Fourth Amendment
According to me, warrantless search of automobiles as was witnessed in the case of Arizona Gant is a violation of the fourth amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. According to Holly (2007), the police are not allowed to search the vehicle of the defendant after his arrest except in circumstances where the presence of the arrestor’s vehicle poses a security threat to the police. Justice Antonin Scalia together with other judges ruled in favor of Grant by arguing that, warrantless searches are unreasonable and subject to only a few and narrow exemptions. The fact that Gant willfully surrendered to the police made the vehicle search not directly linked to the arrest hence searching the vehicle violated the constitution as well as the privacy rights of Mr. Gant, (Holly, 2007). Further the fact that Gant was arrested for suspended driving license and not possession of drugs made the narrow exceptions inapplicable.
Accordingly, any search made after the suspect has been arrested is a violation of the fourth amendment as well as a violation of the suspect’s privacy rights as was ruled by the Supreme Court in the case of Arizona v Gant, (Holly, 2007).The court held that, the fact that Gant was 8 meters away from his vehicle and had been handcuffed made the ground for the search unreasonable since the police were now secured from any threat by the suspect. The civil liberty groups also supported the ruling by stating that, the police quite often invade the privacy of the suspects by carrying out warrantless search even if there is reasonable reason to believe that the suspects could not gain access to their vehicles.
Reference
Holly, W., (2007). State v. Gant: Departing from the Bright-Line Belton Rule in Automobile
Searches Incident to Arrest. Arizona Law Review 49 (5): 1033–1041.
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