HARVARD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 118:248 majority instead introduced further uncertainty into an already muddy test. B. CriminalLaw and Procedure Fourth Amendment Vehicular Searches. The Fourth Amendment generally requires law enforcement officers to obtain a warrant before conducting a search or seizure.' Nonetheless, the Supreme Court has created many exceptions to the warrant requirement. In Chimel v. California,2 the Court permitted a warrantless search of an arrestee and the immediate area surrounding him, but denied officers the right to search the entire home incident to the arrest.3 In New York v. Belton,4 the Court extended Chimel to create a bright-line rule enabling officers to search the entire passenger compartment of a car following the arrest of its occupant.5 Last Term, in Thornton v. United States,6 the Court expanded Belton's rule to allow officers who initiate contact with an arrestee after he exits a vehicle to search the automobile. 7 The Court's decision in Thornton failed to address the unsound bases of Chimel and Belton and created new ambiguities for lower courts and law enforcement officers. On July 21, 2001, Officer Deion Nichols was on patrol in an unmarked police car when he noticed a Lincoln Town Car driving with license plates registered to another car.8 Before Nichols could pull the vehicle over, it stopped in a parking lot and the driver, Marcus Thornton, exited. 9 Officer Nichols stopped his car and confronted Thornton, I. sion to send legislation back to the legislature. In addition, such a ruling would not have left individuals bereft of federal recourse against discrimination. See supra note 6. 1 See, e.g., Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 356-57 (1967). 2 395 U.S. 752 (1969). 3 See id. at 762-63. The Court later allowed officers to conduct a "protective sweep" of a home if they had a "reasonable belief' supported by "specific and articulable facts" that another, potentially dangerous person was on the premises. Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 327 (1990) (quoting Michigan v, Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1049-50 (1983) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. I, 21 (1968)) (internal quotation mark omitted)) (internal quotation mark omitted). The Court also determined that a full search of a person incident to a lawful custodial arrest is not only an exception to the warrant requirement, but also is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235 (1973). Accordingly, such a search is always proper, regardless of the specific facts of a case. Id. 4 453 U.S. 454 (981). 5 Id. at 46o-61. Belton enabled officers to search closed containers in the passenger compartment because such containers generally will be within an arrestee's reach and may include a weapon or destructible evidentiary item. Id. 6 124 S. Ct. 2127 (2004). 7 Id. at 2 132. 8 United States v. Thornton, 325 F.3 d 189, 190 (4 th Cir. 2003). Officer Nichols ran a check on the license plates after he became suspicious because the car had slowed down, allegedly to avoid driving next to him. Id. 9 Id. 2004] THE SUPREME COURT - LEADING CASES who relinquished crack cocaine and marijuana from his pocket.10 Officer Nichols arrested Thornton and secured him in the back of the patrol car.1- Nichols then searched Thornton's vehicle and found a .9millimeter handgun under the driver's seat.12 Thornton was charged in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia with three counts of federal narcotics and firearms offenses.' 3 He unsuccessfully moved to suppress the firearm as the fruit of an unconsti5 tutional search 14 and was convicted on all counts.' On appeal, Thornton challenged the district court's refusal to suppress the firearm,' 6 arguing that under Belton, an officer may conduct a search of an automobile incident to arrest only if the officer initiates contact with the arrestee while he is still in the car.17 A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit 8 unanimously affirmed the district court's refusal to suppress the evidence. 19 The Fourth Circuit noted that the Supreme Court had previously indicated in dicta that Belton applied in situations similar to Thornton's. 2 0 Additionally, the court contended 10 Id. at 191. Thornton allegedly "appeared nervous" and told Nichols that someone had given him the car. Id. For his own safety, Officer Nichols asked Thornton whether he had any narcotics or weapons on him or in the car. Id. Thornton said no and allowed Nichols to pat him down. Id. Officer Nichols felt a bulge in Thornton's front left pocket; when he again asked Thornton whether he had any narcotics, Thornton produced two bags containing the crack and the marijuana. Id. 11 Id. 12 Id. 13 Id. Thornton was charged with possession of a firearm after having been previously convicted of a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(I), possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(i), and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(I). Id. 14 Thornton, 124 S.Ct. at 2129. The district court held that Nichols lawfully searched Thornton's vehicle incident to his arrest and, alternatively, that Nichols could have lawfully conducted an inventory search of the vehicle. Thornton, 325 F.3 d at 191. 