THORNTON v. UNITED STATES

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615 OCTOBER TERM, 2003
Syllabus
THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the fourth circuit
No. 03–5165. Argued March 31, 2004—Decided May 24, 2004
Before Officer Nichols could pull over petitioner, petitioner parked and
got out of his car. Nichols then parked, accosted petitioner, and ar-
rested him after finding drugs in his pocket. Incident to the arrest,
Nichols searched petitioner’s car and found a handgun under the driver’s
seat. Petitioner was charged with federal drug and firearms violations.
In denying his motion to suppress the firearm as the fruit of an unconsti-
tutional search, the District Court found, inter alia, the automobile
search valid under New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454, in which this Court
held that, when a police officer makes a lawful custodial arrest of an
automobile’s occupant, the Fourth Amendment allows the officer to
search the vehicle’s passenger compartment as a contemporaneous inci-
dent of arrest, id., at 460. Petitioner appealed his conviction, arguing
that Belton was limited to situations where the officer initiated contact
with an arrestee while he was still in the car. The Fourth Circuit
affirmed.
Held: Belton governs even when an officer does not make contact until
the person arrested has left the vehicle. In Belton, the Court placed
no reliance on the fact that the officer ordered the occupants out of the
vehicle, or initiated contact with them while they remained within it.
And here, there is simply no basis to conclude that the span of the area
generally within the arrestee’s immediate control is determined by
whether the arrestee exited the vehicle at the officer’s direction, or
whether the officer initiated contact with him while he was in the car.
In all relevant aspects, the arrest of a suspect who is next to a vehicle
presents identical concerns regarding officer safety and evidence de-
struction as one who is inside. Under petitioner’s proposed “contact
initiation” rule, officers who decide that it may be safer and more effec-
tive to conceal their presence until a suspect has left his car would be
unable to search the passenger compartment in the event of a custodial
arrest, potentially compromising their safety and placing incriminating
evidence at risk of concealment or destruction. The Fourth Amend-
ment does not require such a gamble. Belton allows police to search a
car’s passenger compartment incident to a lawful arrest of both “occu-
pant[s]” and “recent occupant[s].” Ibid. While an arrestee’s status as
a “recent occupant” may turn on his temporal or spatial relationship to

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616 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Syllabus
the car at the time of the arrest and search, it certainly does not turn
on whether he was inside or outside the car when the officer first initi-
ated contact with him. Although not all contraband in the passenger
compartment is likely to be accessible to a “recent occupant,” the need
for a clear rule, readily understood by police and not depending on dif-
fering estimates of what items were or were not within an arrestee’s
reach at any particular moment, justifies the sort of generalization
which Belton enunciated. Under petitioner’s rule, an officer would
have to determine whether he actually confronted or signaled confronta-
tion with the suspect while he was in his car, or whether the suspect
exited the car unaware of, and for reasons unrelated to, the officer’s
presence. Such a rule would be inherently subjective and highly fact
specific, and would require precisely the sort of ad hoc determinations
on the part of officers in the field and reviewing courts that Belton
sought to avoid. Pp. 619–624.
325 F. 3d 189, affirmed.
Rehnquist, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court except as to foot-
note 4. Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined that opinion in full,
and O’Connor, J., joined as to all but footnote 4. O’Connor, J., filed an
opinion concurring in part, post, p. 624. Scalia, J., filed an opinion
concurring in the judgment, in which Ginsburg, J., joined, post, p. 625.
Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, J., joined, post,
p. 633.
Frank W. Dunham, Jr., argued the cause for petitioner.
With him on the briefs were Walter B. Dalton, Frances
H. Pratt, and Kenneth P. Troccoli.
Gregory G. Garre argued the cause for the United States.
With him on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Assist-
ant Attorney General Wray, and Deputy Solicitor General
Dreeben.*
*A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for the American
Civil Liberties Union et al. by Tracey Maclin, Steven R. Shapiro, and
Lisa Kemler.
A brief of amici curiae urging affirmance was filed for the State of
Arizona et al. by Terry Goddard, Attorney General of Arizona, Mary R.
O’Grady, Solicitor General, Randall M. Howe, Chief Counsel, and Kath-
leen P. Sweeney and Eric J. Olsson, Assistant Attorneys General, and by
the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: William H.
Pryor, Jr., of Alabama, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Charles J. Crist, Jr.,

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617 Cite as: 541 U. S. 615 (2004)
Opinion of the Court
Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the
Court except as to footnote 4.
In New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), we held that
when a police officer has made a lawful custodial arrest of an
occupant of an automobile, the Fourth Amendment allows
the officer to search the passenger compartment of that
vehicle as a contemporaneous incident of arrest. We have
granted certiorari twice before to determine whether Bel-
ton’s rule is limited to situations where the officer makes
contact with the occupant while the occupant is inside the
vehicle, or whether it applies as well when the officer first
makes contact with the arrestee after the latter has stepped
out of his vehicle. We did not reach the merits in either
of those two cases. Arizona v. Gant, 540 U. S. 963 (2003)
(vacating and remanding for reconsideration in light of State
v. Dean, 206 Ariz. 158, 76 P. 3d 429 (2003) (en banc)); Florida
v. Thomas, 532 U. S. 774 (2001) (dismissing for lack of juris-
diction). We now reach that question and conclude that Bel-
ton governs even when an officer does not make contact until
the person arrested has left the vehicle.
Officer Deion Nichols of the Norfolk, Virginia, Police De-
partment, who was in uniform but driving an unmarked po-
lice car, first noticed petitioner Marcus Thornton when peti-
tioner slowed down so as to avoid driving next to him.
Nichols suspected that petitioner knew he was a police offi-
cer and for some reason did not want to pull next to him.
His suspicions aroused, Nichols pulled off onto a side street
of Florida, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Steve
Carter of Indiana, Phill Kline of Kansas, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Mary-
land, Michael A. Cox of Michigan, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri,
Mike McGrath of Montana, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, W. A.
Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Henry D. Mc-
Master of South Carolina, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of
Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Jerry W. Kilgore of Virginia, and
Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming.
Shashank S. Upadhye, pro se, filed a brief as amicus curiae.

