(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2008 1
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
ARIZONA v. GANT
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ARIZONA
No. 07–542. Argued October 7, 2008—Decided April 21, 2009
Respondent Gant was arrested for driving on a suspended license,
handcuffed, and locked in a patrol car before officers searched his car
and found cocaine in a jacket pocket. The Arizona trial court denied
his motion to suppress the evidence, and he was convicted of drug of
fenses. Reversing, the State Supreme Court distinguished New York
v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454—which held that police may search the pas
senger compartment of a vehicle and any containers therein as a con
temporaneous incident of a recent occupant’s lawful arrest—on the
ground that it concerned the scope of a search incident to arrest but
did not answer the question whether officers may conduct such a
search once the scene has been secured. Because Chimel v. Califor
nia, 395 U. S. 752, requires that a search incident to arrest be justi
fied by either the interest in officer safety or the interest in preserv
ing evidence and the circumstances of Gant’s arrest implicated
neither of those interests, the State Supreme Court found the search
unreasonable.
Held: Police may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle inci
dent to a recent occupant’s arrest only if it is reasonable to believe
that the arrestee might access the vehicle at the time of the search or
that the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest. Pp. 5–18.
(a) Warrantless searches “are per se unreasonable,” “subject only to
a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz
v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357. The exception for a search inci
dent to a lawful arrest applies only to “the area from within which
[an arrestee] might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evi
dence.” Chimel, 395 U. S., at 763. This Court applied that exception
to the automobile context in Belton, the holding of which rested in
large part on the assumption that articles inside a vehicle’s passen
ger compartment are “generally . . . within ‘the area into which an
2 ARIZONA v. GANT
Syllabus
arrestee might reach.’ ” 453 U. S., at 460. Pp. 5–8.
(b) This Court rejects a broad reading of Belton that would permit a
vehicle search incident to a recent occupant’s arrest even if there
were no possibility the arrestee could gain access to the vehicle at the
time of the search. The safety and evidentiary justifications underly
ing Chimel’s exception authorize a vehicle search only when there is
a reasonable possibility of such access. Although it does not follow
from Chimel, circumstances unique to the automobile context also
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 v. United States, 541 U. S. 615, 632 (SCALIA, J.,
concurring in judgment). Neither Chimel’s reaching-distance rule
nor Thornton’s allowance for evidentiary searches authorized the
search in this case. In contrast to Belton, which involved a single of
ficer confronted with four unsecured arrestees, five officers hand
cuffed and secured Gant and the two other suspects in separate pa
trol cars before the search began. Gant clearly could not have
accessed his car at the time of the search. An evidentiary basis for
the search was also lacking. Belton and Thornton were both arrested
for drug offenses, but Gant was arrested for driving with a suspended
license—an offense for which police could not reasonably expect to
find evidence in Gant’s car. Cf. Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113, 118.
The search in this case was therefore unreasonable. Pp. 8–11.
(c) This Court is unpersuaded by the State’s argument that its ex
pansive reading of Belton correctly balances law enforcement inter
ests with an arrestee’s limited privacy interest in his vehicle. The
State seriously undervalues the privacy interests at stake, and it ex
aggerates both the clarity provided by a broad reading of Belton and
its importance to law enforcement interests. A narrow reading of
Belton and Thornton, together with this Court’s other Fourth
Amendment decisions, e.g., Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 103, and
United States v. Ross, 456 U. S. 798, permit an officer to search a ve
hicle when safety or evidentiary concerns demand. Pp. 11–14.
(d) Stare decisis does not require adherence to a broad reading of
Belton. The experience of the 28 years since Belton has shown that
the generalization underpinning the broad reading of that decision is
unfounded, and blind adherence to its faulty assumption would au
thorize myriad unconstitutional searches. Pp. 15–18.
216 Ariz. 1, 162 P. 3d 640, affirmed.
STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which SCALIA,
SOUTER, THOMAS, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. SCALIA, J., filed a concur
ring opinion. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion. ALITO, J., filed a
dissenting opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, J., joined,
and in which BREYER, J., joined except as to Part II–E.
