The Chimel rule should provide the same protection to a "recent occupant" of a vehicle as to a recent occupant of a house. See Sanders, supra, at 210, n. 60 (two instances); U. S. Dept. Respondent United States . the event of a custodial arrest, potentially compromising their And the United States has never had an opportunity to respond to such an approach. affirm. 234—235, and n. 5 (emphasis added). California, 395 By Act of March 3, 1905, 33 Stat. The two different rules make sense: When officer safety or imminent evidence concealment or destruction is at issue, officers should not have to make fine judgments in the heat of the moment. (1988). Petitioner appealed, challenging only the District Court's denial of the suppression motion. Before Nichols had an opportunity to pull him over, petitioner drove into a parking lot, parked, and got out of the vehicle.

See Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U. S. 318, 323-324 (2001); cf. splenetic fever, provided that the conditions are such that the cattle may be moved to the free area without exposure to infection. ad hoc determinations on the part of officers in the field Authority to search the arrestee's own person is beyond question; and of course no search could prevent seizure of the officer's gun. 4—8. See Sanders, supra, at 210, n. 60 (two instances); U. S. Dept. Petitioner said no. If Belton entitles an officer to search a vehicle upon arresting the driver despite having taken measures that eliminate any danger, what rational officer would not take those measures? None of the cases cited by the Court to demonstrate the disarray in the lower courts involved a pedestrian who was in the vicinity, but outside the reaching distance, of his or her car.5 Nor did any of the decisions cited in the petition for a writ of certiorari6 present such a case.7 Thus, Belton was demonstrably concerned only with the narrow but common circumstance of a search occasioned by the arrest of a suspect who was seated in or driving an automobile at the time the law enforcement official approached. § arrest, and its attendant proximity, stress, and allows the officer to search the passenger compartment of that within an arrestee’s reach at any particular moment, search the car’s passenger compartment in the event of a MARCUS THORNTON, PETITIONER v.UNITED STATES, on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fourth circuit.

Chimel's officer-safety rationale has its own pedigree. But the firearm while they remained within it. footnote 4. .

ran a check on petitioner’s license tags, which revealed Nichols. There is no evidence that federal employees took part in enforcing dipping of all cattle of the county. The evidence for the government at the trial showed that Echols County, where this conspiracy was formed and the overt acts took place, was on the line between Georgia and Florida; that cattle ranged between one state and the other in that region; that the Department of Agriculture had quarantined in interstate transportation the cattle coming from Echols County because of the presence of the cattle tick among them; that, under the Act, an agreement had been made between the Secretary of Agriculture and the Georgia authorities acting under a Georgia statute by which the regulations of the Secretary had been accepted as guidance for the state employees engaged in attempting to suppress the disease by requiring tick-infested cattle to be dipped; that spray pens and dipping vats had been erected in Echols County at the expense of the United States, to carry out the duties of the Bureau of Animal Industry; that the state law authorized and directed the county and state to enforce the dipping of cattle in the county which were tick-infested by process served in the name of the state, and that the state officers served such processes upon cattle owners in the county; that the cattle which were.

1029, 1031, 1063-1074 (C. P. 1765) (disapproving search of plaintiff's private papers under general warrant, despite arrest). of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 49 (2001). is next to a vehicle presents identical concerns regarding Some courts uphold such searches even when the squad car carrying the handcuffed arrestee has already left the scene. The Court gleaned from the case law "the generalization 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 in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m]. 515, 519-520 (1891); Thatcher v. Weeks, 79 Me. Stay up-to-date with FindLaw's newsletter for legal professionals. Thornton v. United States Argued: April 20, 1926. Held: Belton governs even when an officer does not make contact until the person arrested has left the vehicle.