267 U.S. 132 (1925)
One-Sentence Takeaway: Warrantless search can be conducted of an automobile if the officers have probable cause to believe there is contraband or other evidence of criminal activity in the vehicle.
Summary: A landmark United States Supreme Court case that established the “automobile exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. The case involved federal prohibition agents who stopped and searched a car without a warrant, suspecting it was transporting illegal liquor. The Court upheld the search, ruling that law enforcement officers may search a vehicle without a warrant if they have probable cause to believe it contains contraband. The Court reasoned that the mobility of automobiles creates exigent circumstances that make obtaining a warrant impractical, thus justifying warrantless searches in such situations.
This decision significantly shaped the legal framework for vehicle searches in the United States.
REFERENCE DESK
Commonwealth v. Alexander, 243 A.3d 177 (Pa. 2020):
The automobile exception was first recognized in Carroll v. United States, and the justification for upholding the search was largely based on the impracticability of securing a warrant given that “the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction.” While Carroll noted that “[i]n cases where the securing of a warrant is reasonably practicable” an officer must do so, over time that limitation gradually disappeared. In Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42 (1970), the Court upheld a search under the automobile exception where the officers transported the vehicle to the police station and searched it there without a warrant. The Court concluded that if the officers could immediately search the car under Carroll, then they may also search it later. That holding is at odds with Carroll‘s observation that officers must obtain a warrant when feasible. The Maroney Court reconciled that inconsistency by declaring that the preference for a magistrate’s judgment on probable cause is questionable because officers could seize the car until the magistrate ruled on whether probable cause to search existed. The Maroney Court believed it was arguable that seizing the car and its occupants was a greater intrusion than simply immediately searching the car. “But which is the `greater’ and which the `lesser’ intrusion is itself a debatable question and the answer may depend on a variety of circumstances.” The Court found it preferable to declare that either course is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
The high Court also began to justify the automobile exception on the notion that individuals have reduced expectations of privacy in their automobiles and expect less privacy in their vehicles due to the pervasive governmental regulation of, and local law enforcement’s extensive contact with, motor vehicles. The high Court used the mobility and diminished privacy rationales together to justify a warrantless search in California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386 (1985). The Carney Court invoked both the ready mobility and the reduced privacy justifications to hold that a warrantless search, based on probable cause, of a fully mobile motor home parked in a public lot did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Once those justifications were jointly invoked to justify searches it became clear that application of the automobile exception to the requirement for a search warrant requires only a finding of probable cause and not a separate, distinct, or additional finding of exigency. There is no question that the combination of the two rationales justifies the federal exception. Collins v. Virginia, 584 U.S. 586 (2018) (“The `ready mobility’ of vehicles served as the core justification for the automobile exception for many years. Later cases then introduced an additional rationale based on the pervasive regulation of vehicles capable of traveling 183*183 on the public highways.”).
State v. McCarthy, 501 P.3d 478, 369 Or. 129 (Or. 2021)
In Carroll, the Supreme Court did distinguish between structures and vehicles, as the Brown court noted. Specifically, the Court stated:
“[T]he guaranty of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures by the Fourth Amendment has been construed, practically since the beginning of the Government, as recognizing a necessary difference between a search of a store, dwelling house or other structure in respect of which a proper official warrant readily may be obtained, and a search of a ship, motor boat, wagon or automobile, for contraband goods, where it is not practicable to secure a warrant because the vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought.“
But the Court did not hold that the difference between structures and vehicles justifies warrantless seizures of all vehicles, or even all vehicles that are stopped in transit. To the contrary, the Court emphasized that, when officers can get a warrant, they must get a warrant:
“In cases where the securing of a warrant is reasonably practicable, it must be used, and when properly supported by affidavit and issued after judicial approval protects the seizing officer against a suit for damages. In cases where seizure is impossible except without warrant, the seizing officer acts unlawfully and at his peril unless he can show the court probable cause.”
Thus, Carroll recognized a true exigency exception for the seizure of vehicles, that is, an exception that applies only when a seizure would be “impossible except without a warrant.”
In later cases, including Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42 (1970), the Supreme Court relied on Carroll to create a per se exigency exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. But, as described in Chambers, the exception does not apply to all vehicles; it applies only to those that are “readily movable.” That is, it applies in circumstances where, “if an effective search is to be made at any time, either the search must be made immediately without a warrant or the car itself must be seized and held without a warrant for whatever period is necessary to obtain a warrant for the search.”