''California v. Acevedo'', 500 U.S. 565 (1991), was a decision of the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

, which interpreted the ''Carroll'' doctrine to provide one rule to govern all

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarde ...

searches. The Court stated, "The police may search an automobile and the containers within it where they have

probable cause In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. There is no universally accepted definition o ...

to believe contraband or evidence is contained." The decision also overruled the distinctions in '' United States v. Chadwick'' (1977) and '' Arkansas v. Sanders'' (1979) which had previously held that, if probable cause existed to search an automobile, the police may perform a warrantless search of the automobile and the containers within it, but if the police only had probable cause to search a container in the automobile, the police first had to obtain a warrant before searching the container. It thereby confirmed '' Carroll v. United States'' (1925), which held that a warrantless search of an automobile based upon probable cause to believe that the vehicle contained evidence of crime in the light of an exigency arising out of the vehicle's likely disappearance did not contravene the Fourth Amendment's Warrant Clause.

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* United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court United States Supreme Court decisions that overrule a prior Supreme Court decision United States Fourth Amendment case law 1991 in United States case law 1991 in California Legal history of California {{SCOTUS-case-stub

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