VIRGINIA v. MOORE

In the above noted case Police found the respondent Moore for the misdemeanor of driving on a suspended license and instead of issuing court summons as per Virginia Law arrested him as they discovered crack cocaine while searching respondent Moore and carrying out his arrest. In the trial court on behalf of the respondent Moore, it was argued that his arrest violated Virginia Law even if he could be arrested but on grounds of Fourth Amendment to the constitution arresting officers couldn’t search him and hence evidence must be suppressed. But, the trial court declined to suppress the evidence and convicted Moore.

This decision was reversed by the Virginia Supreme Court holding that the search violated the Fourth Amendment because the arresting officers should have issued a citation under state law, and the Fourth Amendment does not permit search without citation.

Ultimately, the case came before US Supreme Court, which decided the issue 9-0 on April 23, 2008. Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Thomas, Breyer, and Alito, JJ., joined. Whereas Ginsburg, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment separately.

Held: The police did not violate the Fourth Amendment when they made an arrest that was based on probable cause but prohibited by state law, or when they performed a search incident to the arrest.

(a) Because the founding era's statutes and common law do not support Moore's view that the Fourth Amendment was intended to incorporate statutes, this is "not a case in which the claimant can point to a 'clear answer [that] existed in 1791 and has been generally adhered to by the traditions of our society ever since,' " Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U. S. 318, 345.

(b) Where history provides no conclusive answer, the Court can analyze a search or seizure in light of traditional reasonableness standards "by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual's privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests." Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U. S. 295, 300. Applying that methodology, US Supreme Court has held that when an officer has probable cause to believe a person committed even a minor crime, the arrest is constitutionally reasonable.

(c) The Court adheres to this approach because an arrest based on probable cause serves interests that justify seizure. Arrest ensures that a suspect appears to answer charges and does not continue a crime, and it safeguards evidence and enables officers to conduct an in-custody investigation. A State's choice of a more restrictive search-and-seizure policy does not render less restrictive ones unreasonable, and hence unconstitutional. While States are free to require their officers to engage in nuanced determinations of the need for arrest as a matter of their own law, the Fourth Amendment should reflect administrable bright-line rules. Incorporating state arrest rules into the Constitution would make Fourth Amendment protections as complex as the underlying state law, and variable from place to place and time to time.

(d) The Court rejected Moore's argument that even if the Constitution allowed his arrest, it did not allow the arresting officers to search him. Officers may perform searches incident to constitutionally permissible arrests in order to ensure their safety and safeguard evidence. United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218. It was observed that officers issuing citations may not face the same danger, and thus do not have the same authority to search, Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113. But here the officers arrested Moore, and therefore faced the risks which were an adequate basis for treating all custodial arrests alike for purposes of search justification.

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the use of evidence seized by police officers in the search of a criminal suspect during an arrest that violated state law and reversed the decision of Virginia Supreme Court and remanded back.