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 1
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order
that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
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 pos
session of a weapon or destructible evidence.” 395 U. S.,
at 763. The safety and evidentiary justifications underly
ing 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 inte
2 ARIZONA v. GANT
Opinion of the Court
rior of the vehicle. Consistent with the holding in Thorn
ton 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
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 3
Opinion of the Court
two more officers arrived, they locked Gant in the back
seat 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 parapherna
lia (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 con
traband when the search began, id., at 18, 30, but it de
nied 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,
4 ARIZONA v. GANT
Opinion of the Court
642–643 (2007) (citing 453 U. S., at 460). The court dis
tinguished 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 ob
served 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 ar
restee is handcuffed, secured in the back of a patrol car,
and under the supervision of an officer,” the court con
cluded, 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 Bel
ton 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 in
cludes 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).
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 5
Opinion of the Court
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 ap
proval 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 require
ment 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 pres
ervation 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 destruc
tion” of evidence (emphasis added)). If there is no possibil
ity 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
6 ARIZONA v. GANT
Opinion of the Court
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 regis
tration, 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 hand
cuffing the arrestees,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 uncon
stitutional, 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 excep
tion 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 defini
tion of ‘the area within the immediate control of the ar
restee’ 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
——————
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).
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 7
Opinion of the Court
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 consum
mated 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 possi
bility 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 generali
zation 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 unrea
sonable because Gant clearly could not have accessed his
car at the time of the search. It also found that no other
8 ARIZONA v. GANT
Opinion of the Court
exception to the warrant requirement applied in this case.
Gant now urges us to adopt the reading of Belton fol
lowed 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 attribut
able 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 immedi
ate 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,2 but Justice Brennan’s reading of the
——————
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
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 9
Opinion of the Court
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 excep
tion 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 (opin
ion concurring in judgment) (collecting cases).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 author
izing 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 incom
patible 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
——————
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).
3 The practice of searching vehicles incident to arrest after the ar
restee 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).
10 ARIZONA v. GANT
Opinion of the Court
to lawful custodial arrests.” 453 U. S., at 460, n. 3. Ac
cordingly, 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 ar
restee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the
passenger compartment at the time of the search.4
Although it does not follow from Chimel, we also con
clude that circumstances unique to the vehicle context
justify a search incident to a lawful arrest when it is “rea
sonable 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
——————
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.
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 11
Opinion of the Court
circumstances, Gant clearly was not within reaching
distance of his car at the time of the search. An eviden
tiary 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 never
theless 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 ex
pansive rule correctly balances law enforcement interests,
including the interest in a bright-line rule, with an ar
restee’s limited privacy interest in his vehicle.
For several reasons, we reject the State’s argument.
First, the State seriously undervalues the privacy inter
ests at stake. Although we have recognized that a motor
ist’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 individ
12 ARIZONA v. GANT
Opinion of the Court
ual 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.5
At the same time as it undervalues these privacy con
cerns, 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 purview6 and whether a search is reason
——————
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., dis
senting) (same); State v. Pierce, 136 N. J. 184, 211, 642 A. 2d 947, 961
(1994) (same).
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
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 13
Opinion of the Court
able when it commences or continues after the arrestee
has been removed from the scene.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 con
cerns demand. For instance, Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S.
1032 (1983), permits an officer to search a vehicle’s pas
senger compartment when he has reasonable suspicion
that an individual, whether or not the arrestee, is “dan
gerous” 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
——————
the arrestee was apprehended inside an auto repair shop and the
vehicle was parked outside).
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).
14 ARIZONA v. GANT
Opinion of the Court
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 protec
tive sweep of those areas of a house in which he reasona
bly suspects a dangerous person may be hiding).
These exceptions together ensure that officers may
search a vehicle when genuine safety or evidentiary con
cerns 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 war
rantless search on that basis. For these reasons, we are
unpersuaded by the State’s arguments that a broad read
ing of Belton would meaningfully further law enforcement
interests and justify a substantial intrusion on individu
als’ privacy.8
——————
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
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 15
Opinion of the Court
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 vehi
cle incident to arrest are in most cases absent.9 The doc
trine 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 con
tinuance 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 eviden
tiary 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 in
volved one officer confronted by four unsecured arrestees
suspected of committing a drug offense and this case
involves several officers confronted with a securely de
tained 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
——————
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)).
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. Con
trary 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.
16 ARIZONA v. GANT
Opinion of the Court
concurred in the judgments in Belton and Thornton also
concur in the decision in this case.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,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 consti
tutional right to the security of their private effects vio
lated as a result. The fact that the law enforcement com
munity 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 persis
tence. 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
——————
10 JUSTICESTEVENS 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.
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.
