N.J. high court divided on police car searches

A divided New Jersey Supreme Court yesterday defined parameters for when police can search a car without a warrant, but the dissenting justices said the ruling created a legal "quagmire" that would hinder officers.

The ruling stemmed from two cases - one originating in Camden - in which police arrested suspects following traffic stops. In both cases, subsequent searches turned up drugs and weapons in the vehicles.

The defendants in both cases argued that the searches were illegal.

The Supreme Court long has held that police officers may search a vehicle without a warrant when they have reason to believe that the car contains evidence and when special circumstances require an immediate search.

The court has said that determining whether those "exigent circumstances" exist must be done on a "case-by-case basis."

In yesterday's 4-3 ruling, the majority said the search in one case was legal because those circumstances were present. In the second case, they said those circumstances did not exist.

But the minority justices said the ruling means police officers would have to get a warrant before any search "unless they wish to hazard a guess that they meet the majority's formless 'exigent circumstances' test."

"The police officers who have the hopeless task of applying that amorphous test will find . . . there will be ample opportunity for trial courts to second-guess their actions," Justice Barry T. Albin wrote for the minority.

He also said drivers and passengers would be left "in custodial limbo" while officers sought warrants.

"The liberty of the car's occupants therefore will be sacrificed for the illusory purpose of promoting their privacy," Albin wrote.

The state Attorney General's Office said it shared many of Albin's concerns and was disappointed by yesterday's ruling.

"Namely, increased burdens on law enforcement and an increased impoundment of vehicles with no corresponding increase in public safety or personal liberty," said Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office.

The majority justices did note that police need to be able to get warrants for car searches more easily, through reaching judges on the telephone. Prosecutors now argue that getting warrants that way is "difficult and time-consuming," the court said.

In their ruling, the justices declared telephone warrants as valid as warrants obtained in person, and created a task force to study telephone warrant procedures, to ensure "an efficient and speedy" process.

Jason Laughlin, a spokesman for the Camden County Prosecutor's office, said that was the most positive aspect of the ruling.

"We thought it was very important that the court noted the efficacy of obtaining this kind of warrant," he said.

In the case that originated in Camden, state troopers stopped Charles Fuller while he was driving on Mount Ephraim Avenue without wearing his seatbelt. He was later arrested for giving the trooper a false driver's license.

Troopers searched Fuller's GMC Yukon and found a loaded handgun wedged between the console and the driver's seat. They also found 106 Xanax pills in the console and marijuana in a dashboard compartment.

The troopers found more marijuana under the backseat and a 28-inch sword behind the backseat.

The court ruled the gun and the drugs in the front seat were found legally as the trooper also was looking for proof of the vehicle's ownership.

But the justices found that there was "no urgent, immediate need" to search the rest of the vehicle before a search warrant could be obtained. Therefore, the justices ruled the search of the backseat was illegal.

In the second case decided yesterday, originating in Cranford, the justices said a similar search was legal because the officers did not have back-up to stay with the vehicle until a warrant could be obtained and the car had been stopped on a busy roadway. Those circumstances made a full search of the car legal, the court said.

Justice Virginia Long, writing for the majority, said yesterday's ruling was "nothing more than a reaffirmation of over three decades of prior jurisprudence." She said no new test had been established for officers.

"We have merely detailed . . . the various factors that our prior cases have recognized as relevant to an exigency analysis," she wrote. "Why such a recounting would result in the dire consequences suggested by the dissent is a mystery to us."