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618 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
and petitioner passed him. After petitioner passed him,
Nichols ran a check on petitioner’s license tags, which re-
vealed that the tags had been issued to a 1982 Chevy two-
door and not to a Lincoln Town Car, the model of car peti-
tioner was driving. Before Nichols had an opportunity to
pull him over, petitioner drove into a parking lot, parked,
and got out of the vehicle. Nichols saw petitioner leave his
vehicle as he pulled in behind him. He parked the patrol
car, accosted petitioner, and asked him for his driver’s li-
cense. He also told him that his license tags did not match
the vehicle that he was driving.
Petitioner appeared nervous. He began rambling and
licking his lips; he was sweating. Concerned for his safety,
Nichols asked petitioner if he had any narcotics or weapons
on him or in his vehicle. Petitioner said no. Nichols then
asked petitioner if he could pat him down, to which peti-
tioner agreed. Nichols felt a bulge in petitioner’s left front
pocket and again asked him if he had any illegal narcotics on
him. This time petitioner stated that he did, and he reached
into his pocket and pulled out two individual bags, one con-
taining three bags of marijuana and the other containing a
large amount of crack cocaine. Nichols handcuffed peti-
tioner, informed him that he was under arrest, and placed
him in the back seat of the patrol car. He then searched
petitioner’s vehicle and found a BryCo 9-millimeter handgun
under the driver’s seat.
A grand jury charged petitioner with possession with in-
tent to distribute cocaine base, 84 Stat. 1260, 21 U. S. C.
§ 841(a)(1), possession of a firearm after having been pre-
viously convicted of a crime punishable by a term of impris-
onment exceeding one year, 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(1), and pos-
session of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking
crime, § 924(c)(1). Petitioner sought to suppress, inter alia,
the firearm as the fruit of an unconstitutional search. After
a hearing, the District Court denied petitioner’s motion to
suppress, holding that the automobile search was valid under

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619 Cite as: 541 U. S. 615 (2004)
Opinion of the Court
New York v. Belton, supra, and alternatively that Nichols
could have conducted an inventory search of the automobile.
A jury convicted petitioner on all three counts; he was sen-
tenced to 180 months’ imprisonment and 8 years of super-
vised release.
Petitioner appealed, challenging only the District Court’s
denial of the suppression motion. He argued that Belton
was limited to situations where the officer initiated contact
with an arrestee while he was still an occupant of the car.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
affirmed. 325 F. 3d 189 (2003). It held that “the historical
rationales for the search incident to arrest doctrine—‘the
need to disarm the suspect in order to take him into custody’
and ‘the need to preserve evidence for later use at trial,’ ”
id., at 195 (quoting Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113, 116
(1998)), did not require Belton to be limited solely to situa-
tions in which suspects were still in their vehicles when ap-
proached by the police. Noting that petitioner conceded
that he was in “close proximity, both temporally and spa-
tially,” to his vehicle, the court concluded that the car was
within petitioner’s immediate control, and thus Nichols’
search was reasonable under Belton.1 325 F. 3d, at 196.
We granted certiorari, 540 U. S. 980 (2003), and now affirm.
In Belton, an officer overtook a speeding vehicle on the
New York Thruway and ordered its driver to pull over. 453
U. S., at 455. Suspecting that the occupants possessed mari-
juana, the officer directed them to get out of the car and
arrested them for unlawful possession. Id., at 454–455. He
searched them and then searched the passenger compart-
ment of the car. Id., at 455. We considered the constitu-
tionally permissible scope of a search in these circumstances
and sought to lay down a workable rule governing that
situation.
1 The Court of Appeals did not reach the District Court’s alternative
holding that Nichols could have conducted a lawful inventory search. 325
F. 3d, at 196.

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620 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
We first referred to Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752
(1969), a case where the arrestee was arrested in his home,
and we had described the scope of a search incident to a
lawful arrest as the person of the arrestee and the area im-
mediately surrounding him. 453 U. S., at 457 (citing Chimel,
supra, at 763). This rule was justified by the need to re-
move any weapon the arrestee might seek to use to resist
arrest or to escape, and the need to prevent the concealment
or destruction of evidence. 453 U. S., at 457. Although eas-
ily stated, the Chimel principle had proved difficult to apply
in specific cases. We pointed out that in United States v.
Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 (1973), a case dealing with the scope
of the search of the arrestee’s person, we had rejected a sug-
gestion that “ ‘there must be litigated in each case the issue
of whether or not there was present one of the reasons sup-
porting the authority’ ” to conduct such a search. 453 U. S.,
at 459 (quoting Robinson, supra, at 235). Similarly, because
“courts ha[d] found no workable definition of ‘the area within
the immediate control of the arrestee’ when that area argu-
ably include[d] the interior of an automobile and the arrestee
[wa]s its recent occupant,” 453 U. S., at 460, we sought to set
forth a clear rule for police officers and citizens alike. We
therefore held that “when a policeman has made a lawful
custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as
a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the pas-
senger compartment of that automobile.” Ibid. (footnote
omitted).
In so holding, we placed no reliance on the fact that the
officer in Belton ordered the occupants out of the vehicle, or
initiated contact with them while they remained within it.
Nor do we find such a factor persuasive in distinguishing the
current situation, as it bears no logical relationship to Bel-
ton’s rationale. There is simply no basis to conclude that
the span of the area generally within the arrestee’s immedi-
ate control is determined by whether the arrestee exited the

