CA1: Long protective weapons search parallels Belton scope of SI

A Michigan v. Long protective weapons search was justified here, and it parallels the permitted search incident under Belton. United States v. McGregor, 650 F.3d 813 (1st Cir. 2011):

McGregor is right that the only lawful purpose of a Long search is to protect officers from the danger that the persons they have stopped will grab for weapons. See 463 U.S. at 1047-48. And he is also right that the search must be no more invasive than necessary to serve that safety function. Id. at 1052 n.16. A Long search is a limited search. Id. But it is limited in this sense: officers with reasonable grounds for suspecting that the detainees are dangerous must confine their weapons search to accessible areas of the vehicle. Id. at 1049. The question here is whether the console hide was a searchable part of the passenger compartment under Long and its successors. Our answer is yes, for these reasons.

The Long Court set the parameters for a protective search in part by copying the search-incident-to-arrest standard in New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454, 101 S. Ct. 2860, 69 L. Ed. 2d 768 (1981). See Long, 463 U.S. at 1048-49. Belton held that police may search an auto’s passenger compartment incident to an occupant’s lawful arrest both to protect officer safety and to preserve evidence. See 453 U.S. at 460. Long’s rationale is limited to officer safety. But if officers restrict their searches to areas “that may contain a weapon and to which the motorist may have access,” the physical borders of the passenger compartment covered by Belton and Long are the same. United States v. Arnold, 388 F.3d 237, 240 (7th Cir. 2004).