Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. This protection extends to the stop of a vehicle by law enforcement, which constitutes a seizure of its occupants. To justify the detention of a vehicle's occupants, the detention must be supported by an officer's reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed. The quantity and quality of information necessary to establish reasonable suspicion is less than that necessary to establish probable cause, but it requires more than a mere hunch or unparticularized suspicion. State v. Stonecypher, 170 Idaho 156.
The Fourth Amendment also protects against unreasonable seizures, and to render a vehicle stop constitutional, an officer must have probable cause to make a stop for a civil infraction, or reasonable suspicion of an ongoing crime to make a stop for a criminal violation. Bazzi v. City of Dearborn, 658 F.3d 598. However, the automobile exception allows a warrantless search of an automobile stopped by police officers who had probable cause to believe the vehicle contained contraband. If probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies the search of every part of the vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the search. State v. Raslovsky, 2020-Ohio-515.
Nevertheless, a traffic stop that is lawful at its inception can violate the Fourth Amendment if its manner of execution unreasonably infringes interests protected by the Constitution. A police stop exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made violates the Constitution's shield against unreasonable seizures. People v. Gyorgy, 93 Cal. App. 5th 659. Furthermore, any occupant in the vehicle may challenge his own detention regardless of whether he was the immediate target of the investigation or whether he had a privacy interest in the vehicle itself. State v. Li, 297 A.3d 908.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Treatises:
American Law Reports:
Permissibility under Fourth Amendment of detention of motorist by police, following lawful stop for traffic offense, to investigate matters not related to offense, Part 1 of 2, 118 A.L.R. Fed. 567
Permissibility under Fourth Amendment of detention of motorist by police, following lawful stop for traffic offense, to investigate matters not related to offense, Part 2 of 2, 118 A.L.R. Fed. 567
Lawfulness of "inventory search" of motor vehicle impounded by police, 48 A.L.R.3d 537