CA8: Police looking at undercarriage of stopped car doesn’t require PC

The officer here had reasonable suspicion on the totality to extend the stop aside from the fact the two adults in the vehicle had no drivers licenses and the insurance card didn’t match them. The officer’s looking at the undercarriage of the vehicle didn’t require probable cause. Drugs were seen hidden over the spare tire. United States v. Sanchez, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 10537 (8th Cir. Apr. 3, 2020):

We also conclude that, absent a physical trespass and during an otherwise lawfully extended stop, an officer may look at the undercarriage of a vehicle without probable cause. Officers commonly look through windows and glance at wheel wells when sizing up the scene of stop, often for a combination of safety and investigatory reasons. It is well established that motorists have no recognized privacy interest in the exterior of their vehicles, or the interior spaces visible to the public. See Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 740, 103 S. Ct. 1535, 75 L. Ed. 2d 502 (1983) (“There is no legitimate expectation of privacy shielding that portion of the interior of an automobile which may be viewed from outside the vehicle by either inquisitive passersby or diligent police officers.” (internal citations omitted)). And, officers may crouch and change position when conducting an exterior examination or use a flashlight to artificially illuminate the area being viewed. See id. (“[T]he fact that [an officer] changed [his] position and bent down at an angle so [he] could see what was inside [a] car is irrelevant to Fourth Amendment analysis. The general public could peer into the interior … from any number of angles; there is no reason [the officer] should be precluded from observing as an officer what would be entirely visible to him as a private citizen.”); see also United States v. Bynum, 508 F.3d 1134, 1137 (8th Cir. 2007) (“The act of looking through a car window is not a search for Fourth Amendment purposes because ‘a person who parks a car—which necessarily has transparent windows—on private property does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the visible interior of his car.'” (quoting United States v. Hatten, 68 F.3d 257, 261 (8th Cir. 1995))).

Without controlling authority, Sanchez argues the undercarriage is distinct from the rest of the exterior, or the visible interior, of a vehicle because motorists do not expect the public to view the undercarriage of their vehicles. Sanchez argues that because drivers would be surprised and concerned to see a stranger looking under their cars, there must exist a reasonable and recognizable expectation of privacy. But, the same could be said of the floor of a vehicle’s interior when an officer must stand close to the vehicle to peer in or assume an awkward position to obtain a view. The sole test cannot be the level of concern a person would express at seeing a stranger in a parking lot looking in or under their vehicle.

Sanchez distinguishes “vehicle undercarriage” cases cited by the government as arising only in the context of border checkpoint stops. See, e.g., United States v. Rascon-Ortiz, 994 F.2d 749, 754 (10th Cir. 1993) (“The undercarriage is part of the car’s exterior, and as such, is not afforded a reasonable expectation of privacy. The fact that [an officer] knelt down to look under the car does not alter this finding. An officer may shift his position to obtain a better vantage point without transforming a visual inspection into a search, even though the agent’s purpose is to look for contraband.”). But, the material holding in Rascon-Ortiz did not appear to depend upon the border checkpoint context. That context, of course, provided justification for the stop, but the court, “tak[ing] guidance from the relevant search and seizure law” held “the brief visual examination of the vehicle’s undercarriage was not a search.” Id.

Further, the parties cite no case in which our own circuit has distinguished the undercarriage of a vehicle as outside the scope of a permissible exterior examination. …