sarah jeong

I have a question for the lawyers -- do you think Alito's concurrence means he wants to broaden search incident to arrest or to narrow it?

@sarahjeong I think he wants to refine the rule to be that searches incident to arrest can include searching for evidence related to crime.

@sarahjeong W/o seeing it applied in practice, I'm not sure if that would expand or narrow such searches IRL or if it's a pedantic point.

@TheAlexKnapp the container rule is dumb but I don't think this would narrow it, since it's cops interpreting it

@sarahjeong You could argue that it might narrow Chimel in cases where arrestee is arrested in a place not connected to the crime.

@sarahjeong I think Alito is arguing that the 'protection' rationale is silly if an arrestee is already in custody.

@sarahjeong That being the case, his rule might prevent searches of areas in the 'immediate control' of arrestee if no connection to crime.

@sarahjeong And might even narrow Ghant, since there's no point searching for a weapon in a car if the person's under arrest.