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Opinion of the Court
vehicle at the officer’s direction, or whether the officer initi-
ated contact with him while he remained in the car. We
recognized as much, albeit in dicta, in Michigan v. Long, 463
U. S. 1032 (1983), where officers observed a speeding car
swerve into a ditch. The driver exited and the officers met
him at the rear of his car. Although there was no indication
that the officers initiated contact with the driver while he
was still in the vehicle, we observed that “[i]t is clear . . .
that if the officers had arrested [respondent] . . . they could
have searched the passenger compartment under New York
v. Belton.” Id., at 1035–1036, and n. 1.
In all relevant aspects, the arrest of a suspect who is next
to a vehicle presents identical concerns regarding officer
safety and the destruction of evidence as the arrest of one
who is inside the vehicle. An officer may search a suspect’s
vehicle under Belton only if the suspect is arrested. See
Knowles, supra, at 117–118. A custodial arrest is fluid and
“[t]he danger to the police officer flows from the fact of the
arrest, and its attendant proximity, stress, and uncertainty,”
Robinson, supra, at 234–235, and n. 5 (emphasis added).
See Washington v. Chrisman, 455 U. S. 1, 7 (1982) (“Every
arrest must be presumed to present a risk of danger to the
arresting officer”). The stress is no less merely because the
arrestee exited his car before the officer initiated contact,
nor is an arrestee less likely to attempt to lunge for a weapon
or to destroy evidence if he is outside of, but still in control
of, the vehicle. In either case, the officer faces a highly vola-
tile situation. It would make little sense to apply two differ-
ent rules to what is, at bottom, the same situation.
In some circumstances it may be safer and more effective
for officers to conceal their presence from a suspect until he
has left his vehicle. Certainly that is a judgment officers
should be free to make. But under the strictures of peti-
tioner’s proposed “contact initiation” rule, officers who do so
would be unable to search the car’s passenger compartment

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622 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Opinion of the Court
in the event of a custodial arrest, potentially compromising
their safety and placing incriminating evidence at risk of con-
cealment or destruction. The Fourth Amendment does not
require such a gamble.
Petitioner argues, however, that Belton will fail to provide
a “bright-line” rule if it applies to more than vehicle “occu-
pants.” Brief for Petitioner 29–34. But Belton allows po-
lice to search the passenger compartment of a vehicle inci-
dent to a lawful custodial arrest of both “occupant[s]” and
“recent occupant[s].” 453 U. S., at 460. Indeed, the re-
spondent in Belton was not inside the car at the time of the
arrest and search; he was standing on the highway. In any
event, while an arrestee’s status as a “recent occupant” may
turn on his temporal or spatial relationship to the car at the
time of the arrest and search,2 it certainly does not turn on
whether he was inside or outside the car at the moment that
the officer first initiated contact with him.
To be sure, not all contraband in the passenger compart-
ment is likely to be readily accessible to a “recent occupant.”
It is unlikely in this case that petitioner could have reached
under the driver’s seat for his gun once he was outside of his
automobile. But the firearm and the passenger compart-
ment in general were no more inaccessible than were the
contraband and the passenger compartment in Belton. The
2 Petitioner argues that if we reject his proposed “contact initiation”
rule, we should limit the scope of Belton to “recent occupant[s]” who are
within “reaching distance” of the car. Brief for Petitioner 35–36. We
decline to address petitioner’s argument, however, as it is outside the
question on which we granted certiorari, see this Court’s Rule 14.1(a), and
was not addressed by the Court of Appeals, see Peralta v. Heights Medi-
cal Center, Inc., 485 U. S. 80, 86 (1988). We note that it is unlikely that
petitioner would even meet his own standard as he apparently conceded
in the Court of Appeals that he was in “close proximity, both temporally
and spatially,” to his vehicle when he was approached by Nichols. 325
F. 3d 189, 196 (CA4 2003).

