In Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969), a case not involving a motor vehicle, the U.S. Supreme Court held an officer who makes a lawful, custodial arrest may also warrantlessly search the arrestee and the arrestee's "immediate surrounding area" for weapons the arrestee could use, and for evidence the arrestee could destroy or conceal. After Chimel though, the Court perceived police officers and courts were struggling to define the "immediate surrounding area" of one arrested in a motor vehicle. To help them, the Court in New York v. Belton established a clear rule, which it said applied the principles of Chimel to situations involving motor vehicles. The rule is this: "when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile." Id. at 460. "The police may also," as part of their search, "examine the contents of any containers found within the passenger compartment, whether it the container is open or closed." Id. at 460-461. The search of a container is justified, explained the Court, not because "the arrestee has no privacy interest in the container, but because the lawful custodial arrest justifies the infringement of any privacy interest the arrestee may have." Id. In Chimel v. California, the United States Supreme Court considered "the permissible scope under the Fourth Amendment of a search incident to a lawful arrest." There, officers executing an arrest warrant searched the defendant's entire house incident to his arrest. Id. at 753-54. The Court offered two justifications for permitting searches of an arrestee's person incident to arrest--officer safety and the prevention of concealment or destruction of evidence. Id. at 763. The Court reasoned that "when an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape." Id. at 762-63. In addition, "the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like rule" because a weapon within the reach of an arrestee "can be as dangerous to the arresting officer as one concealed in the clothing of the person arrested." Id. at 763. Thus, the Court concluded, officers may search "the arrestee's person and the area 'within his immediate control'--construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence." Id. The Court declined, however, to extend the exception to searches of an entire house. Id. The Court explained, "There is no comparable justification . . . for routinely searching any room other than that in which an arrest occurs--or, for that matter, for searching through all the desk drawers or other closed or concealed areas in that room itself." Id. Such searches must be made pursuant to a warrant, unless another exception applies. Id. The United States Supreme Court reviewed some prior cases concerning the scope of a search incident to a lawful arrest and acknowledged that they were far from consistent. (Id. at pp. 755-762.) In addressing that issue anew, the court observed that in a recent case, it had emphasized that "'the police must, whenever practicable, obtain advance judicial approval of searches and seizures through the warrant procedure,' and that 'the scope of a search must be "strictly tied to and justified by" the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible.'" (Id. at p. 762, quoting Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 19-20.) The court explained: "The search undertaken by the officer in that 'stop and frisk' case was sustained under that test, because it was no more than a 'protective . . . search for weapons.'" (Chimel, supra, 395 U.S. at p. 762.) In contrast, the court noted that in a companion case, it had applied the same standard to another set of facts and reached a different conclusion, holding "that a policeman's action in thrusting his hand into a suspect's pocket had been neither motivated by nor limited to the objective of protection. Rather, the search had been made in order to find narcotics, which were in fact found." (Ibid.) The Chimel court explained that "a similar analysis underlies the 'search incident to arrest' principle, and marks its proper extent. When an arrest is made, it is reasonable for the arresting officer to search the person arrested in order to remove any weapons that the latter might seek to use in order to resist arrest or effect his escape. Otherwise, the officer's safety might well be endangered, and the arrest itself frustrated. In addition, it is entirely reasonable for the arresting officer to search for and seize any evidence on the arrestee's person in order to prevent its concealment or destruction. And the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary items must, of course, be governed by a like rule. A gun on a table or in a drawer in front of one who is arrested can be as dangerous to the arresting officer as one concealed in the clothing of the person arrested. There is ample justification, therefore, for a search of the arrestee's person and the area 'within his immediate control'--construing that phrase to mean the area from within which he might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence." (Chimel, supra, 395 U.S. at pp. 762-763.) The court emphasized that a valid arrest was only one of the circumstances that justified a warrantless search. The surrounding circumstances must also reasonably necessitate an immediate search, that is, a warrantless search is "' "strictly tied to and justified by" the circumstances which rendered its initiation permissible.' " (Chimel, supra, 395 U.S. at p. 762) To illustrate this point, the court noted a recent case in which the police had searched a car after the arrest of its occupants and the removal of the car to a secure garage. "We held that search to have been unlawful under the Fourth Amendment, despite the contention that it had been incidental to a valid arrest. Our reasoning was straightforward:'The rule allowing contemporaneous searches is justified, for example, by the need to seize weapons and other things which might be used to assault an officer or effect an escape, as well as by the need to prevent the destruction of evidence of the crime--things which might easily happen where the weapon or evidence is on the accused's person or under his immediate control. But these justifications are absent where a search is remote in time or place from the arrest.'" (Chimel, supra, 395 U.S. at pp. 763-764) The Supreme Court imposed Fourth Amendment restrictions on an officer's right to conduct a warrantless search of a house incident to a defendant's lawful arrest in the house. It held that when an arrest is made, the officer may search the arrestee's person and the area "within his immediate control" which means the area from within which the arrestee might gain possession of a weapon or destroy evidence. The high court stated, "There is no comparable justification, however, for routinely searching any room other than that in which an arrest occurs . . . . Such searches, in the absence of well-recognized exceptions, may be made only under the authority of a search warrant." ( Id., at p. 763 23 L.Ed.2d at p. 694.) In Chimel v. California (1969) 395 U.S. 752 (Chimel) and New York v. Belton (1981) 453 U.S. 454 (Belton), the high court set the boundaries of the incident-to-arrest exception to the general rule against searches without a warrant. Chimel permitted the search of an arrestee's "immediate surrounding area" and justified the search for protection of the police and to prevent the destruction of evidence. (395 U.S. at pp. 762-763.) In Belton, the Supreme Court applied Chimel to automobiles, holding that "when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile." (453 U.S. at p. 460.) The authorities have split, however, on the application of Belton's "bright-line" rule when the arrestee is no longer an occupant of the vehicle to be searched. (See State v. Wanzek (N.D. 1999) 598 N.W.2d 811, 814-815 listing the cases.)