15 Thornton, 325 F.3 d at 191. Thornton was sentenced to 18o months of imprisonment and eight years of supervised release. Id. 16 Id. Thornton did not appeal the district court's denial of a motion to suppress the narcotics found on him or its denial of a motion to suppress a statement that he made to Officer Nichols in the police car. Id. 17 Id. at 191-92. 18 The opinion was written by Judge Motz, who was joined by Judges Widener and Williams. 19 Thornton, 325 F 3d at 193-94. Federal and state courts were split on whether Belton's rule applied to people in Thornton's situation. Compare United States v. Hudgins, 52 F.3 d 115, 119 (6th Cir. 1995) (finding search unconstitutional), United States v. Fafowora, 865 F.2d 360, 362 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (same), and State v. Stehman, 783 N.E.2d i, 6 (Ill. 2002) (same), cited in Thornton, 325 F.3 d at 193-94, with United States v. Sholola, 124 F.3 d 803, 817 (7th Cir. 1997) (finding search constitutional), United States v. Snook, 88 F. 3d 605, 6o6 (8th Cir. 1996) (same), United States v. Franco, 981 F.2d 470, 473 (ioth Cir. 1992) (same), and State v. Wanzek, 598 N.W.2d 811, 815 (N.D. 1999) (same), cited in Thornton, 325 F.3 d at 194. 20 Thornton, 325 F. 3d at 194-95 (discussing a case in which officers confronted a former occupant of a vehicle and the Supreme Court, applying Belton, said that "[iut is clear, and the respondent concedes, that if the officers had arrested [the defendant,] . .. they could have searched the HARVARD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 118:248 that the rationales behind allowing a search of a vehicle incident to an arrest - the interests in protecting officer safety and in preventing the destruction of evidence - still apply when officers initiate contact with a person after he has exited a vehicle." The Supreme Court affirmed. Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Rehnquist 22 held that an officer can search an automobile incident to arrest even if the initial confrontation occurs after the arrestee has exited the vehicle. 2 3 Describing the risks inherent to an arrest environment, the Court contended that "the arrest of a suspect who is next to a vehicle presents identical concerns regarding officer safety and the 24 destruction of evidence as the arrest of one who is inside the vehicle." The Court also asserted that a rule that rewards officers for initiating contact while a suspect is still in a vehicle may require officers to take a "gamble" with their safety that the Fourth Amendment does not require.2 5 The Court finally noted that the respondent in Belton had not been inside the car at the time of the arrest and search 26 and, therefore, that "Belton allow[ed] police to search the passenger compartment of a vehicle incident to a lawful custodial arrest of both 'occu27 pants' and 'recent occupants.' Justice Scalia concurred in the judgment,28 but noted that "[t]he Court's effort to apply our current doctrine to this search stretches it beyond its breaking point. '29 Justice Scalia considered numerous arguments in support of the position that the search in Thornton might have protected officer safety or prevented the destruction of evidence, passenger compartment." (first alteration and omission in original) (quoting Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1035 n.i (1983)) (internal quotation mark omitted)). 21 Id. at 195-96. The Fourth Circuit acknowledged that "[tihe Belton rule cannot be stretched so as to render it limitless by permitting officers to search any vehicle from which an arrestee has emerged," but held that such concerns were not implicated here because "Thornton concede[d at trial] that he was in close proximity to his vehicle when Officer Nichols approached him." Id. at 196. 22 Chief Justice Rehnquist was joined in full by Justices Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer. Jus- tice O'Connor concurred in part, joining the majority opinion in its entirety except as to footnote 4. In footnote 4, Chief Justice Rehnquist contended that Justice Scalia's proposed resolution of the case, as described in his concurrence in the judgment, was improper because it went beyond the issues raised on appeal. Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2132 n.4. 23 Id. at 2130. 24 Id. at 2131. 25 Id. ("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."). 26 Id.;see also id. at 2132 (noting further that "the firearm and the passenger compartment [in Thornton] were no more inaccessible than were the contraband and the passenger compartment in Belton"). 27 Id. at 2131 (quoting New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 460 (198o)). 28 Justice Scalia was joined by Justice Ginsburg. 29 Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2133 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). 