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Opinion of the Court
need for a clear rule, readily understood by police officers
and not depending on differing estimates of what items were
or were not within reach of an arrestee at any particular
moment, justifies the sort of generalization which Belton
enunciated.3 Once an officer determines that there is proba-
ble cause to make an arrest, it is reasonable to allow officers
to ensure their safety and to preserve evidence by searching
the entire passenger compartment.
Rather than clarifying the constitutional limits of a Belton
search, petitioner’s “contact initiation” rule would obfuscate
them. Under petitioner’s proposed rule, an officer ap-
proaching a suspect who has just alighted from his vehicle
would have to determine whether he actually confronted or
signaled confrontation with the suspect while he remained
in the car, or whether the suspect exited his vehicle unaware
of, and for reasons unrelated to, the officer’s presence. This
determination would be inherently subjective and highly fact
specific, and would require precisely the sort of ad hoc deter-
minations on the part of officers in the field and reviewing
courts that Belton sought to avoid. Id., at 459–460. Expe-
rience has shown that such a rule is impracticable, and we
refuse to adopt it. So long as an arrestee is the sort of “re-
3 Justice Stevens contends that Belton’s bright-line rule “is not
needed for cases in which the arrestee is first accosted when he is a pedes-
trian, because Chimel [v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969),] itself provides
all the guidance that is necessary.” Post, at 636 (dissenting opinion).
Under Justice Stevens’ approach, however, even if the car itself was
within the arrestee’s reaching distance under Chimel, police officers and
courts would still have to determine whether a particular object within
the passenger compartment was also within an arrestee’s reaching dis-
tance under Chimel. This is exactly the type of unworkable and fact-
specific inquiry that Belton rejected by holding that the entire passenger
compartment may be searched when “ ‘the area within the immediate con-
trol of the arrestee’ . . . arguably includes the interior of an automobile
and the arrestee is its recent occupant.” 453 U. S., at 460.

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624 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
O’Connor, J., concurring in part
cent occupant” of a vehicle such as petitioner was here, offi-
cers may search that vehicle incident to the arrest.4
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice O’Connor, concurring in part.
I join all but footnote 4 of the Court’s opinion. Although
the opinion is a logical extension of the holding of New York
v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), I write separately to express
my dissatisfaction with the state of the law in this area. As
Justice Scalia forcefully argues, post, at 627–629 (opinion
concurring in judgment), lower court decisions seem now to
treat the ability to search a vehicle incident to the arrest of
a recent occupant as a police entitlement rather than as an
exception justified by the twin rationales of Chimel v. Cali-
fornia, 395 U. S. 752 (1969). That erosion is a direct conse-
quence of Belton’s shaky foundation. While the approach
4 Whatever the merits of Justice Scalia’s opinion concurring in the
judgment, this is the wrong case in which to address them. Petitioner
has never argued that Belton should be limited “to cases where it is rea-
sonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found
in the vehicle,” post, at 632, nor did any court below consider Justice
Scalia’s reasoning. See Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections v. Yeskey,
524 U. S. 206, 212–213 (1998) (“ ‘Where issues are neither raised before nor
considered by the Court of Appeals, this Court will not ordinarily consider
them’ ” (quoting Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 147, n. 2
(1970))). The question presented—“[w]hether the bright-line rule an-
nounced in New York v. Belton is confined to situations in which the police
initiate contact with the occupant of a vehicle while that person is in the
vehicle,” Pet. for Cert.—does not fairly encompass Justice Scalia’s anal-
ysis. See this Court’s Rule 14.1(a) (“Only the questions set out in the
petition, or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court”).
And the United States has never had an opportunity to respond to such
an approach. See Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 536 (1992). Under
these circumstances, it would be imprudent to overrule, for all intents and
purposes, our established constitutional precedent, which governs police
authority in a common occurrence such as automobile searches pursuant
to arrest, and we decline to do so at this time.

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Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
Justice Scalia proposes appears to be built on firmer
ground, I am reluctant to adopt it in the context of a case in
which neither the Government nor the petitioner has had a
chance to speak to its merit.
Justice Scalia, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins,
concurring in the judgment.
In Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 762–763 (1969), we
held that a search incident to arrest was justified only as a
means to find weapons the arrestee might use or evidence
he might conceal or destroy. We accordingly limited such
searches to the area within the suspect’s “ ‘immediate con-
trol’ ”—i. e., “the area into which an arrestee might reach in
order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m].” Id., at 763.
In New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454, 460 (1981), we set forth
a bright-line rule for arrests of automobile occupants, holding
that, because the vehicle’s entire passenger compartment is
“in fact generally, even if not inevitably,” within the arrest-
ee’s immediate control, a search of the whole compartment
is justified in every case.
When petitioner’s car was searched in this case, he was
neither in, nor anywhere near, the passenger compartment
of his vehicle. Rather, he was handcuffed and secured in
the back of the officer’s squad car. The risk that he would
nevertheless “grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m]” from his
car was remote in the extreme. The Court’s effort to apply
our current doctrine to this search stretches it beyond
its breaking point, and for that reason I cannot join the
Court’s opinion.
I
I see three reasons why the search in this case might have
been justified to protect officer safety or prevent conceal-
ment or destruction of evidence. None ultimately per-
suades me.
The first is that, despite being handcuffed and secured in
the back of a squad car, petitioner might have escaped and

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626 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
retrieved a weapon or evidence from his vehicle—a theory
that calls to mind Judge Goldberg’s reference to the mythical
arrestee “possessed of the skill of Houdini and the strength
of Hercules.” United States v. Frick, 490 F. 2d 666, 673
(CA5 1973) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in
part). The United States, endeavoring to ground this seem-
ingly speculative fear in reality, points to a total of seven
instances over the past 13 years in which state or federal
officers were attacked with weapons by handcuffed or for-
merly handcuffed arrestees. Brief for United States 38–39,
and n. 12. These instances do not, however, justify the
search authority claimed. Three involved arrestees who
retrieved weapons concealed on their own person. See
United States v. Sanders, 994 F. 2d 200, 210, n. 60 (CA5 1993)
(two instances); U. S. Dept. of Justice, Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation, Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Of-
ficers Killed and Assaulted 49 (2001). Three more involved
arrestees who seized a weapon from the arresting officer.
See Sanders, supra, at 210, n. 60 (two instances); U. S. Dept.
of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime
Reports: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 49
(1998). Authority to search the arrestee’s own person is be-
yond question; and of course no search could prevent seizure
of the officer’s gun. Only one of the seven instances in-
volved a handcuffed arrestee who escaped from a squad car
to retrieve a weapon from somewhere else: In Plakas v.
Drinski, 19 F. 3d 1143, 1144–1146 (CA7 1994), the suspect
jumped out of the squad car and ran through a forest to a
house, where (still in handcuffs) he struck an officer on the
wrist with a fireplace poker before ultimately being shot
dead.
Of course, the Government need not document specific in-
stances in order to justify measures that avoid obvious risks.
But the risk here is far from obvious, and in a context as
frequently recurring as roadside arrests, the Government’s
inability to come up with even a single example of a hand-
cuffed arrestee’s retrieval of arms or evidence from his vehi-

