SUPREME COURT ROUNDUP
SUPREME COURT ROUNDUP; NO WARRANT NEEDED FOR MOTOR HOME
By LINDA GREENHOUSE, Special to the New York Times
Published: May 14, 1985
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WASHINGTON, May 13โ The Supreme Court today upheld the search of a motor home without a warrant. The Court ruled that although the vehicle in question possessed ''some if not many of the attributes of a home,'' for which a search warrant is almost always required, it more closely resembled a car, which the police may search without a warrant.
The Court's 6-to-3 decision, written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, was limited to motor homes that can be driven away with little more effort than turning the ignition key. Chief Justice Burger said in a footnote that the Court would defer until a future case the question of how to treat a mobile home that is essentially immobile, parked at a fixed location and connected to utility lines.
The decision concerned a motor home that was parked, with its curtains drawn, in a downtown San Diego parking lot. After receiving evidence that the vehicle was being used to distribute narcotics, the police watched it for more than an hour. They then entered and searched it without a warrant and found marijuana in several places in the kitchen area.
California Court Overruled
The California Supreme Court overturned the owner's conviction, ruling that for purposes of a search warrant the vehicle should have been treated like a home. The state then appealed to the United States Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Burger said the state court was mistaken in failing to apply the so-called automobile exception to the Fourth Amendment's search warrant requirement. The Supreme Court first created the exception in 1925 and has elaborated on it many times. The rationale is that the inherent mobility of an automobile, plus the ''diminished expectation of privacy'' that people have in their cars compared to their houses, combine to make it impractical to require the police to obtain a warrant as long as probable cause exists to believe the law is being violated.
Chief Justice Burger said the motor home in question ''falls clearly within the scope of the exception,'' based both on the fact that it was ''readily mobile'' and that ''an objective observer would conclude that it was being used not as a residence, but as a vehicle.''
The vehicle was a ''mini motor home,'' a recreational vehicle that is built on a van chassis and varies in length from 17 to 28 feet.
Comparison to Hotel Room
In a dissenting opinion in the case, California v. Carney (No. 83-859), Associate Justice John Paul Stevens said the automobile exception should generally apply only to mobile homes that are actually ''traveling on the public streets.'' He noted that the vehicle in question had bunk beds, a kitchen and other furnishings indicating use as a home. ''Although it may not be a castle,'' he said, it was the ''functional equivalent of a hotel room, a vacation and retirement home, or a hunting and fishing cabin'' and should have received the same treatment. Associate Justices William J. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall joined in the dissent.
Other developments at the Court today included these matters: Juror Prejudice Accepting an appeal from a Virginia death-row inmate, the Court agreed to decide whether a black defendant in a murder case, on trial for killing a white person, has a constitutional right to question potential jurors about their racial prejudices. The case is an appeal from a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. That court rejected the inmate's argument that the trial judge's refusal to submit the question of racial prejudice to potential jurors violated his right to a fair trial.
The inmate, Willie L. Turner, argued that the death penalty in Virginia has historically been applied in a discriminatory manner. He cited recent studies showing that killers whose victims are white are much more likely to be sentenced to death than those whose victims are black. (Turner v. Bass, No. 84-6646.) Abscam Appeal The Court refused to hear an appeal by John W. Jenrette, one of seven members of Congress convicted on charges growing out of the undercover investigation into influence-peddling known as Abscam. Mr. Jenrette, a Democrat from South Carolina, was convicted of bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States and began serving a two-year prison term last month. A jury found that he agreed to accept $100,000 for introducing a private immigration bill on behalf of an individual he mistakenly believed to be an Arab sheik.
In his appeal, Jenrette v. U.S. (No. 84-1171), he argued that he had been improperly singled out as a target of the investigation because the undercover agents knew his problems with finances and alcoholism made him susceptible to ''deceitful government temptation.''
GordonThree wrote:
I read a lot of "no reason to distrust a LEO" ... why is that? The LEO has been trained to not trust you, why should you trust them? In my book, trust is something earned, not given. Although, distrust does not mean disrespect. Just because I don't trust cops, doesn't mean I would be disrespectful.
Refusing a search on the grounds of no warrant, I wonder how that holds up since your "home" is also a motor vehicle (is that different for a towed trailer?)
An automobile can be easily searched one of two ways. First, depending how badly the cop wants to search and you say not without a warrant, they say fine. they'll tell you that you (driver) will be detained (not arrested), and they will call a tow truck for your ride. They'll say once we get a warrant we'll search it... and if the warrant is declined, here's the bill for towing your car to our impound lot... you're not getting your ride back until it's done being processed at the end of the week. You can be detained 48-72 hours (depending on the local laws) without being charged or arrested.
Alternately, they'll call a K9, which is trained to circle the ride a few times, and then "hit" pretty much wherever the handler tells it to. Then the driver will be arrested and they tow your ride, search it, no need for a warrant now, the k9 gave them probable cause. Now you get to go through booking, mug-shots, finger prints and you're not getting bail until you've been arraigned, which could take a few days to a week. You'll get a bill for your public defender, a bill for towing your ride, and a bill for however many nights you spent in lock-up.
How this works with a motorhome that is someone's residence, that would be interesting to read about, actual rulings from a judge, not hearsay or speculation.