2004] THE SUPREME COURT - LEADING CASES but found each one unpersuasive. 30 Responding to an argument that the benefits of Belton's bright-line rule outweigh the rule's potential overinclusiveness, Justice Scalia argued that Belton's rule rests on a weak rationale because most Belton searches occur after the arrestee is already secured in a police car. 3' Justice Scalia therefore contended that Belton searches can only be justified on the ground that the car might contain evidence relevant to the arrest. 32 He concluded that Belton "is a return to the broader sort of search incident to arrest that we allowed before Chimel - limited, of course, to searches of motor vehicles, a category of 'effects' which give rise to a reduced expectation of privacy. ' 33 Justice Scalia proposed "limit[ing] Belton searches to cases where it is reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime '34 of arrest might be found in the vehicle. Justice Stevens dissented. 35 He argued that "Belton's basic rationale ... rested not on a concern for officer safety, but rather on an overriding desire to hew 'to a straightforward rule, easily applied, and predictably enforced."'' 36 According to Justice Stevens, Belton was adopted because lower courts had difficulty dealing with "the narrow but common circumstance of a search occasioned by the arrest of a suspect who was seated in or driving an automobile at the time [a] law enforcement official approached. '37 Accordingly, Justice Stevens argued that Belton was not intended to extend to Thornton's situation, noting that "Chimel itself provide[d] all the guidance that is neces30 Id. at 2134. One argument was that "despite being handcuffed and secured in the back of a squad car, [Thornton] might have escaped and retrieved a weapon or evidence from his vehicle." Id. Justice Scalia countered this notion by observing that this type of event almost never occurred in practice. Id. A second argument was 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." Id. Justice Scalia responded that "[t]he weakness of this argument is that it assumes that, one way or another, the search must take place." Id. He added: "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." Id. 31 Id. 32 See id. at 2135. Justice Scalia wrote that "[t]he fact of prior lawful arrest distinguishes the arrestee from society at large, and distinguishes a search for evidence of his crime from general rummaging." Id. at 2136 (emphasis omitted). He further asserted that many cases prior to Chimel had supported warrantless searches for gathering evidence related to a crime for which a person was arrested. See, e.g., United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 60-64 (950); United States v. Wilson, 163 F. 338, 340, 343 (C.C.S.D.N.Y. 19o8), cited in Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2 13536 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). 33 Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2137 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). 34 Id.; see also id. ("A motorist may be arrested for a wide variety of offenses; in many cases, there is no reasonable basis to believe relevant evidence might be found in the car."). 35 Justice Stevens was joined by Justice Souter. 36 Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2138 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (quoting New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. a98i)). 454, 37 459 Id. at 2 139. HARVARD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 1 18:2 48 sary."'38 Further, he feared that the majority's ruling would permit vehicle searches in situations in which probable39 cause existed for an arrest but not for a freestanding vehicle search. Thornton led the search incident to arrest doctrine further astray from its purported justifications of protecting officer safety and preventing the destruction of evidence. Although the Thornton majority expanded Belton in an attempt to provide officers with a clear, brightline rule, it failed to acknowledge that Belton's rationale is inapposite for defendants in Thornton's situation. The majority instead created a muddy standard: now officers and courts will need to perform a caseby-case analysis to determine whether a person is temporally and spatially close enough to being a vehicle occupant to justify a Belton search. Additionally, Thornton continued the logically incoherent trend started by Chimel and Belton of allowing warrantless searches even after an arrestee has been secured and no longer presents a threat. In Chimel, the Court limited a warrantless search incident to arrest to the area immediately surrounding the arrestee. 40 In Belton, the Court adapted the Chimel test to create a spatial bright-line rule that allowed police to search the entire passenger compartment of a vehicle incident to the arrest of an occupant. 4 1 The Court created this inclusive rule because "courts [had] found no workable definition of 'the area within the immediate control of the arrestee"' in the automobile context. 