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Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
cle undermines its claims. The risk that a suspect hand-
cuffed in the back of a squad car might escape and recover a
weapon from his vehicle is surely no greater than the risk
that a suspect handcuffed in his residence might escape and
recover a weapon from the next room—a danger we held
insufficient to justify a search in Chimel, supra, at 763.
The second defense of the search in this case is that, since
the officer could have conducted the search at the time of
arrest (when the suspect was still near the car), he should
not be penalized for having taken the sensible precaution of
securing the suspect in the squad car first. As one Court of
Appeals put it: “ ‘[I]t does not make sense to prescribe a
constitutional test that is entirely at odds with safe and sen-
sible police procedures.’ ” United States v. Mitchell, 82
F. 3d 146, 152 (CA7 1996) (quoting United States v. Karlin,
852 F. 2d 968, 971 (CA7 1988)); see also United States v. Wes-
ley, 293 F. 3d 541, 548–549 (CADC 2002). The weakness of
this argument is that it assumes that, one way or another,
the search must take place. But conducting a Chimel search
is not the Government’s right; it is an exception—justified by
necessity—to a rule that would otherwise render the search
unlawful. If “sensible police procedures” require that sus-
pects be handcuffed and put in squad cars, then police should
handcuff suspects, put them in squad cars, and not conduct
the search. Indeed, if an officer leaves a suspect unre-
strained nearby just to manufacture authority to search, one
could argue that the search is unreasonable precisely because
the dangerous conditions justifying it existed only by virtue
of the officer’s failure to follow sensible procedures.
The third defense of the search is that, even though the
arrestee posed no risk here, Belton searches in general are
reasonable, and the benefits of a bright-line rule justify up-
holding that small minority of searches that, on their particu-
lar facts, are not reasonable. The validity of this argument
rests on the accuracy of Belton’s claim that the passenger
compartment is “in fact generally, even if not inevitably,”
within the suspect’s immediate control. 453 U. S., at 460.

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628 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
By the United States’ own admission, however, “[t]he prac-
tice of restraining an arrestee on the scene before searching
a car that he just occupied is so prevalent that holding that
Belton does not apply in that setting would . . . ‘largely ren-
der Belton a dead letter.’ ” Brief for United States 36–37
(quoting Wesley, supra, at 548). Reported cases involving
this precise factual scenario—a motorist handcuffed and se-
cured in the back of a squad car when the search takes
place—are legion. See, e. g., United States v. Doward, 41
F. 3d 789, 791 (CA1 1994); United States v. White, 871 F. 2d
41, 44 (CA6 1989); Mitchell, supra, at 152; United States v.
Snook, 88 F. 3d 605, 606 (CA8 1996); United States v. Mc-
Laughlin, 170 F. 3d 889, 890 (CA9 1999); United States v.
Humphrey, 208 F. 3d 1190, 1202 (CA10 2000); Wesley, supra,
at 544; see also 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 7.1(c),
pp. 448–449, n. 79 (3d ed. 1996 and Supp. 2004) (citing cases).
Some courts uphold such searches even when the squad car
carrying the handcuffed arrestee has already left the scene.
See, e. g., McLaughlin, supra, at 890–891 (upholding search
because only five minutes had elapsed since squad car left).
The popularity of the practice is not hard to fathom. If
Belton entitles an officer to search a vehicle upon arresting
the driver despite having taken measures that eliminate any
danger, what rational officer would not take those measures?
Cf. Moskovitz, A Rule in Search of a Reason: An Empirical
Reexamination of Chimel and Belton, 2002 Wis. L. Rev. 657,
665–666 (citing police training materials). If it was ever
true that the passenger compartment is “in fact generally,
even if not inevitably,” within the arrestee’s immediate con-
trol at the time of the search, 453 U. S., at 460, it certainly
is not true today. As one judge has put it: “[I]n our search
for clarity, we have now abandoned our constitutional moor-
ings and floated to a place where the law approves of purely
exploratory searches of vehicles during which officers with
no definite objective or reason for the search are allowed
to rummage around in a car to see what they might find.”

