Traffic Stops – Pennsylvania vs. New Jersey – What do Police Need to Search Your Vehicle

The recent incident involving Miami Dolphin Tyreek Hill has caused many of reader to ask questions about their rights following a traffic stop in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  The Hill matter remains under investigation but it is important to understand that States vary when it comes to your rights following a traffic stop.  While Pennsylvania and New Jersey border each other, they have very different laws regarding traffic stops and police searches.

Traffic Stops & Vehicle Searches in Pennsylvania – Police Need a Search Warrant

Following the Pennsylvania’s decision in Commonwealth v. Alexander, The Pennsylvania Constitution once again offers greater protections against warrantless searches than the United States Constitution.     

The PA Supreme Court ruled that police can no longer search cars without a warrant unless there is both probable cause and emergency circumstances that require immediate action.  This decision overrules and reverses the previous 2014 opinion in the case Commonwealth v. Gary 

Prior to Gary and now once again with the Alexander decision the search and seizure provision of our Commonwealth’s Constitution provides a person with greater protection against illegal searches and seizures than the U.S. Constitution. Pennsylvania through Article 1, Section 8, specifically prohibited a warrantless search of a motor vehicle unless police or law enforcement could provide evidence of exigent circumstances beyond the mere mobility of the vehicle.  Criminal defense lawyers can now make that argument again during a motion to Suppress evidence.    

This is major issue in all criminal defense cases but especially those involving illegal guns, drugs, narcotics, controlled substance, Drunk Driving and DWI.

Pennsylvania, with respect to these warrantless searches of vehicles didn’t follow the federal standard or the U.S. Constitution under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This was a very important distinction between Pennsylvania and federal law, which remained in place until April, 2014, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided the case of Commonwealth v. Gary.

What happened in Commonwealth v. Gary?

There the court held specifically held that the Pennsylvania Constitution does not provide any greater protection than the U.S. Constitution. In that case, the defendant, Gary, was stopped in Philadelphia for a window tint violation. During the police investigation, the officers smelled marijuana and asked Gary “if there was anything in the vehicle that they needed to know about”. When Gary admitted that there was “weed” in the car, the officers removed and placed him in a police vehicle while calling for a canine unit.

When the dog arrived, Gary attempted to flee and police apprehended him. The police then searched the car without a warrant and found two pounds of marijuana underneath the front hood in a bag lodged near the air filter. Gary’s trial attorney filed a motion to suppress the illegal search under the Pennsylvania Constitution, which the Philadelphia Municipal Court and the Court of Common Pleas denied. The Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed the decision and an appeal was made to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

In Gary, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court noted that the Pennsylvania Constitution can provide greater protections, it found that those protections only apply when there is independent state constitutional analysis that would indicate that a standard should be applied. The Court in Gary specifically found that the mobility of the car alone didn’t necessarily invalidate a warrantless search of a vehicle and the expectation of privacy with respect to one’s automobile is significantly less than one’s home or office.

The Court specifically found that Article 1, Section 8 doesn’t confer any increased privacy protection than the U.S. Constitution and therefore a person’s expectation of privacy is no different.

It further found that the U.S. Constitution and the Pennsylvania Constitution employ the same two part test to determine an illegal search and seizure: (1) an evaluation of the person’s subjective expectation of privacy; and (2) is the expectation of privacy one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable and legitimate. This case represented a substantial departure from previous Pennsylvania case law regarding illegal searches and seizures.

Now through the Alexander decision, Pennsylvania is back to the Pre-Gary days which change the game for many defendants facing illegal gun and drug charges following a vehicle search.  Once again The Pennsylvania Constitution offers greater protections against warrantless searches than the United States Constitution.  Remember a State Constitution can offer more protection than the US Constitution but it can’t offer less.

New Jersey Car Searches—Warrantless Searches are Permitted

The most common warrantless search in New Jersey, as in most states, is the car or motor vehicle search. The most common exception to the search warrant requirement for a car is the plain view exception in which police observe contraband (drugs or guns) in plain view which gives them probable cause to seize the item.

Like Pennsylvania, there is a diminished expectation of privacy in a motor vehicle in New Jersey as compared to a person’s home or residence. Remember that there must be probable cause to search but before a court will determine probable cause it must evaluate reasonable suspicion, which is a lower form of probable cause. Reasonable suspicion is more than a hunch or an educated guess but some basis to believe that a crime is being committed or was committed and that evidence exists of that crime.

Increasingly New Jersey courts are requiring reasonable suspicion before police may take any investigative action following a vehicle stop. Police in New Jersey must have at least reasonable suspicion to even ask for consent to search a vehicle and also need reasonable suspicion to conduct a protective sweep during a vehicle stop.

Inevitable Discovery in New Jersey

 Like Pennsylvania, New Jersey determines probable cause based on a totality of circumstances analysis and an objective standard of reasonableness. There are many situations in New Jersey where police conduct a search without a warrant on a vehicle.

It’s important to keep in mind that, while a warrantless search is on its face illegal, the issue of inevitable discovery may cause a court to still find that the evidence is admissible despite being a product of an illegal search. In order to use the inevitable discovery rule however, the state (prosecution) must prove by “clear and convincing evidence” that proper, normal, and specific investigative procedures would have been pursued and that using those procedures, the evidence would have been inevitably discovered independently. The most common use of the inevitable discovery rule would be during an inventory search where police must tow a vehicle following a stop based on an alleged safety issue or for the mere fact that it is blocking traffic.

Contact Our Criminal Defense Lawyers in PA & NJ

Please click here to contact our Philadelphia criminal defense lawyers. We offer free case reviews and serve the following areas in Pennsylvania and New Jersey,  Atlantic City, Camden, Cherry Hill, Chester, Conshohocken, Doylestown, Media, Norristown, Philadelphia, Pottstown, Salem, Upper Darby, Upper Merion, Upper Providence, Vineland & Woodbury areas.