James A. Purdon, Henry F. Fradella, C. Totten, Gang Lee
{"title":"Police Officers’ Knowledge of Gant","authors":"James A. Purdon, Henry F. Fradella, C. Totten, Gang Lee","doi":"10.1525/nclr.2021.24.4.468","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. Gant fundamentally altered the law governing police searches of vehicles incident to the arrest of a vehicle occupant. To date, there has been no empirical examination of Gant’s impact on line officers. The present study does so using data from a survey of police officers that assessed their ability to apply Gant. Although 93 percent of the officers had been taught Gant and 77 percent had received training within the twelve months prior to completing the survey, 67 percent incorrectly applied Belton, rather than Gant. Moreover, nearly half of the sample were missing constitutionally permissible opportunities to search the vehicle under either of Gant’s two prongs. Concerningly, officers who had received recent training on vehicle searches were significantly less likely to identify correct search protocols under Gant’s evidence prong. The implications of these findings are discussed.","PeriodicalId":44796,"journal":{"name":"New Criminal Law Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"New Criminal Law Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2021.24.4.468","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. Gant fundamentally altered the law governing police searches of vehicles incident to the arrest of a vehicle occupant. To date, there has been no empirical examination of Gant’s impact on line officers. The present study does so using data from a survey of police officers that assessed their ability to apply Gant. Although 93 percent of the officers had been taught Gant and 77 percent had received training within the twelve months prior to completing the survey, 67 percent incorrectly applied Belton, rather than Gant. Moreover, nearly half of the sample were missing constitutionally permissible opportunities to search the vehicle under either of Gant’s two prongs. Concerningly, officers who had received recent training on vehicle searches were significantly less likely to identify correct search protocols under Gant’s evidence prong. The implications of these findings are discussed.
期刊介绍:
Focused on examinations of crime and punishment in domestic, transnational, and international contexts, New Criminal Law Review provides timely, innovative commentary and in-depth scholarly analyses on a wide range of criminal law topics. The journal encourages a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches and is a crucial resource for criminal law professionals in both academia and the criminal justice system. The journal publishes thematic forum sections and special issues, full-length peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, and occasional correspondence.