Warrantless Automobile Searches

The fourth amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the states through the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment, and Section 12 of Article I of the New York State Constitution, prohibit the police from conducting “unreasonable searches and seizures.” The United States Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals have consistently interpreted these provisions to mean that searches and seizures conducted without a warrant are “per se unreasonable...subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” While warrantless searches and seizures of automobiles may be upheld under the “automobile exception,” such searches or seizures may also be justified under other legal doctrines. This monograph outlines threshold legal and factual questions that prosecutors and defense attorneys should consider at pre-trial suppression hearings when evidence is seized pursuant to warrantless automobile searches.