by Sagi Schwartzberg

The Supreme Court of New Jersey held that the automobile exception to the warrant requirement did not apply when police searched a vehicle parked in a police barracks parking lot after arresting the driver for DWI, removing the passenger, obtaining the keys, and subjecting the vehicle to mandatory 12-hour impoundment. The Court concluded that none of the exigencies justifying New Jersey’s limited automobile exception, which is confined to on-scene warrantless searches, were present when the vehicle was secured at police headquarters with no risk of evidence destruction, no highway safety concerns, and ample time to obtain a warrant.

Background

On June 2, 2021, State Trooper Daniel Radetich began investigating a harassment complaint against defendant Shawn M. Fenimore. As part of his investigation, Radetich asked Fenimore to provide a statement at the Woodstown Police barracks and offered to pick up Fenimore to provide the statement. He declined Radetich’s offer and advised Radetich that he would drive himself to the police barracks. After the call, Radetich told colleagues that Fenimore may be “intoxicated.”

Shortly before 8:30 p.m., Radetich watched from the lobby window as Fenimore arrived, parked his car in the parking lot, exited the vehicle, stumbled, and fell or nearly fell into the station’s wall. While Radetich interviewed Fenimore at the station, he observed several signs of intoxication. When Radetich asked Fenimore if he had consumed any substances, he responded that he was just tired. Radetich did not believe him and administered three sobriety tests, two of which Fenimore failed.

Radetich then arrested Fenimore for driving while intoxicated (“DWI”) at approximately 8:57 p.m., secured him to a holding cell bench, and required him to remove his shoes. When Radetich advised Fenimore that he would search the car for intoxicants, he grew extremely agitated. 

With a body-worn camera recording the process, Radetich and four other troopers approached the parked car and found Nicholas Luzzo asleep in the passenger seat. After waking him, they observed signs of intoxication. One trooper escorted Luzzo into the lobby while another trooper held onto the car keys. At 9:02 p.m., the troopers initiated a warrantless search of the car and immediately found a hypodermic needle and four wax folds of heroin in the center console. Additionally, the troopers located a plastic bag on the rear passenger seat containing a loaded gun with a high-capacity magazine wrapped in a towel. They also found two bolt cutters, a hammer, four sets of car keys for other vehicles, several iPhones, and an iPod.

Immediately thereafter, the police dispatcher called a towing company, and the troopers placed Luzzo under arrest. Fenimore was ultimately charged with second-degree unlawful possession of a weapon, third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance, and fourth-degree possession of a prohibited device.

Fenimore moved to suppress the evidence located during the warrantless search of the car. At the hearing, Radetich testified that under John’s Law, N.J.S.A. 39:4-50.23, the troopers were required to impound the defendant’s car after his arrest for DWI, and as a result, the car “wasn’t going anywhere … for at least 12 hours.” During cross-examination, Radetich testified that when a defendant is arrested for a John’s Law violation, it is standard procedure not to seek a warrant because State Troopers have the right to a probable cause search of the vehicle for intoxicants, whether on the side of the road or in a parking lot.

The trial court denied the motion. The court acknowledged that the vehicle was in the State Police barracks parking lot and was about to be impounded pursuant to John’s Law. However, the court concluded that “under present case law, if there is probable cause that a person has operated a motor vehicle under the influence, police have the right to search that vehicle without a search warrant, whether it’s on the roadway or in a parking lot,” and therefore, the State Troopers’ warrantless search of the car was justified. After pleading guilty, Fenimore timely appealed the denial of his motion to the Appellate Division.

While the Appellate Division relied on State v. Witt, 126 A.3d 850 (N.J. 2015), for the applicable standard, it acknowledged that Witt made several references to roadside stops. The Appellate Division recognized that Witt prohibits “an officer from conducting ‘a warrantless search at headquarters merely because he could have done so on the side of the road.’” However, the Appellate Division interpreted Witt’s reference to police “headquarters” to mean “a police impound lot, rather than the parking lot of a police station,” reasoning that “when a vehicle is towed and impounded, it is no longer mobile and the inherent exigencies supporting an on-scene search dissipate.”

The Appellate Division concluded that “the exigencies inherent to on-scene searches, such as the mobility of the vehicle, were present” because: (1) the vehicle was in an unsecured parking lot prior to impounding, (2) police did not have custody and control of the vehicle prior to the search, (3) the vehicle was mobile, and (4) although Fenimore was detained, Luzzo was not. Thus, the Appellate Division affirmed the denial, concluding that the search of the vehicle “fell squarely within the parameters articulated in Witt.”

The New Jersey Supreme Court granted Fenimore’s petition for certification.

