Page 49 - TPA Journal July August 2018
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exception extends no further than the constitutional protection, and creating a
automobile itself, it did not justify Officer carveout for certain types of curtilage seems
Rhodes’ invasion of the curtilage. Nothing in more likely to create confusion than does
this Court’s case law suggests that the uniform application of the Court’s doctrine.
automobile exception gives an officer the right Virginia’s rule also rests on a mistaken premise,
to enter a home or its curtilage to access a for the ability to observe inside curtilage from
vehicle without a warrant. Such an expansion a lawful vantage point is not the same as the
would both undervalue the core Fourth right to enter curtilage without a warrant to
Amendment protection afforded to the home search for information not otherwise
and its curtilage and “ ‘untether’ ” the accessible. Finally, Virginia’s rule automatically
exception “ ‘from the justifications would grant constitutional rights to those
underlying’ ” it. This Court has similarly persons with the financial means to afford
declined to expand the scope of other residences with garages but deprive those
exceptions to the warrant requirement. Thus, persons without such resources of any
just as an officer must have a lawful right of individualized consideration as to whether the
access to any contraband he discovers in plain areas in which they store their vehicles qualify
view in order to seize it without a warrant— as curtilage.
see Horton v. California, —and just as an Collins v. Virginia, U.S. Supreme Court, No.
th
officer must have a lawful right of access in 16–1027, May 29 , 2018.
order to arrest a person in his home—
see Payton v. New York, —so, too, an officer
must have a lawful right of access to a vehicle SEARCH & SEIZURE, EXCLUSIONARY RULE.
in order to search it pursuant to the automobile Good faith exception. Border search.
exception. To allow otherwise would unmoor
the exception from its justifications, render After discovering kilos of meth in the
hollow the core Fourth Amendment protection suitcase Maria Isabel Molina-Isidoro was
the Constitution extends to the house and its carrying across the border, customs agents
curtilage, and transform what was meant to be looked at a couple of apps on her cell phone.
an exception into a tool with far broader Molina argues that the evidence found during
application. this warrantless search of her phone should be
suppressed. Along with amici, she invites the
(c) Contrary to Virginia’s claim, the court to announce general rules concerning
automobile exception is not a categorical one the application of the government’s historically
that permits the warrantless search of a vehicle broad border-search authority to modern
anytime, anywhere, including in a home or technology for which the Supreme Court has
curtilage. recognized increased privacy interests.
Also unpersuasive is Virginia’s proposed We decline the invitation to do so because
bright line rule for an automobile exception the nonforensic search of Molina’s cell phone
that would not permit warrantless entry only of at the border was supported by probable
the house itself or another fixed structure, e.g., cause. That means at a minimum the agents
a garage, inside the curtilage. This Court has had a good-faith basis for believing the search
long been clear that curtilage is afforded did not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment.
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