| New York v. Class
(No. 84-1181)
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| Syllabus
| Opinion
[ O'Connor ] | Concurrence
[ Powell ] | CDInPart
[ Brennan ] | Dissent
[ White ] |
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New York v. Class
CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEALS OF NEW YORK
JUSTICE WHITE, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS joins, dissenting.
The police officer involved in this case entered the interior of respondent's automobile, an area protected by the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures. A car may be searched without a warrant if there is probable cause to do so, but no one suggests that this precondition for a search existed here. The entry was solely to remove an obstruction that prevented the VIN from being seen from outside the car. The issue is whether the governmental interest in obtaining the VIN by entering a protected area is sufficient to outweigh the owner's privacy interest in the interior of the car. I am unprepared, at least for the reasons the Court gives, to conclude that it is.
Had Class remained in his car and refused an officer's order (1) to turn over his registration certificate and (2) to remove the article obscuring the VIN, there would have been no more justification for entering the interior of the car and doing what was necessary to read the VIN than there would have been to enter and search for the registration certificate in the glove compartment. It may be that, under our cases, Class could have been sanctioned for his refusal in such a case, but we have never held that his refusal would permit a search of the glove compartment. Even if it did, it would be different if there was no refusal at all, but just an entry to [p132] find a registration certificate. If that is the case, this one is no different in kind: there was no refusal, and nothing but a nonconsensual entry to search without probable cause and without emergent circumstances.
It makes no difference that the law requires the VIN to be visible from outside the car. Otherwise, a requirement that the VIN be carried in a prominent location in the trunk of the car would justify searches of that area whenever there was a stop for a traffic violation. I thus do not join the Court's opinion, which in effect holds that a search of a car for the VIN is permissible whenever there is a legal stop, whether or not the driver is even asked to consent.
Nevertheless, Class was unlicensed, and the police were not constitutionally required merely to give him a citation and let his unlicensed driving continue. Arguably, one of the officers legally could have driven the car away himself and, in the process, noticed the gun; the car could have been towed and inspected at the station; or Class could have been arrested for driving without a license, and the entire car searched. But the Court eschews these possible alternative rationales and rests its judgment on grounds that I do not accept.