Search After Arrest: Arizona vs. Gant

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Gant was arrested by Arizona police because he was driving a vehicle with a suspended license. While he was being handcuffed, officers searched his vehicle and found a gun and a bag of cocaine. During the trial, Gant petitioned to suppress the gun and cocaine because the police didn’t serve a warrant to search his vehicle, in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures. Prior to the Supreme Courts opinion on this case, Arizona vs. Gant, it was standard practice for police to conduct a search incident to arrest of the passenger compartment of a vehicle. The justifications for the search incident to arrest are to allow police to secure any weapons that the arrestee might seek to use to resist arrest or escape and preserve evidence. This case is a decision holding that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires law enforcement officers to a continuing threat to their safety posed by an arrestee, in order to justify a warrantless vehicular search conducted after the vehicle's recent occupants have been arrested and secured. ...

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