Is opening the front door to get identification information about the driver the same as reaching into a car for the limited purpose of viewing the VIN, as held in New York v. Class (1986)?

Question

Sergeant Castleberry alone on patrol at 11:45 P.M., came upon a sedan and a truck stopped in a pullout in a desolate and frequent crime area, next to each other with their engines running. He approached the sedan's driver's side window. A fifteen-year-old female occupied the driver's seat. She said the car's owner was in the back seat. Through fogged-up windows, the Sergeant saw two people in the back seat. He opened the rear driver's side door. The car's owner and driver, Angie Brake, identified herself. The Sergeant told Brake that he was concerned for the well-being of a young girl far away from home late at night in a high-crime area. Castleberry asked Brake for identification. She replied that her identification was in her purse in the front seat of the car. Brake offered to retrieve it. Sergeant Castleberry instructed Brake not to, and instead, he walked around the rear of the vehicle and opened the front passenger side door. While reaching for a purse on the front passenger seat, he noticed a small white bindle resting on the front seat next to the purse that contained cocaine. To that point Sergeant Castleberry paid no attention to the truck. He then investigated the occupants of the truck and ultimately arrested Brake. % Did Sgt. Castleberry violate Brake's Fourth Amendment rights by opening the front car door without consent?
What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Yes. No — The Utah Supreme Court disapproved the reasoning of Class.

The Court of Appeals upheld the auto search on the grounds of protecting the officer's safety. It reasoned that entering the car to get the passenger's identification was essentially the same as the situation in New York v. Class (1986) in which an officer reached into a car to uncover the VIN. The Utah Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and held the search to be illegal. There are two approaches to analyzing a warrantless auto search not based on probable cause that there is contraband in the car: (1) the "weapons search" approach and (2) the Class approach. Under the weapons search approach and officer may enter a car where the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that there is a weapon in the car that may pose a threat to his or her safety. Reasonable suspicion may be triggered by the officer seeing a bulge that appears to be a weapon, or by the nature of the crime being investigated, such as a murder or robbery. But for other types of crimes, such as trafficking in small quantities of narcotics, possession of marijuana, underage drinking, driving under the influence and lesser traffic offenses, minor assault without weapons, or vagrancy, there must be particular facts which lead the officer to believe that a suspect is armed. The weapons approach properly balances the individual's privacy interests in a car with the officer's need for safety. The approach taken by Class subverts workable principles found in Utah law which preserve the integrity of the interior of an automobile against unreasonable searches while recognizing the dangers to law enforcement officers associated with traffic stops. In Class, the officer found the gun only after entering the car to view the VIN. The Supreme Court engaged in post-hoc rationalization to uphold the seizure of the gun. Class relied on a number of reasons that to some extent confusing: the "reasonableness of the intrusion was measured against the expectation of privacy afforded the target of the intrusion, the degree to which the intrusion was focused on and limited to its target, and a generalized concern for police officer safety." Not only is this a more complex rule than the weapons approach, but it could create a rule that allows police to always search stopped automobiles. In this case the Sergeant appeared to have no sense of threat to his safety because he did not inquire of the occupants of the truck before opening the car's door. The generalized danger of traffic stops does not authorize police to search all cars, but only those where there is a reasonable suspicion of threats to safety.