42 Thus, the Belton rule was intended to clarify for officers the 43 area they could search that was conceivably within a suspect's reach. Belton's rationale, however, does not support expanding its rule to a defendant in Thornton's situation. Once a suspect has exited a vehicle and the police have arrested and secured him, he has no practical ability to obtain a weapon or evidence from inside the vehicle. 44 Accordingly, the uncertainty as to the precise reach of a vehicle occupant that might have existed in Belton was not present in Thornton. Because there is no question that the interior of the car is not within reaching distance of an arrestee such as Thornton, a recent occupant 38 Id. at 2140. Justice Stevens added that courts would have trouble determining "how recent is recent, or how close is close" when deciding whether Belton applies in other cases. Id. 39 See id. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762-63 (1969). 41 See New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 46o-61 (i98i). 40 42 Id. at 460. 43 See id. at 459-60. o 44 See supra note 3 . The disparity between this application of Belton's bright-line rule and its purported rationale was so severe that Justice Scalia refused to join the Thornton majority, even though he usually prefers rules to standards. See generally Antonin Scalia, The Rule of Law as a Law of Rules, 56 U. CHI. L. REV. 1175 (1989) (discussing the advantages of establishing rules). 2004] THE SUPREME COURT - LEADING CASES of a vehicle is no different from an ordinary Chimel arrestee. 45 Thus, the Thornton Court simply should have applied Chimel rather than expanding Belton's bright-line rule and permitting a car search. By refusing to apply Chimel directly, the Thornton Court created greater confusion for officers and lower courts, who must now determine at what point the Belton "recent occupant" rule gives way to the general Chimel standard. Although police officers would have to make some fact-specific determinations when applying Chimel to former occupants of vehicles, these inquiries still would be relatively straightforward: the officers would treat such individuals like they treat other people they arrest on the street. Instead, the Court confused its jurisprudence by holding that Belton, and not Chimel, applies to some former vehicle occupants. Thornton forces officers and courts to assess the temporal and spatial proximity of a person to a vehicle in order to determine whether the person is "close enough" to the vehicle to justify a search of the passenger compartment. 46 Such a test is precisely the type of "inherently subjective and highly fact specific" 47 inquiry the 48 Court sought to avoid. More troublesome, by expanding Belton's rule so that it applies to recent occupants of vehicles, the Court allowed the search incident to arrest doctrine to drift further away from its initial purpose as a variant of the "exigent circumstances" exception. In Chimel, the Court justified searching the area within reaching distance of an arrestee on the ground that this practice could protect officer safety and prevent the destruction of evidence. 49 As a result, such searches were supposed to 45 Justice Stevens advocated this approach in his dissent, arguing that "[t]he Chimel rule should provide the same protection to a 'recent occupant' of a vehicle as to a recent occupant of a house." Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2140 (Stevens, J., dissenting). The majority responded to this argument: Under Justice Stevens' approach . . . 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 distance under Chimel. This is exactly the type of unworkable and fact-specific inquiry that Belton rejected .... Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2132 n.3. The majority's argument, however, assumes that a secured arrestee outside a vehicle can reach objects inside the vehicle. As Justice Scalia noted, such a situation almost never occurs in practice. See supra note 30. In the rare instance that a secured arrestee could reach objects inside the vehicle, Chimel would permit the search of the vehicle incident to the arrest. 46 See supra note 38. 47 See Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2132. 48 As Justice Stevens observed in his dissent, "the Court extends Belton's reach without supplying any guidance for the future application of its swollen rule." Id. at 2140 (Stevens, J., dissenting); see also Albert W. Alschuler, Bright Line Fever and the Fourth Amendment, 45 U. PITT. L. REV. 227, 231 (1984) ("Not only do categorical fourth amendment rules often lead to substantial injustice; in addition, their artificiality commonly makes them difficult, not easy, to apply."). 