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629 Cite as: 541 U. S. 615 (2004)
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
McLaughlin, supra, at 894 (Trott, J., concurring). I agree
entirely with that assessment.
II
If Belton searches are justifiable, it is not because the ar-
restee might grab a weapon or evidentiary item from his car,
but simply because the car might contain evidence relevant
to the crime for which he was arrested. This more general
sort of evidence-gathering search is not without antecedent.
For example, in United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56
(1950), we upheld a search of the suspect’s place of business
after he was arrested there. We did not restrict the officers’
search authority to “the area into which [the] arrestee might
reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m],” Chi-
mel, 395 U. S., at 763, and we did not justify the search as a
means to prevent concealment or destruction of evidence.1
Rather, we relied on a more general interest in gathering
evidence relevant to the crime for which the suspect had
been arrested. See 339 U. S., at 60–64; see also Harris v.
United States, 331 U. S. 145, 151–152 (1947); Marron v.
United States, 275 U. S. 192, 199 (1927); Agnello v. United
States, 269 U. S. 20, 30 (1925); cf. Weeks v. United States, 232
U. S. 383, 392 (1914).
Numerous earlier authorities support this approach, refer-
ring to the general interest in gathering evidence related to
the crime of arrest with no mention of the more specific in-
terest in preventing its concealment or destruction. See
United States v. Wilson, 163 F. 338, 340, 343 (CC SDNY
1908); Smith v. Jerome, 47 Misc. 22, 23–24, 93 N. Y. S. 202,
202–203 (Sup. Ct. 1905); Thornton v. State, 117 Wis. 338, 346–
347, 93 N. W. 1107, 1110 (1903); Ex parte Hurn, 92 Ala. 102,
112, 9 So. 515, 519–520 (1891); Thatcher v. Weeks, 79 Me. 547,
1 We did characterize the entire office as under the defendant’s “immedi-
ate control,” 339 U. S., at 61, but we used the term in a broader sense
than the one it acquired in Chimel. Compare 339 U. S., at 61, with 395
U. S., at 763.

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630 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
548–549, 11 A. 599, 599–600 (1887); 1 F. Wharton, Criminal
Procedure § 97, pp. 136–137 (J. Kerr 10th ed. 1918); 1 J.
Bishop, Criminal Procedure § 211, p. 127 (2d ed. 1872);
cf. Spalding v. Preston, 21 Vt. 9, 15 (1848) (seizure author-
ity); Queen v. Frost, 9 Car. & P. 129, 131–134 (1839) (same);
King v. Kinsey, 7 Car. & P. 447 (1836) (same); King v. O’Don-
nell, 7 Car. & P. 138 (1835) (same); King v. Barnett, 3 Car.
& P. 600, 601 (1829) (same). Bishop’s 1872 articulation is
typical:
“The officer who arrests a man on a criminal charge
should consider the nature of the charge; and, if he finds
about the prisoner’s person, or otherwise in his posses-
sion, either goods or moneys which there is reason to
believe are connected with the supposed crime as its
fruits, or as the instruments with which it was com-
mitted, or as directly furnishing evidence relating to the
transaction, he may take the same, and hold them to be
disposed of as the court may direct.” Bishop, supra,
§ 211, at 127.
Only in the years leading up to Chimel did we start consist-
ently referring to the narrower interest in frustrating con-
cealment or destruction of evidence. See Sibron v. New
York, 392 U. S. 40, 67 (1968); Preston v. United States, 376
U. S. 364, 367 (1964).
There is nothing irrational about broader police authority
to search for evidence when and where the perpetrator of a
crime is lawfully arrested. The fact of prior lawful arrest
distinguishes the arrestee from society at large, and distin-
guishes a search for evidence of his crime from general rum-
maging. Moreover, it is not illogical to assume that evi-
dence of a crime is most likely to be found where the suspect
was apprehended.
Nevertheless, Chimel’s narrower focus on concealment or
destruction of evidence also has historical support. See
Holker v. Hennessey, 141 Mo. 527, 539–540, 42 S. W. 1090,

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631 Cite as: 541 U. S. 615 (2004)
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
1093 (1897); Dillon v. O’Brien, 16 Cox C. C. 245, 250 (Exch.
Div. Ir. 1887); Reifsnyder v. Lee, 44 Iowa 101, 103 (1876);
S. Welch, Essay on the Office of Constable 17 (1758).2 And
some of the authorities supporting the broader rule address
only searches of the arrestee’s person, as to which Chimel’s
limitation might fairly be implicit. Moreover, carried to its
logical end, the broader rule is hard to reconcile with the
influential case of Entick v. Carrington, 19 How. St. Tr. 1029,
1031, 1063–1074 (C. P. 1765) (disapproving search of plaintiff ’s
private papers under general warrant, despite arrest). But
cf. Dillon, supra, at 250–251 (distinguishing Entick); War-
den, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 303–304
(1967).
In short, both Rabinowitz and Chimel are plausible ac-
counts of what the Constitution requires, and neither is so
persuasive as to justify departing from settled law. But if
we are going to continue to allow Belton searches on stare
decisis grounds, we should at least be honest about why we
are doing so. Belton cannot reasonably be explained as a
mere application of Chimel. Rather, it is a return to the
broader sort of search incident to arrest that we allowed be-
fore Chimel—limited, of course, to searches of motor vehi-
cles, a category of “effects” which give rise to a reduced ex-
pectation of privacy, see Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U. S.
295, 303 (1999), and heightened law enforcement needs,
see id., at 304; Rabinowitz, supra, at 73 (Frankfurter, J.,
dissenting).
Recasting Belton in these terms would have at least one
important practical consequence. In United States v. Rob-
inson, 414 U. S. 218, 235 (1973), we held that authority to
search an arrestee’s person does not depend on the actual
2 Chimel’s officer-safety rationale has its own pedigree. See Thornton
v. State, 117 Wis. 338, 346–347, 93 N. W. 1107, 1110 (1903); Ex parte Hurn,
92 Ala. 102, 112, 9 So. 515, 519–520 (1891); Closson v. Morrison, 47 N. H.
482, 484–485 (1867); Leigh v. Cole, 6 Cox C. C. 329, 332 (Oxford Cir. 1853);
Welch, Essay on the Office of Constable, at 17.