Analysis

The Court noted that the issue presented is whether the automobile exception to the warrant requirement applies when police search a vehicle parked in a police barracks parking lot after the driver has been arrested for DWI and the vehicle is subject to mandatory impoundment under John’s Law.

The Fourth Amendment and Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution guarantee the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures and prohibit the issuance of warrants without probable cause. U.S. Const. amend. IV; N.J. Const. art. I, ¶ 7. Warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable under both constitutions, and the State must show by a preponderance of evidence that the search falls within a well-recognized exception to the warrant requirement, the Court stated. State v. Cohen, 296 A.3d 480 (N.J. 2023); State v. Smart, 289 A.3d 469 (N.J. 2023).

Under federal law, officers may search an automobile without a warrant so long as they have probable cause to believe it contains contraband or evidence of a crime, based on the ready mobility of vehicles and a reduced expectation of privacy in vehicles. Collins v. Virginia, 584 U.S. 586 (2018); California v. Carney, 471 U.S. 386 (1985). The United States Supreme Court has refused to limit this exception to on-scene searches. Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U.S. 42 (1970); Pennsylvania v. Labron, 518 U.S. 938 (1996).

However, the Court explained that the automobile exception under the New Jersey Constitution is significantly more protective of motorists’ privacy interests. See Smart. New Jersey requires that the circumstances giving rise to probable cause be unforeseeable and spontaneous and departs from federal jurisprudence that allows warrantless searches at headquarters merely because they could have been done on the side of the road. Witt. The Witt Court explained that “whatever inherent exigency justifies a warrantless search at the scene under the automobile exception certainly cannot justify the failure to secure a warrant after towing and impounding the car at headquarters when it is practicable to do so.” Because warrantless searches should not be based on fake exigencies, the Court stated that New Jersey’s automobile exception is limited to on-scene warrantless searches. Id.

The Court observed that New Jersey courts have identified several rationales supporting this limited exception, including: (1) the risk of loss or destruction of evidence, State v. Alston, 440 A.2d 1311 (N.J. 1981); (2) the unacceptable risk of serious bodily injury and death from prolonged encounters on crowded highways, Witt; (3) the risk that motorists may feel compelled to consent to warrantless searches, id.; (4) the recognition that the privacy intrusion from a prompt search may not exceed prolonged detention while securing a warrant, id.; and (5) the burden of posting police to guard the vehicle. State v. Colvin, 587 A.2d 1278 (N.J. 1991).

Turning to the present case, the Court held that when the car was parked in a State Police barracks parking lot, police had arrested the driver, removed the passenger, obtained the keys, and the car was subject to imminent mandatory impoundment, the automobile exception did not apply. The police were required to obtain a warrant before searching the vehicle. This conclusion flows directly from Witt, which explicitly departed from federal law permitting warrantless searches at police headquarters and limited New Jersey’s automobile exception to on-scene warrantless searches, the Court explained.

The Court disagreed with the Appellate Division’s interpretation that Witt permits searches in a police station parking lot but not in an impound lot. Witt uses the term “headquarters,” which clearly encompasses a State Police barracks parking lot, and Chambers, the federal case that Witt departed from, involved a search at the police station, not an impound lot.

The Court determined that none of the rationales supporting New Jersey’s limited automobile exception applied. There was no risk of loss or destruction of evidence because Fenimore was detained and Luzzo was inside the barracks, and police had the keys to the car parked at the barracks, visible through lobby windows. Alston; see also Witt (“If an automobile’s occupants are secured or detained so that they cannot destroy evidence or gain access to a weapon, the exigency to search the vehicle is illusory and, by all rights, a warrant should be secured.”). There was no burden in posting a detail to guard the vehicle because one of the five troopers who participated in the search could have guarded it while a warrant was secured. Colvin. There was no risk from a highway encounter, and from a road safety perspective, it is difficult to imagine many places safer than a State Police barracks parking lot, the Court commented. Fenimore had already been arrested, the car was not going anywhere for at least 12 hours, and the trial court acknowledged that 12 hours was certainly enough time to obtain a warrant. The Court determined that there was no evidence that securing a warrant would have delayed either defendant’s or the vehicle’s detention. 

The only remaining rationale was the reduced expectation of privacy based on the pervasive regulation of vehicles. Collins (citing Carney). The Court stated that it has never held this rationale sufficient, on its own, to justify a warrantless search under the state Constitution and declined to do so here.

Neither the language and reasoning of Witt nor the rationales supporting New Jersey’s limited automobile exception justified the failure to obtain a warrant, the Court ruled.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the Appellate Division and remanded to the trial court for entry of an order granting Fenimore’s motion to suppress. See: State v. Fenimore, 339 A.3d 254 (N.J. 2025).  

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