Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog

As discussed in some of our previous blogs, searches of persons or property by law enforcement officials are generally considered to be invasions of privacy and will be considered unconstitutional (meaning evidence gathered from the searches may be inadmissible in court) unless the law enforcement official conducting the search has obtained a search warrant by demonstrating probable cause that the search will uncover evidence of criminal activity. However, there are several legally recognized exceptions that allow searches to be conducted without search warrants where certain conditions exist. One of these exceptions is known as the “vehicle exception” to the search warrant requirement.

The vehicle exception allows a law enforcement official to conduct a warrantless search of a vehicle if the officer has probable cause to believe evidence of a crime will be found in the vehicle and external circumstances exist that necessitate an immediate search of the vehicle. Such external circumstances usually exist due to the very nature of automobiles, because an officer who lets the vehicle drive away will more than likely never see the vehicle or the evidence inside it again. To have probable cause to search a vehicle in Tennessee, a law enforcement officer must have reasonable suspicion that evidence of a crime will be found in a vehicle. This suspicion must be based on a specific factual basis, however, and cannot be based solely on a hunch or “gut feeling” of the officer. The factual basis for a search must also exist before the search is conducted, meaning an officer can’t search a car based solely on his or her gut feeling that drugs will be found in the car and then use the fact that drugs were found in the car as the basis for the initial search.

Criminal defendants who have had their vehicles searched without a warrant may be able to get the evidence uncovered during those searches suppressed if the search was not conducted in compliance with the vehicle exception. If the officer lacked probable cause to initiate the search or if the external circumstances described above did not exist at the time of the search, the search may be unconstitutional, meaning the fruits of the search may be inadmissible against a defendant at trial.