffed, and placed in the back of a patrol car is unlikely to
make it back into his own car to retrieve a weapon or destroy
evidence.

															C Workability . The Belton rule has not proved to be unworkable. On the
contrary, the rule was adopted for the express purpose of providing
a test that would be relatively easy for police officers and judges
to apply. The Court correctly notes that even the Belton rule is not perfectly clear in all situations. Specifically, it is
sometimes debatable whether a search is or is not contemporaneous
with an arrest, ante , at 6–7, but that problem is small in
comparison with the problems that the Court’s new two-part rule
will produce.

															   The first part of the Court’s new
rule—which permits the search of a vehicle’s passenger compartment
if it is within an arrestee’s reach at the time of the
search—reintroduces the same sort of case-by-case, fact-specific
decisionmaking that the Belton rule was adopted to avoid.
As the situation in Belton illustrated, there are cases in
which it is unclear whether an arrestee could retrieve a weapon or
evidence in the passenger compartment of a car.

															   Even more serious problems will also result
from the second part of the Court’s new rule, which requires
officers making roadside arrests to determine whether there is
reason to believe that the vehicle contains evidence of the crime
of arrest. What this rule permits in a variety of situations is
entirely unclear.

															D Consistency with later
cases . The Belton bright-line rule has not been
undermined by subsequent cases. On the contrary, that rule was
reaffirmed and extended just five years ago in Thornton. E Bad reasoning . The Court
is harshly critical of Belton ’s reasoning, but the problem
that the Court perceives cannot be remedied simply by overruling Belton. Belton represented only a modest—and quite
defensible—extension of Chimel , as I understand that
decision.

															   Prior to Chimel , the
Court’s precedents permitted an arresting officer to search the
area within an arrestee’s “possession” and “control” for the
purpose of gathering evidence. See 395 U. S., at 759–760. Based on
this “abstract doctrine,” id ., at 760, n. 4 , the Court had sustained searches that extended far beyond an
arrestee’s grabbing area. See United States v. Rabinowitz , 339 U. S. 56 (1950)
(search of entire office); Harris v. United
States , 331 U.
S. 145 (1947) (search of entire apartment).

															   The Chimel Court, in an opinion
written by Justice Stewart, overruled these cases. Concluding that
there are only two justifications for a warrantless search incident
to arrest—officer safety and the preservation of evidence—the Court
stated that such a search must be confined to “the arrestee’s
person” and “the area from within which he might gain possession of
a weapon or destructible evidence.” 395 U. S., at 762–763.

															   Unfortunately, Chimel did not say
whether “the area from within which [an arrestee] might gain
possession of a weapon or destructible evidence” is to be measured
at the time of the arrest or at the time of the search, but unless
the Chimel rule was meant to be a specialty rule,
applicable to only a few unusual cases, the Court must have
intended for this area to be measured at the time of arrest.

															   This is so because the Court can hardly have
failed to appreciate the following two facts. First, in the great
majority of cases, an officer making an arrest is able to handcuff
the arrestee and remove him to a secure place before conducting a
search incident to the arrest. See ante, at 10, n. 4
(stating that it is “the rare case” in which an arresting officer
cannot secure an arrestee before conducting a search). Second,
because it is safer for an arresting officer to secure an arrestee
before searching, it is likely that this is what arresting officers
do in the great majority of cases. (And it appears, not
surprisingly, that this is in fact the prevailing
practice.[ Footnote 1 ]) Thus, if
the area within an arrestee’s reach were assessed, not at the time
of arrest, but at the time of the search, the Chimel rule
would rarely come into play.

															   Moreover, if the applicability of the Chimel rule turned on whether an arresting officer chooses
to secure an arrestee prior to conducting a search, rather than
searching first and securing the arrestee later, the rule would
“create a perverse incentive for an arresting officer to prolong
the period during which the arrestee is kept in an area where he
could pose a danger to the officer.” United States v .
Abdul-Saboor, 85 F. 3d 664, 669 (CADC 1996). If this is
the law, the D. C. Circuit observed, “the law would truly be,
as Mr. Bumble said, ‘a ass.’ ” Ibid . See also United States v. Tejada , 524 F. 3d 809, 812
(CA7 2008) (“[I]f the police could lawfully have searched the
defendant’s grabbing radius at the moment of arrest, he has no
legitimate complaint if, the better to protect themselves from him,
they first put him outside that radius”).

