In Washington—as in all other states—the police usually need a search warrant to go into your home or rifle through your car for weapons, drugs, or other contraband. This is the heart of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizures.
But not always. Under the Terry investigative stop exception (named for a famous U.S. Supreme Court case), police may pat down the driver of a vehicle for officer safety without a warrant. In fact, this exception extends to the passenger compartment of the car itself (minus the trunk) if police believe the suspect is dangerous and has access to a weapon.
The Court of Appeals made this exception clear in a case issued yesterday, State v. Howard.
In Howard, police responded to a trespass incident at a farm. Upon arriving, they saw a Pontiac sedan turn around and drive away from the nearby house. Officers approached the vehicle, and the driver told them he was picking people up.
Police then learned that the 911 caller who had called in the trespass said shots had been fired and that the driver (Howard) had fired the shots. Police ordered Howard and his two passengers out of the car.
Each was frisked – but no weapons were found. Police then searched the car and found a handgun in the backseat hidden under a shirt.
Howard was arrested. A jury in Yakima County Superior Court later found him guilty of two felonies—drive by shooting and unlawful possession of a firearm in the first degree.
On appeal, Howard argued that the trial court should have granted his motion to suppress the firearm found in his car. Howard conceded that the police had the authority to investigate the incident, after learning about the shots-fired call. But he argued that once officers had removed him and his passengers from the car, there was no more safety concerns.
No safety concerns – no Terry search, Howard argued. He relied on a different, more recent U.S. Supreme Court case – Arizona v. Gant.
The Court of Appeals disagreed. In Gant, the Supreme Court said police could not conduct a warrantless search of a car after the defendant was arrested, handcuffed, and locked in the back of a patrol car. But here, none of those things had happened when police searched Howard's car.
For this reason, under Terry, the Court ruled that an officer may search a car without a warrant when there are “reasonable safety concerns due to the possibility that an occupant will return to the vehicle.”
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