Justice O’Connor, Concurring
| Topic: Criminal Procedure* | Court vote: 7–2 | |
| Note: No other Justices joined this opinion. | ||
| Citation: 541 U.S. 615 | Docket: 03–5165 | Audio: Listen to this case's oral arguments at Oyez |
* As categorized by the Washington University Law Supreme Court Database
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Opinion
Justice O’Connor, concurring in part.
I join all but footnote 4 of the Court’s opinion. Although the opinion is a logical extension of the holding of New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), I write separately to express my dissatisfaction with the state of the law in this area. As Justice Scalia forcefully argues, post, p. 2-5 (opinion concurring in judgment), lower court decisions seem now to treat the ability to search a vehicle incident to the arrest of a recent occupant as a police entitlement rather than as an exception justified by the twin rationales of Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969). That erosion is a direct consequence of Belton ’s shaky foundation. While the approach Justice Scalia proposes appears to be built on firmer ground, I am reluctant to adopt it in the context of a case in which neither the Government nor the petitioner has had a chance to speak to its merit.
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