Police may no longer conduct searches of an automobile as incident to a traffic stop and arrest without a warrant.  In State v. Eckel, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that once the occupant of a vehicle has been arrested, removed and secured, the incident to arrest exception is inapplicable, and officers may no longer search the vehicle. 

            In State v. Eckel, defendant and his girlfriend were pulled over for driving a stolen vehicle near defendant’s house where officers had been waiting for them.  Officers placed defendant under arrest on an unrelated outstanding warrant, and quickly put defendant in handcuffs and put him in the rear seat of the patrol car.  Defendant’s companion made a request to go to the car and retrieve some clothing for defendant, but an officer went instead.  The officer began picking up clothing from the passenger seat, and observed a phone book with some green vegetation and stems which he believed to be marijuana.  Behind the passenger seat, the officer found a rolled up baggie with what he believed to be cocaine.  The officer then asked the defendant to step out of the back seat of the patrol car, and continued to search the vehicle.  Defendant sought to suppress admission of what the officers found during their search, but the trial court admitted it into evidence, and defendant was found guilty on several counts of drug possession. 

            The Supreme Court of New Jersey, in reversing the trial court, stated that the two historical rationales for the “search incident to arrest” exception no longer exist when a defendant has been arrested and removed and unable to access the objects.  The two rationales were (1) the need to disarm the suspect in order to take him into custody, and (2) the need to preserve evidence for later use at trial.  Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969).  In so deciding, the New Jersey court has parted ways with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981), which authorized vehicular searches following all arrests for motor-vehicle offenses. 

            The New Jersey Supreme Court has given New Jersey citizens greater protection under its state constitution, Article I, Paragraph 7, against unreasonable searches and seizures than the federal constitution affords.  In New Jersey, a warrantless search of an automobile based, not on probable cause, but solely on the arrest of a person unable to endanger the police or destroy evidence, is unreasonable and therefore disallowed.