49 See Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 762-63 (1969). HARVARD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 118:248 be "substantially contemporaneous" with an arrest. s ° Nonetheless, courts regularly uphold searches that take place after an arrestee has been secured away from the arrest site.s This trend continued after Belton, as police officers often search a vehicle even after its previous occupants have been secured away from it.52 Thus, even before Thornton, courts were upholding searches incident to arrest that occurred after an arrestee had already been secured, such that exigent circumstances could.not justify the search. Thornton has exposed and expanded on this fundamental flaw in the Court's jurisprudence. Belton allows an officer to search a vehicle after a former occupant has been arrested and taken away from the scene;5 3 Thornton allows such a search to occur even if the occupant was never in the vehicle during the confrontation with the officer. As Justice Scalia lamented, quoting Judge Trott of the Ninth Circuit: "[I]n our search for clarity, we have now abandoned our constitutional moorings 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 '5 4 what they might find." Thornton made apparent what has been true since Chimel: exigent circumstances cannot serve as a justification for a search incident to arrest if the search occurs after an arrestee has already been secured. The Thornton Court could have reconciled the search incident to arrest doctrine with its justification in a number of principled ways. 50 As Justice Brennan noted in his Belton dissent, the Chimel doctrine "places a temporal and a spatial limitation on searches incident to arrest, excusing compliance with the warrant requirement only when the search "'is substantially contemporaneous with the arrest and is confined to the immediate vicinity of the arrest.""' New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 465 (I981) (Brennan, J., dissenting) (quoting Shipley v. California,395 U.S. 818, 819 (1969) (quoting Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 486 (1964))). 51 See, e.g., United States v. Nelson, 102 F.3 d 1344, 1347 ( th Cir. 1996) ("While the need for 4 the incident-to-arrest exception is indeed grounded on the need to protect law enforcement officers and evidence, the validity of such a search does not end at the instant the risks justifying the search come to an end."); United States v. Abdul-Saboor, 85 F. 3 d 664, 666-68 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (upholding search of a bedroom after arrestee was secured outside the room). But see United States v. Chadwick, 433 U.S. i, 14-15 (977) (holding that a search that occurred at a police station more than an hour after arrest was invalid). 52 As Justice Scalia observed, most Belton searches occur in this context. See Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2135 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) (citing, inter alia, Myron Moskovitz, A Rule in Search of a Reason: An Empirical Reexamination of Chimel and Belton, 2002 WIS. L. REV 65 7, 665-66); see also United States v. McLaughlin, 17o F.3 d 889, 89o-91 ( 9 th Cir. 1999) (upholding a car search even though a squad car had just left the scene with the arrestee). 53 See Belton, 453 U.S. at 468 (Brennan, J., dissenting) ("[T]he Court for the first time grants police officers authority to conduct a warrantless 'area' search under circumstances where there is no chance that the arrestee 'might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence."' (quoting Chimel, 395 U.S. at 763)). S4 Thornton, 124 S.Ct. at 2135 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) (alteration in original) (quoting McLaughlin, 17o F. 3d at 894 (TMott, J., concurring)). 2004] THE SUPREME COURT - LEADING CASES One approach would have been to change the doctrine's justification, as Justice Scalia proposed in his concurrence in the judgment. 55 Justice Scalia suggested that Thornton could be justified under an evidence-gathering rationale that would permit Belton searches "where it is reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle. '56 Although evidence-gathering searches are more logically coherent than Belton searches as currently understood, the Court stopped applying the evidence-gathering rationale decades ago.5 7 Establishing a regime of evidence-gathering searches, even if limited to motor vehicles, would overturn Chimel in that context and would create another exception to the warrant requirement.5 8 Furthermore, as Justice Stevens noted in his dissent, evidence-gathering searches could be criticized because they decrease privacy rights: The only genuine justification for extending Belton to cover [the circumstances in Thornton] is the interest in uncovering 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 welldefined 5rule limiting the permissible scope of a search of an arrested pe9 destrian. Although Justice Scalia's evidence-gathering approach is a principled way to resolve the problems in Chimel and Belton, it represents a radi- 55 See supra note 32 and accompanying text. 56 Thornton, 124 S. Ct. at 2137 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). Justice Scalia also observed that the temporal problems latent in the search incident to arrest doctrine could be traced back to Belton. See id. at 2135 (noting that most arrestees are secured before a search incident to arrest is performed, thereby weakening the Belton majority's claim that an arrestee can reach weapons or evidence in the passenger compartment). These problems, however, began even earlier, with Chimel. 