Arizona Vs Gant Case Study

Arizona v. Gant is a case that affected law enforcement's conduct during the course of a traffic stop as well as searching the vehicle and its occupants. Furthermore, the case stemmed from a complaint of narcotics activity at a resident in 1999 and Rodney Gant informed uniformed officers the owner of the resident would return to the resident later that same day (Staff, 2008). The officers conducted an investigation and discovered Gant had an active arrest warrant for driving on a suspended license. Later the same day, uniformed officers revisited the resident and observed Gant in full control of a motor vehicle as Gant parked the vehicle in a driveway and exited the vehicle. Consequently, officers arrested Gant on the warrant and secured him in the back of their police car, as other people were arrested and detained in other police cars in relevance to the initial call that gave law enforcement a right to be present.

This is a landmark case as the State of Arizona argued the "bright line" rule was established in New York v. Belton, and the U.S. Supreme Court defined the "bright line" rule as to authorize law enforcement officers the right to search a vehicle's passenger compartment, including the immediate area of where the arrestee was in search incident to arrest, after a lawful arrest has been made and is a result of a contemporaneous incident. In Chimel v. California, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that a search incident to an arrest is permissible as long as the officer can articulate safety for the officers is present and preserving evidence is a factor. Furthermore, Thornton v. United States gave an additive to law enforcement as the U.S Supreme Court ruled that officers could initiate warrantless searches of vehicles incident to arrest of both occupants and recent occupants (Staff,