Warrant Exceptions / Special Exceptions

Hayden

Hot pursuit/exigency permits warrantless home entry and search when immediate action is needed to catch a fleeing felon or protect officers/others. Search is limited to the exigency.

Brigham City

Police may enter a home without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis to believe someone inside is seriously injured or imminently threatened with serious injury.

Kentucky v. King

Exigent circumstances can justify warrantless entry unless police created the exigency by engaging in or threatening conduct that violates the Fourth Amendment.

McNeely

Natural dissipation of alcohol in blood does not create a per se exigency. Warrantless blood draws depend on the totality of the circumstances.

Coolidge

Plain view seizure is valid if police are lawfully present, have lawful access to the object, and its incriminating nature is immediately apparent.

Minnesota v. Dickerson

Plain feel allows seizure during a lawful Terry patdown only if the contraband's identity is immediately apparent. Manipulating/fiddling with the item exceeds the frisk.

Hicks

Plain view requires probable cause that the item is evidence/contraband. Moving stereo equipment to read serial numbers was a separate search and not justified by plain view.

Carroll

Automobile exception: police may search a vehicle without a warrant if they have probable cause it contains contraband/evidence because cars are mobile and less private than homes.

Carney

Automobile exception can apply to a motor home when it is mobile and regulated like a vehicle. No warrant needed if there is probable cause.

Acevedo

If police have probable cause that a container in a car holds contraband, they may search that container without a warrant under the automobile exception.

Houghton

If probable cause attaches to the car, police may search passenger belongings and containers inside the car that could hold the object of the search.

Chimel

Search incident to lawful arrest is limited to the arrestee's person and the area within immediate control where the arrestee could grab a weapon or destroy evidence.

Riley

Police generally need a warrant to search digital data on a cell phone seized incident to arrest because phones contain massive private information and Chimel rationales do not justify data searches.

Chadwick

Once a locked container is securely under police control and inaccessible to the arrestee, search-incident-to-arrest rationales disappear and a warrant is required.

Belton

Pre-Gant rule: after arresting a recent vehicle occupant, police could search the passenger compartment and containers inside. Later narrowed by Gant.

Thornton

Belton applied to 'recent occupants' even when the officer first contacts the person after they exited the vehicle. Later narrowed by Gant.

Gant

Vehicle search incident to arrest is valid only if the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment, or it is reasonable to believe the car contains evidence of the offense of arrest.

Buie

Protective sweep incident to in-home arrest: officers may check immediately adjoining spaces without suspicion and sweep beyond that only with specific, articulable facts suggesting danger.

Bustamonte

Consent search is valid if consent is voluntary under the totality of the circumstances. Knowledge of the right to refuse is relevant but not required.

Montoya-Hernandez

At the border, extended detention of a traveler beyond routine inspection requires reasonable suspicion, such as suspicion of internal drug smuggling.

Sitz

Sobriety checkpoints are constitutional under balancing because the government's public-safety interest outweighs the minimal intrusion on drivers.

Edmond

Checkpoints whose primary purpose is ordinary crime control, like drug interdiction, are unconstitutional without individualized suspicion.

Lidster

Information-seeking checkpoints about a recent crime can be reasonable when the stop is brief, minimally intrusive, and aimed at getting public assistance rather than detecting wrongdoing by the stopped driver.