The Police Don't Need a Warrant to Search Your Car 👀

追加: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Therefore, they can lawfully be inside the car and they can lawfully access everything inside it. Last week, we talked about the plain [music] view doctrine, a seizure doctrine which says that if an officer is somewhere he or she can legally be and they [music] see an item which they have probable cause to believe is contraband given its readily apparent nature as such and the officer has lawful access to that item, the officer can seize it. Our next [music] exception is a hybrid of the vehicle search and the plain view doctrine >> [music] >> and it's called an inventory search.

[00:00:30]This is when the police conduct a warrantless search of your car because they have lawfully impounded it and they have a standardized procedure and policy which [music] allows them to do so. This is an administrative search which means it is a suspicionless search. No probable cause required. The thought is that when the police take control over your property, even if it's temporary control [music] and it's not being used as evidence, they want to make sure that you're protected and that they're protected so they go through the vehicle and they document the items that are inside. [music] But here's the problem. While the police have to have a standardized procedure that every officer in that department has to follow, [music] each department can make up their own procedure which now means we are dealing with a limitless searches that the Constitution was specifically designed to prohibit.

[00:01:12]My name is Shelly Behan and this is Fourth Amendment Friday.

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