FindLaw > Criminal Law Summaries > 1998 Index > Wyoming v. Houghton

Case: Wyoming v. Houghton

Issue: Whether police officers violate the Fourth Amendment when they search a passenger's personal belongings inside an automobile that they have probable cause to believe contains contraband.

Facts: Wyoming Highway Patrol Officers stopped David Young for a routine traffic violation and observed a syringe in his pocket, which Young admitted using to take drugs. Having probable cause to search the vehicle for contraband, the officers ordered respondent Sandra Houghton out of the car. Houghton lied to the officers about her name and told officers she did not have any identification; however, when an officer found a purse on the back seat, Houghton claimed it. The officer removed various items from the purse, including her identification and two containers holding syringes and methamphetamine. Houghton admitted owning the container with a small amount of drugs in it, but claimed ignorance about the other container, which held six times the amount of drugs – enough for a felony conviction.

Respondent was charged with and convicted of felony possession of the full amount of methamphetamine found in both containers. The Wyoming Supreme Court reversed the conviction, holding that officers with probable cause may search all containers that may possess the object they seek, but that officers may not search containers they know or should know to be the personal effects of passengers who are not suspected of criminal activity. Such personal effects are outside the scope of the search unless there is a chance that someone hid contraband within them.

Holding: Explicitly extending United States v. Ross, the Court held that "[p]olice officers with probable cause to search a car may inspect passengers' belongings found in the car that are capable of concealing the object of the search."

Reasoning: Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer, wrote the opinion for the majority. The Court relied on its decision in United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798 (1982), where officers performed a warrantless search of a paper bag and leather pouch they found in the trunk of a suspect's car. In Ross the Court upheld the constitutionality of the search, holding that "[i]f probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies the search of every part of the vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the search." Although there were no passengers involved in the Ross case, the Court noted that the decision would have expressed such a significant limitation on its ruling if such were intended. Additionally, there is no historical evidence supporting a distinction for searching packages based on ownership.

A balancing test, considering a passenger's privacy expectations as well as governmental interests, results in the same conclusion. The Court held that a passenger's privacy expectations are substantially reduced when they transport belongings in cars on public thoroughfares, while the government's ability to secure evidence would suffer without the ability to search all contents of a car.

Furthermore, such a rule is impractical, because "passenger-confederates" would simply claim ownership of anything they or the driver did not want searched. There would ensue a "bog of litigation" over such suggestions, as well as questions about whether the officer knew or should have known a container to belonged to a passenger.

Other Opinions: Justice Breyer filed a concurring opinion, stating that "[p]urses are special containers. . . . They are repositories of especially personal items . . . . So I am tempted to say that a search of a purse involves an intrusion so similar to a search of one's person that the same rule should govern both." Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Souter and Ginsburg, filed a dissenting opinion expressing a strong preference for an ordinary Fourth Amendment analysis favoring warrants and individualized suspicion, rather than an extension of the automobile warrant exception.