## Facts

- Portsmouth, Virginia police received a report that David Lee Moore was driving with a suspended license.
- Officers stopped Moore and confirmed the license suspension.
- Virginia Code § 19.2-74 required issuance of a summons for that misdemeanor rather than a custodial arrest, and no statutory exception applied.
- Officers nevertheless arrested Moore and conducted a search incident to arrest, discovering crack cocaine.
- Moore was prosecuted on drug charges and moved to suppress the cocaine as the product of an unlawful arrest and search under the Fourth Amendment.
- The trial court denied suppression and Moore was convicted.
- The Supreme Court of Virginia ordered suppression, reasoning that an arrest prohibited by state law was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment and could not support a search incident to arrest.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.

## Issues

1. Whether an arrest supported by probable cause is an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment when the arrest violates a state statute requiring issuance of a citation.
2. Whether evidence found in a search incident to such an arrest must be suppressed under the Fourth Amendment.

## Decision

- The Court reversed the judgment suppressing the evidence.
- The Court held that the Fourth Amendment was not violated by a custodial arrest supported by probable cause, even if state law prohibited arrest for that offense.
- Because the arrest was constitutionally reasonable, the search incident to arrest was constitutionally valid, and suppression was not required.
- Justice Ginsburg concurred in the judgment, emphasizing that state law did not prescribe exclusion of evidence as a remedy for the statutory violation.

## Legal Principles

- A warrantless custodial arrest for even a minor offense is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when supported by probable cause.
- State restrictions that provide greater protection than the Fourth Amendment do not alter the federal constitutional standard of reasonableness.
- A violation of state arrest procedure, standing alone, does not make an arrest unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment and does not trigger the federal exclusionary rule.
- A search incident to a constitutionally valid custodial arrest is permissible under the Fourth Amendment, notwithstanding that the arrest contravened state citation-only rules.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Amendment sets a uniform reasonableness standard keyed to probable cause; it does not incorporate state-law limits on arrest authority, so evidence discovered in a search incident to a probable-cause arrest need not be suppressed solely because the arrest violated state law.


Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164 (2008)