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632 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
presence of one of Chimel’s two rationales in the particular
case; rather, the fact of arrest alone justifies the search.
That holding stands in contrast to Rabinowitz, where we did
not treat the fact of arrest alone as sufficient, but upheld the
search only after noting that it was “not general or explor-
atory for whatever might be turned up” but reflected a rea-
sonable belief that evidence would be found. 339 U. S., at
62–63; see also Smith, 47 Misc., at 24, 93 N. Y. S., at 203
(“This right and duty of search and seizure extend, however,
only to articles which furnish evidence against the accused”);
cf. Barnett, supra, at 601 (seizure authority limited to rele-
vant evidence); Bishop, supra, § 211, at 127 (officer should
“consider the nature of the charge” before searching). The
two different rules make sense: When officer safety or immi-
nent evidence concealment or destruction is at issue, officers
should not have to make fine judgments in the heat of the
moment. But in the context of a general evidence-gathering
search, the state interests that might justify any over-
breadth are far less compelling. A motorist may be ar-
rested for a wide variety of offenses; in many cases, there is
no reasonable basis to believe relevant evidence might be
found in the car. See Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U. S. 318,
323–324 (2001); cf. Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113, 118 (1998).
I would therefore limit Belton searches to cases where it is
reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest
might be found in the vehicle.
In this case, as in Belton, petitioner was lawfully arrested
for a drug offense. It was reasonable for Officer Nichols to
believe that further contraband or similar evidence relevant
to the crime for which he had been arrested might be found
in the vehicle from which he had just alighted and which was
still within his vicinity at the time of arrest. I would affirm
the decision below on that ground.3
3 The Court asserts that my opinion goes beyond the scope of the ques-
tion presented, citing this Court’s Rule 14.1(a). Ante, at 624, n. 4. That
Rule, however, does not constrain our authority to reach issues presented

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633 Cite as: 541 U. S. 615 (2004)
Stevens, J., dissenting
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Souter joins,
dissenting.
Prior to our decision in New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454
(1981), there was a widespread conflict among both federal
and state courts over the question “whether, in the course of
a search incident to the lawful custodial arrest of the occu-
pants of an automobile, police may search inside the automo-
bile after the arrestees are no longer in it.” Id., at 459. In
answering that question, the Court expanded the authority
of the police in two important respects. It allowed the po-
lice to conduct a broader search than our decision in Chimel
v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 762–763 (1969), would have per-
mitted,1 and it authorized them to open closed containers
that might be found in the vehicle’s passenger compartment.2
by the case, see Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U. S. 252, 259, n. 5 (1980); Tennessee
Student Assistance Corporation v. Hood, ante, at 443, and in any event
does not apply when the issue is necessary to an intelligent resolution of
the question presented, see Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U. S. 33, 38 (1996).
1 The Court gleaned from the case law “the generalization that articles
inside the relatively narrow compass of the passenger compartment of an
automobile are in fact generally, even if not inevitably, within ‘the area
into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or eviden-
tiary ite[m].’ ” Belton, 453 U. S., at 460 (quoting Chimel, 395 U. S., at 763).
“In order to establish the workable rule this category of cases require[d],”
the Court then read “Chimel’s definition of the limits of the area that
may be searched in light of that generalization.” 453 U. S., at 460. Thus,
Belton held “that when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of
the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of
that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile.” Ibid.
(footnote omitted).
2 Because police lawfully may search the passenger compartment of the
automobile, the Court reasoned, it followed “that the police may also ex-
amine the contents of any containers found within the passenger compart-
ment, for if the passenger compartment is within reach of the arrestee, so
also will containers in it be within his reach. . . . Such a container may, of
course, be searched whether it is open or closed, since the justification for
the search is not that the arrestee has no privacy interest in the container,
but that the lawful custodial arrest justifies the infringement of any pri-
vacy interest the arrestee may have.” Id., at 460–461 (footnote omitted).

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634 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Stevens, J., dissenting
Belton’s basic rationale for both expansions rested not on
a concern for officer safety, but rather on an overriding de-
sire to hew “to a straightforward rule, easily applied, and
predictably enforced.” 453 U. S., at 459.3 When the case
was decided, I was persuaded that the important interest in
clarity and certainty adequately justified the modest exten-
sion of the Chimel rule to permit an officer to examine the
interior of a car pursuant to an arrest for a traffic violation.
But I took a different view with respect to the search of
containers within the car absent probable cause, because I
thought “it palpably unreasonable to require the driver of
a car to open his briefcase or his luggage for inspection by
the officer.” Robbins v. California, 453 U. S. 420, 451–452
(1981) (dissenting opinion).4 I remain convinced that this
aspect of the Belton opinion was both unnecessary and erro-
neous. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that view,
however, the interest in certainty that supports Belton’s
bright-line rule surely does not justify an expansion of the
rule that only blurs those clear lines. Neither the rule in
Chimel nor Belton’s modification of that rule would have al-
lowed the search of petitioner’s car.
A fair reading of the Belton opinion itself, and of the con-
flicting cases that gave rise to our grant of certiorari, makes
3 The Court extolled the virtues of “ ‘[a] single, familiar standard . . . to
guide police officers, who have only limited time and expertise to reflect
on and balance the social and individual interests involved in the specific
circumstances they confront.’ ” Id., at 458 (quoting Dunaway v. New
York, 442 U. S. 200, 213–214 (1979)).
4 In Robbins, a companion case to Belton, the Court held that police
officers cannot open closed, opaque containers found in the trunk of a car
during a lawful but warrantless search. 453 U. S., at 428 (plurality opin-
ion). Because the officer in Robbins had probable cause to believe the car
contained marijuana, I would have applied the automobile exception to
sustain the search. Id., at 452 (dissenting opinion). But I expressed con-
cern that authorizing police officers to search containers in the passenger
compartment without probable cause would “provide the constitutional
predicate for broader vehicle searches than any neutral magistrate could
authorize by issuing a warrant.” Ibid.

