FindLaw > Criminal Law Summaries > 1998 Index > Florida v. White

Case: Florida v. White

Issue: May officers make a warrantless public seizure of an automobile based on probable cause to believe that the automobile is contraband under a state statute, irrespective of whether exigent circumstances exist or whether the probable cause determination was made several months previously?

Facts: On three occasions in July and August of 1993, police officers observed respondent White using his car to deliver cocaine. They thus had probable cause to believe that his car was subject to forfeiture under the Florida Contraband Forfeiture Act. Several months later respondent was arrested on unrelated charges. The police observed his car and seized it without a warrant "solely because they believed it was forfeitable under the Act." During a later inventory search, they found two pieces of crack cocaine in the ashtray. At trial responded moved to suppress the cocaine as the fruit of the allegedly unlawful seizure.

Holding: Police do not need a warrant (under the Fourth Amendment) prior to publicly seizing an automobile, when they have probable cause to believe that said automobile is forfeitable contraband under a state statute. This is true even in the absence of exigent circumstances and even when the probable cause determination was made several months previously.

Reasoning: Justice Thomas, writing for a seven to two majority, placed this case squarely within the Court's automobile exception line of Fourth Amendment cases, exemplified by Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 149 (1925), and its progeny. Although, as the Florida Supreme Court observed, "the police lacked probable cause to believe that respondent's car contained contraband . . . they certainly had probable cause to believe that the vehicle itself was contraband under Florida law."

Other Opinions: Justice Souter joined by Justice Breyer, concurred in the majority opinion subject to a qualification against construing the holding as an endorsement of warrantless seizures of "anything a State chooses to call contraband." Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Ginsberg in dissent, argued that the Court should apply its longstanding presumption that warrantless seizures are, in most circumstances, violative of the Fourth Amendment.

Comment: The Court expressed "no opinion about whether excessive delay prior to a seizure could render probable cause stale, and the seizure therefore unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment."