Search Incident to Arrest

It seems like the government can search just about anything these days, as long as they can find a judge to sign a search warrant. But, the police may also search a citizen's belongings without a warrant, under certain conditions. Today, we're going briefly discuss one exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, searches incident to arrest. It makes sense that the police should be able to search a person before he is placed into to county jail. After all, they don't want folks bringing guns or drugs into the jail. But what is not so obvious is, how far can a search go once the person is arrested and we know they're on their way to jail? May they search your entire car? May they search your cell phone? Let's find out. Historically, the most common search incident to an arrest was the search of a defendant's car. Basically, if you were arrested for something as simple as driving on a suspended license, the police were permitted to search your entire vehicle after the arrest. Now you may ask yourself, why? Is it physically possible for a person who is handcuffed, sitting in the back of a patrol car, to access their potentially dangerous belongings within their car? Nope. It's not.