CHIMEL v. CALIFORNIA 395 U.S. 752 (1969)

In Chimel the Supreme Court considerably narrowed the prevailing scope of search incident to arrest, by limiting the search to the person of the arrestee and his immediate environs. The Court thus ended a divisive, decades-long debate on the subject.

The principle that officers executing a valid arrest may simultaneously search the arrestee for concealed weapons or evidence has never been challenged; it is rooted in common law, and was recognized by the Court in weeks v. united states (1914) as an emergency exception to the fourth amendment's warrant requirement. That the search may extend beyond the person to the premises in which the arrest is made was recognized in agnello v. united states (1925). The extension, too, has never been challenged; it seems sensible to permit officers to eliminate the possibility of a suspect's seizing a gun or destroying evidence within his reach though not on his person. The permissible scope of a warrantless search of the premises has, however, embroiled the Court in controversy.

Some Justices would have allowed a search of the entire place, arguing that after an arrest, even an extensive search is only a minor additional invasion of privacy. The opposing camp, led by Justice felix frankfurter, condemned such wholesale rummaging: to allow a search incident to arrest to extend beyond the need that justified it would swallow up the rule requiring a search warrant save in exigent circumstances. The latter view finally prevailed in Chimel, when the Court ruled that the search must be limited to the arrestee's person and "the area from which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence." It may not extend into any room other than the one in which the arrest is made, and even "desk drawers or other closed or concealed areas in that room itself" are off-limits to the officers if the suspect cannot gain access to them.

Jacob W. Landynski
(1986)