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 17
Opinion of the Court
police practice to the point where the warnings have be
come part of our national culture,” 530 U. S., at 443, the
Court was referring not to police reliance on a rule requir
ing 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 Har
ris and established the present boundaries of the search
incident-to-arrest exception. Notably, none of the dissent
ers 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
18 ARIZONA v. GANT
Opinion of the Court
U. S., at 460, and blind adherence to Belton’s faulty as
sumption 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 occu
pant’s arrest only if the arrestee is within reaching dis
tance 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 unrea
sonable unless police obtain a warrant or show that an
other exception to the warrant requirement applies. The
Arizona Supreme Court correctly held that this case in
volved an unreasonable search. Accordingly, the judgment
of the State Supreme Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 1
SCALIA, J., concurring
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 judg
ment), 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 al
ways 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 when
ever 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
2 ARIZONA v. GANT
SCALIA, J., concurring
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 vehi
cle, 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 unse
cured (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 vehi
cle search incident to arrest is ipso facto “reasonable” only
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 3
SCALIA, J., concurring
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 prece
dent 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.” Thorn
ton, 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 formula
tion 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 ra
tionale 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 applica
tion of Chimel in this context should be entirely aban
doned. It seems to me unacceptable for the Court to come
forth with a 4-to-1-to-4 opinion that leaves the governing
4 ARIZONA v. GANT
SCALIA, J., concurring
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 uncon
stitutional searches—which is the greater evil. I therefore
join the opinion of the Court.
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 1
BREYER, J., dissenting
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 passen
ger compartment of an automobile incident to the lawful
arrest of an occupant—regardless of the danger the ar
rested individual in fact poses. I also agree with JUSTICE
STEVENS, however, that the rule can produce results
divorced from its underlying Fourth Amendment ration
ale. Compare Belton, supra, with Chimel v. California,
395 U. S. 752, 764 (1969) (explaining that the rule allow
ing 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 consider
able 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
2 ARIZONA v. GANT
BREYER, J., dissenting
met. Nor do I believe that the other considerations ordi
narily 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.
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 1
ALITO, J., dissenting
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 automo
bile.” (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 occu
pants. Today’s decision effectively overrules those impor
tant 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
2 ARIZONA v. GANT
ALITO, J., dissenting
“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
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 3
ALITO, J., dissenting
problem, the Belton Court concluded that “ ‘[a] single
familiar standard’ ” was “ ‘essential to guide police offi
cers’ ” who make roadside arrests. 453 U. S., at 458 (quot
ing 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 com
partment 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 po
liceman 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
4 ARIZONA v. GANT
ALITO, J., dissenting
forth a bright-line rule for arrests of automobile occupants,
holding that . . . a search of the whole [passenger] com
partment is justified in every case”). So does JUSTICE
SCALIA’s opinion in the present case. See ante, at 1 (Bel
ton 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 abandon
ment. 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. Coro
nado 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 rea
soned. Vieth, supra, at 306 (plurality opinion). These
factors weigh in favor of retaining the rule established in
Belton.
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009)
5
ALITO, J., dissenting
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 en
forcement 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 “em
bedded 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 en
forcement 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
6 ARIZONA v. GANT
ALITO, J., dissenting
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. Abandonment 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 com
partment are rarely ‘within “the area into which an ar
restee 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 un
workable. On the contrary, the rule was adopted for the
express purpose of providing a test that would be rela
tively 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 some
times debatable whether a search is or is not contempora
neous 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
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 7
ALITO, J., dissenting
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 can
not 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 “ab
stract 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
8 ARIZONA v. GANT
ALITO, J., dissenting
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 evi
dence.” 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, applica
ble 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 con
ducting a search). Second, because it is safer for an ar
resting 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.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 ar
restee prior to conducting a search, rather than searching
first and securing the arrestee later, the rule would “cre
——————
1 See Moskovitz, A Rule in Search of a Reason: An Empirical Reex
amination of Chimel and Belton, 2002 Wis. L. Rev. 657, 665.
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 9
ALITO, J., dissenting
ate 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 grab
bing 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 in
tended. 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 hand
cuffs. 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
10 ARIZONA v. GANT
ALITO, J., dissenting
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 reex
amine 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 prob
lems 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 evi
dence 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 offi
cer 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
Cite as: 556 U. S. ____ (2009) 11
ALITO, J., dissenting
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.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 ex
plicit 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 judg
ment below.
——————
2I 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.