Page 46 - TPA Journal January - February 2019

so long as they have probable cause to do so. enclosed top portion of the driveway that abuts the
house.
Like the automobile exception, the Fourth
Amendment’s protection of curtilage has long The “ ‘conception defining the curtilage’ is . . .
been black letter law. “[W]hen it comes to the familiar enough that it is ‘easily understood from
Fourth Amendment, the home is first among our daily experience.’ ” Just like the front porch,
equals.” “At the Amendment’s ‘very core’ stands side garden, or area “outside the front window,”
‘the right of a man to retreat into his own home the driveway enclosure where Officer Rhodes
and there be free from unreasonable governmental searched the motorcycle constitutes “an area
intrusion.’ ” To give full practical effect to that adjacent to the home and ‘to which the activity of
right, the Court considers curtilage—“the area home life extends,’ ” and so is properly considered
‘immediately surrounding and associated with the curtilage.
home’ ”—to be “ ‘part of the home itself
In physically intruding on the curtilage of Collins’
for Fourth Amendment purposes.’ ” “The
home to search the motorcycle, Officer Rhodes
protection afforded the curtilage is essentially a
not only invaded Collins’ Fourth
protection of families and personal privacy in an
Amendment interest in the item searched, i.e., the
area intimately linked to the home, both physically
motorcycle, but also invaded Collins’ Fourth
and psychologically, where privacy expectations
Amendment interest in the curtilage of his home.
are most heightened.”
The question before the Court is whether the
When a law enforcement officer physically automobile exception justifies the invasion of the
intrudes on the curtilage to gather evidence, a curtilage.2 The answer is no.
search within the meaning of the Fourth
Applying the relevant legal principles to a slightly
Amendment has occurred. Such conduct thus is
different factual scenario confirms that this is an
presumptively unreasonable absent a warrant.
easy case. Imagine a motorcycle parked inside the
With this background in mind, we turn to the living room of a house, visible through a window
application of these doctrines in the instant case. to a passerby on the street. Imagine further that an
As an initial matter, we decide whether the part of officer has probable cause to believe that the
the driveway where Collins’ motorcycle was motorcycle was involved in a traffic infraction.
parked and subsequently searched is curtilage. Can the officer, acting without a warrant, enter the
house to search the motorcycle and confirm
According to photographs in the record, the
whether it is the right one? Surely not.
driveway runs alongside the front lawn and up a
few yards past the front perimeter of the house. The reason is that the scope of the automobile
The top portion of the driveway that sits behind exception extends no further than the automobile
the front perimeter of the house is enclosed on two itself. Virginia asks the Court to expand the scope
sides by a brick wall about the height of a car and of the automobile exception to permit police to
on a third side by the house. A side door provides invade any space outside an automobile even if
direct access between this partially enclosed the Fourth Amendment protects that space.
section of the driveway and the house. A visitor Nothing in our case law, however, suggests that
endeavoring to reach the front door of the house the automobile exception gives an officer the right
would have to walk partway up the driveway, but to enter a home or its curtilage to access a vehicle
would turn off before entering the enclosure and without a warrant. Expanding the scope of the
instead proceed up a set of steps leading to the automobile exception in this way would both
front porch. When Officer Rhodes searched the undervalue the core Fourth Amendment protection
motorcycle, it was parked inside this partially afforded to the home and its curtilage and

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