57 The most recent case cited by Justice Scalia that supports the evidence-gathering rationale is United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56 (i95o). See Thornton, 124 S.Ct. at 2135 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). 58 See Thornton, 124 S.Ct. at 2137-38 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). Justice Scalia has previously advocated replacing the warrant requirement with a more general reasonableness inquiry. See, e.g., California v. Acevedo, 500 U.S. 565, 582-83 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) (noting that the warrant requirement was "riddled with exceptions" and that "the path out of this confusion [is to return] to the first principle that the 'reasonableness' requirement of the Fourth Amendment affords the protection that the common law afforded"). 59 See Thornton, 124 S.Ct. at 2140 (Stevens, J., dissenting). The Thornton Court also declined to follow Justice Scalia's proposed approach. Thornton, 124 S.Ct. at 2132 n.4. The Court contended that Supreme Court rules prevented consideration of the evidence-gathering rationale: 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 reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle," nor did any court below consider Justice Scalia's reasoning. Id. (citation omitted). Justice Scalia responded that Supreme Court rules did not prevent the Court from reaching this issue, and he implied that consideration of the issue was necessary to resolve the case intelligently. See id. at 2138 n.3 (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment). HARVARD LAW REVIEW [Vol. i1i81248 cal and possibly undesirable departure from the Court's current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. A less extreme way to reformulate the search incident to arrest doctrine would have been to require a stricter temporal connection between the time an arrestee is secured and the incident search. Under this interpretation, any search incident to arrest would be invalid after an arrestee has been secured and, therefore, such a search could not be performed after the exigency has ended. A "secured" arrestee would be one who poses a minimal risk to officer safety or destructible evidence. A "reasonable person" standard could be used to determine whether the arrestee is secured. 60 Alternatively, the Court could have applied a stricter temporal restriction only to searches of vehicles. When an occupant of a vehicle has been arrested and secured outside, the exigency has passed, and a car search cannot be justified under the search incident to arrest doctrine. Either of these holdings would have reaffirmed Chimel's underlying principle that a search incident to arrest is an exception to the warrant requirement and that such searches are tolerated only when exigent circumstances are likely to be present. The Thornton Court missed an opportunity to clarify its Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. In its quest to expand bright-line rules, the Court extended Belton to a point where its application no longer makes sense, creating greater confusion for officers and lower courts. Instead of reasserting that exigency is the rationale behind Chimel and Belton searches, the Court moved the search incident to arrest doctrine further away from its purported justification. Thus, Thornton expands the scope of a doctrine whose foundation remains logically incoherent. 2. Fourth Amendment Warrant Requirements. - The Fourth Amendment,1 born of the Framers' fear of a police power checked only by executive discretion, 2 enables the judiciary to help define the contours of the relationship between the people and their law enforcement officers. 3 Recognizing the openness of the amendment's Reasonableness Clause, 4 the Supreme Court has long successfully balanced 60 Under this standard, an arrestee like Thornton, who had been handcuffed and placed in the back of a patrol car, would be characterized as "secured." 1 U.S. CONsT.amend. IV. 2 See Akhil Reed Amar, Fourth Amendment First Principles, 107 HARV. L. REV. 757, 772-78 (1994) (describing the connection between the development of the Fourth Amendment and AntiFederalist concerns, especially regarding "general warrants" that would deny the victims of intrusive, potentially humiliating searches recourse to damage remedies); cf. Groh v. Ramirez, 124 S. Ct. 1284, 1298 (2004) (Thomas, J., dissenting) (identifying "general warrants" as the "principal target" of the amendment's framers). 3 See, e.g., Thornton v. United States, 124 S. Ct. 2127, 2131-32 (2004) (using the Fourth Amendment to mediate between officer safety and civil liberties and concluding that officers may search a car from which an arrestee flees without a warrant as a search incident to an arrest). 4 U.S. CONST. amend. IV ("The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated ....").