## Facts

- Officer Shelby Howard stopped Uneal Davis in Joplin, Missouri, for speeding while Davis drove a 2007 Nissan Altima; Deputy John Hicks assisted.
- As Howard approached the vehicle, he smelled marijuana and asked Davis to exit for a pat-down.
- During the pat-down, Howard felt a lump in Davis’s pocket that he believed was a plastic bag; Davis admitted it was marijuana.
- Howard arrested Davis and placed him in Hicks’s patrol car.
- Howard removed three passengers from the Altima to search the vehicle; the passengers were not handcuffed or otherwise physically secured.
- During the vehicle search, Howard found a loaded Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun in the center console and observed open beer bottles in the vehicle.
- Davis was federally indicted for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person under 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 922(g)(3), and 924(a)(2).

## Issues

1. Whether the warrantless search of Davis’s vehicle after his arrest violated the Fourth Amendment, requiring suppression of the handgun.
2. Whether the odor of marijuana and discovery/admission of marijuana on the driver provided probable cause justifying a vehicle search under the automobile exception.

## Decision

- The Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress and upheld Davis’s conviction entered on a conditional guilty plea.
- The court held the search was lawful under the automobile exception because officers had probable cause to believe the vehicle contained contraband or evidence of a crime.
- Because the automobile exception independently justified the search, the court did not need to decide whether the search was valid as a search incident to arrest.
- The court also did not rely on inevitable discovery through an inventory search because probable cause resolved the Fourth Amendment question.

## Legal Principles

- Under the automobile exception, police may search a vehicle without a warrant when they have probable cause to believe it contains contraband or evidence of criminal activity.
- The odor of marijuana emanating from a vehicle can establish probable cause to search the vehicle; finding marijuana on an occupant further supports probable cause to search the vehicle’s interior, including compartments such as a center console.
- When an independent exception to the warrant requirement applies (such as the automobile exception), the legality of the search does not depend on search-incident-to-arrest limits.

## Conclusion

The court held that the smell of marijuana and the driver’s possession and admission of marijuana supplied probable cause to search the vehicle without a warrant under the automobile exception, so the handgun found in the center console was admissible and the conviction was affirmed.


United States v. Davis, 569 F.3d 813 (8th Cir. 2009)