Search of Vehicle After Traffic Stop; Prescription Drugs

• NCJ Number: 177860
• Journal: Crime to Court, Police Officer's Handbook Dated: April 1999 Pages: 1-14
• Author(s): Joseph C. Coleman
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 14 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This report summarizes the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Knowles v. Iowa (1998), which pertains to the search of a vehicle incident to the issuing of a traffic citation in lieu of an arrest; the second part of this report pertains to the unlawful abuse of prescription drugs.

Abstract

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that a nonconsensual search of the area immediately adjacent to where an arrest was made was reasonable. Seizing on this holding, Iowa enacted a law that permits a police officer, after making a traffic stop and issuing the driver a traffic citation in lieu of arrest, to conduct a thorough, nonconsensual search of the vehicle under the incident- to-arrest doctrine. In the case at issue, Knowles was stopped for speeding and issued a citation, after which the officer conducted a full search of his car, finding a bag of marijuana and a "pot pipe" under the driver's seat. Knowles was then arrested and convicted for possession of a controlled substance. Before trial, Knowles moved to suppress the evidence obtained through this search. Based on the authority of Iowa law, the trial court denied the motion to suppress, and the Iowa Supreme Court, sitting en banc, affirmed by a divided vote. The U.S. Supreme Court, on the other hand, determined that the case did not meet the two historical rationales for the "search incident to arrest": the need to disarm the suspect in order to take the suspect into custody, and the need to preserve evidence for later use at trial. The Court held that neither of these rationales applied in the search of Knowles' vehicle. The second section of this report pertains to the identification of prescription drugs that are impairing a person's driving ability. Such drugs may be antidepressants, pain-killers, a cough medicine with codeine, or even decongestants or antihistamines. The report suggests how the abuse of such prescription drugs can be detected.