On the local news in Phoenix last night it was reported that the Arizona Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, ruled that once a suspect is secured in the back of an officer’s patrol car, and is therefore no longer a ‘safety threat’ to the police, then the police must get a search warrant to search the rest of the vehicle.
I am a certified specialist in criminal law, as licensed by the State Bar of Arizona since 1989, and I believe that this decision will have positive repercussions for my clients who are currently charged with crimes in Arizona.
As a little background on the issue, the basic argument was that, once police arrested an individual, they more or less had carte blanche to search most visible areas of a vehicle ‘for the safety of the officers’. For example, a officer can ‘pat down’ a suspect even on the street, to ensure the suspect has no weapons ‘within’ reach that could pose a safety risk to the officers.
The problem is that the Arizona State law enforcement generally ‘stretched’ this policy to allow themselves the opportunity to casually, and without a warrant, search a suspect vehicle with no warrant, on the pretext that the officer’s safety was of paramount importance. Basically, cops got a free search of a vehicle at the expense of the U.S. and Arizona constitutions. Thankfully, and although a close decision, the Arizona Supreme Court found that an officer’s safety clearly is not an issue when the individual is handcuffed and secured in the back of a patrol control car.
Hopefully, as a criminal defense attorney, I will be able to apply this ruling to some of the hundreds of cases which I currently handle for the benefit of my clients and their families.