															   I do not think that this is what the Chimel Court intended. Handcuffs were in use in 1969. The
ability of arresting officers to secure arrestees before conducting
a search—and their incentive to do so—are facts that can hardly
have escaped the Court’s attention. I therefore believe that the Chimel Court intended that its new rule apply in cases in
which the arrestee is handcuffed before the search is
conducted.

															   The Belton Court, in my view,
proceeded on the basis of this interpretation of Chimel .
Again speaking through Justice Stewart, the Belton Court
reasoned that articles in the passenger compartment of a car are
“generally, even if not inevitably” within an arrestee’s reach. 453
U. S., at 460. This is undoubtedly true at the time of the arrest
of a person who is seated in a car but plainly not true when the
person has been removed from the car and placed in handcuffs.
Accordingly, the Belton Court must have proceeded on the
assumption that the Chimel rule was to be applied at the
time of arrest. And that is why the Belton Court was able
to say that its decision “in no way alter[ed] the fundamental
principles established in the Chimel case regarding the
basic scope of searches incident to lawful custodial arrests.” 453
U. S., at 460, n. 3. Viewing Chimel as having focused
on the time of arrest, Belton ’s only new step was to
eliminate the need to decide on a case-by-case basis whether a
particular person seated in a car actually could have reached the
part of the passenger compartment where a weapon or evidence was
hidden. For this reason, if we are going to reexamine Belton , we should also reexamine the reasoning in Chimel on which Belton rests.

															F

															   The Court, however, does not
reexamine Chimel and thus leaves the law relating to
searches incident to arrest in a confused and unstable state. The
first part of the Court’s new two-part rule—which permits an
arresting officer to search the area within an arrestee’s reach at
the time of the search—applies, at least for now, only to vehicle
occupants and recent occupants, but there is no logical reason why
the same rule should not apply to all arrestees.

															   The second part of the Court’s
new rule, which the Court takes uncritically from Justice Scalia’s
separate opinion in Thornton, raises doctrinal and
practical problems that the Court makes no effort to address. Why,
for example, is the standard for this type of evidence-gathering
search “reason to believe” rather than probable cause? And why is
this type of search restricted to evidence of the offense of
arrest? It is true that an arrestee’s vehicle is probably more
likely to contain evidence of the crime of arrest than of some
other crime, but if reason-to-believe is the governing standard for
an evidence-gathering search incident to arrest, it is not easy to
see why an officer should not be able to search when the officer
has reason to believe that the vehicle in question possesses
evidence of a crime other than the crime of arrest.

															   Nor is it easy to see why an
evidence-gathering search incident to arrest should be restricted
to the passenger compartment. The Belton rule was limited
in this way because the passenger compartment was considered to be
the area that vehicle occupants can generally reach, 453 U. S., at
460, but since the second part of the new rule is not based on
officer safety or the preservation of evidence, the ground for this
limitation is obscure.[ Footnote
2 ]

															III

															   Respondent in this case has not
asked us to overrule Belton , much less Chimel .
Respondent’s argument rests entirely on an interpretation of Belton that is plainly incorrect, an interpretation that
disregards Belton ’s explicit delineation of its holding. I
would therefore leave any reexamination of our prior precedents for
another day, if such a reexamination is to be undertaken at all. In
this case, I would simply apply Belton and reverse the
judgment below. Footnote 1 See Moskovitz, A Rule in Search of a Reason:
An Empirical Reexamination of Chimel and Belton ,
2002 Wis. L. Rev. 657, 665. Footnote 2 I do not understand the Court’s decision to
reach the following situations. First, it is not uncommon for an
officer to arrest some but not all of the occupants of a vehicle.
The Court’s decision in this case does not address the question
whether in such a situation a search of the passenger compartment
may be justified on the ground that the occupants who are not
arrested could gain access to the car and retrieve a weapon or
destroy evidence. Second, there may be situations in which an
arresting officer has cause to fear that persons who were not
passengers in the car might attempt to retrieve a weapon or
evidence from the car while the officer is still on the scene. The
decision in this case, as I understand it, does not address that
situation either.

Summary:
Here is a summary of the case:

The Supreme Court ruled that police may not search a vehicle incident to the arrest of a recent occupant unless the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the vehicle's passenger compartment, or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence relevant to the crime of arrest.

In this case, Rodney Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended license, handcuffed, and locked in the back of a patrol car before police searched his car and found cocaine. The Court held that the search was unconstitutional because Gant could not have accessed his car at the time of the search, and there was no reasonable belief that evidence related to his arrest would be found in the vehicle.

The Court's decision clarified the scope of the search-incident-to-arrest exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, as defined in previous cases (Chimel v. California and New York v. Belton).