Community Caretaking stop sometimes-permitted
Cady v. Dombrowski
413 U.S. 433 (1973)
Respondent had a one-car accident near a small Wisconsin town, while
driving a rented Ford. The police had the car towed to a garage seven miles
from the police station, where it was left unguarded outside. Respondent was
arrested for drunken driving. Early the next day, an officer, looking for a
service revolver which respondent (who had identified himself as a Chicago
policeman) was thought to possess, made a warrantless search of the car and
found in the trunk several items, some bloodied, which he removed. Later, on
receipt of additional information emanating from respondent, a bloodstained
body was located on respondent's brother's farm in a nearby county. Thereafter,
through the windows of a disabled Dodge which respondent had left on the farm
before renting the Ford, an officer observed other bloodied items. Following
issuance of a search warrant, materials were taken from the Dodge, two of which
(a sock and floor mat) were not listed in the return on the warrant among the
items seized. Respondent's trial for murder, at which items seized from the
cars were introduced in evidence, resulted in conviction which was upheld on
appeal. In this habeas corpus action, the Court of Appeals reversed the
District Court and held that certain evidence at the trial had been
unconstitutionally seized. Held:
1. The warrantless search of the Ford did not
violate the Fourth Amendment as made applicable to the States by the
Fourteenth. The search was not unreasonable since the police had exercised a
form of custody of the car, which constituted a hazard on the highway, and the
disposition of which by respondent was precluded by his intoxicated and later
comatose condition; and the revolver search was standard police procedure to
protect the public from a weapon's possibly falling into improper hands.
Preston v. United States, 376 U.S. 364 , distinguished; Harris v. United States, 390 U.S. 234 , followed.
2.
The seizure of the sock and floor mat from the Dodge was not invalid, since the
Dodge, the item "particularly described," was the subject of a proper
search warrant. It is not constitutionally significant that the sock and mat
were not listed in the [413 U.S. 433, 434] warrant's return, which (contrary to the
assumption of the Court of Appeals) was not filed prior to the search, and the
warrant was thus validly outstanding at the time the articles were discovered.
