California v. Carney

In California v. Carney (1985) 471 U.S. 386, police searched a Dodge Mini motor home that was parked in a downtown San Diego parking lot after receiving an unconfirmed tip that the motor home was being used in the exchange of marijuana for sex, watching a youth enter the motor home with the defendant and emerge after one and one-quarter hours, detaining the youth and learning from him that he had received marijuana in exchange for sexual contact with the defendant. The warrantless search yielded marijuana and paraphernalia used in drug sales. (Carney, supra, 471 U.S. at pp. 387-388.) The court "granted certiorari to decide whether law enforcement agents violated the Fourth Amendment when they conducted a warrantless search, based on probable cause, of a fully mobile 'motor home' located in a public place." (471 U.S. at p. 387.) The court held that the Fourth Amendment was not violated because "the pervasive schemes of regulation, which necessarily lead to reduced expectations of privacy, and the exigencies attendant to ready mobility justify searches without prior recourse to the authority of a magistrate so long as the overriding standard of probable cause is met." (471 U.S. at p. 392.)