Law Commons^™

Suspects, Cars & Police Dogs: A Complicated Relationship, Brian R. Gallini

Washington Law Review

Officers are searching and arresting vehicle occupants without a warrant with increasing regularity. For justification, this Article demonstrates, lower courts across the country unconstitutionally expand the scope of the Fourth Amendment’s automobile exception—often in the context of a positive dog alert. But Supreme Court jurisprudence specifically limits the scope of the automobile exception to warrantless searches of cars and their containers. In other words, the probable cause underlying the automobile exception allows police to search a vehicle and its containers—nothing more.

Despite that clear guidance, this Article argues that a growing number of lower courts nationwide unconstitutionally rely on the …

Criminal Law—Search Incident To An Arrest, Hayes Elder

Washington Law Review

In a recent case, State v. Michaels, the Washington Supreme Court announced a new rule for search and seizure incident to an arrest: the purpose of the arrest circumscribes the area and nature of the search.