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635 Cite as: 541 U. S. 615 (2004)
Stevens, J., dissenting
clear that we were not concerned with the situation pre-
sented in this case. The Court in Belton noted that the
lower courts had discovered Chimel’s reaching-distance prin-
ciple difficult to apply in the context of automobile searches
incident to arrest, and that “no straightforward rule ha[d]
emerged from the litigated cases.” 453 U. S., at 458–459.
None of the cases cited by the Court to demonstrate the
disarray in the lower courts involved a pedestrian who was
in the vicinity, but outside the reaching distance, of his or
her car.5 Nor did any of the decisions cited in the petition
for a writ of certiorari 6 present such a case.7 Thus, Belton
was demonstrably concerned only with the narrow but com-
mon circumstance of a search occasioned by the arrest of a
suspect who was seated in or driving an automobile at the
time the law enforcement official approached. Normally,
after such an arrest has occurred, the officer’s safety is no
5 See United States v. Benson, 631 F. 2d 1336, 1337 (CA8 1980) (defend-
ant arrested “while sitting in a car”); United States v. Sanders, 631 F. 2d
1309, 1311–1312 (CA8 1980) (occupants in car at time officers approached);
United States v. Rigales, 630 F. 2d 364, 365 (CA5 1980) (defendant appre-
hended during traffic stop); United States v. Dixon, 558 F. 2d 919, 922
(CA9 1977) (“[T]he agents placed appellant under arrest while he was still
in his car”); United States v. Frick, 490 F. 2d 666, 668, 669 (CA5 1973)
(defendant arrested “at his car in the parking lot adjacent to his apartment
building”; at time of arrest, attache case in question was lying on back
seat of car “approximately two feet from the defendant” and “readily ac-
cessible” to him); Hinkel v. Anchorage, 618 P. 2d 1069 (Alaska 1980) (de-
fendant arrested while in car immediately following collision); Ulesky v.
State, 379 So. 2d 121, 123 (Fla. App. 1979) (defendant arrested while in car
during traffic stop).
6 Pet. for Cert. in New York v. Belton, O. T. 1980, No. 80–328, p. 7.
7 See United States v. Agostino, 608 F. 2d 1035, 1036 (CA5 1979) (suspect
in car when notified of police presence); United States v. Neumann, 585
F. 2d 355, 356 (CA8 1978) (defendant stopped by police while in car);
United States v. Foster, 584 F. 2d 997, 999–1000 (CADC 1978) (suspects
seated in parked car when approached by officer); State v. Hunter, 299
N. C. 29, 33, 261 S. E. 2d 189, 192 (1980) (defendant pulled over and ar-
rested while in car); State v. Wilkens, 364 So. 2d 934, 936 (La. 1978) (de-
fendant arrested in automobile).

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636 THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
Stevens, J., dissenting
longer in jeopardy, but he must decide what, if any, search for
incriminating evidence he should conduct. Belton provided
previously unavailable and therefore necessary guidance for
that category of cases.
The bright-line rule crafted in Belton is not needed for
cases in which the arrestee is first accosted when he is a
pedestrian, because Chimel itself provides all the guidance
that is necessary. The only genuine justification for extend-
ing Belton to cover such circumstances is the interest in un-
covering potentially valuable evidence. In my opinion, that
goal must give way to the citizen’s constitutionally protected
interest in privacy when there is already in place a well-
defined rule limiting the permissible scope of a search of an
arrested pedestrian. The Chimel rule should provide the
same protection to a “recent occupant” of a vehicle as to a
recent occupant of a house.
Unwilling to confine the Belton rule to the narrow class of
cases it was designed to address, the Court extends Belton’s
reach without supplying any guidance for the future applica-
tion of its swollen rule. We are told that officers may search
a vehicle incident to arrest “[s]o long as [the] arrestee is the
sort of ‘recent occupant’ of a vehicle such as petitioner was
here.” Ante, at 623–624. But we are not told how recent
is recent, or how close is close, perhaps because in this case
“the record is not clear.” 325 F. 3d 189, 196 (CA4 2003). As
the Court cautioned in Belton itself, “[w]hen a person cannot
know how a court will apply a settled principle to a recurring
factual situation, that person cannot know the scope of his
constitutional protection, nor can a policeman know the scope
of his authority.” 453 U. S., at 459–460. Without some lim-
iting principle, I fear that today’s decision will contribute to
“a massive broadening of the automobile exception,” Rob-
bins, 453 U. S., at 452 (Stevens, J., dissenting), when officers
have probable cause to arrest an individual but not to
search his car.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.