Second Circuit clears cops to use phone cameras during vehicle searches

MANHATTAN (CN) — Police officers using phone cameras to peer through a vehicle’s tinted windows does not constitute an illegal search, a Second Circuit panel said Thursday.

Christopher Poller was convicted in January 2024 after pleading guilty to drug possession with intent to distribute fentanyl and cocaine, in addition to possession of a firearm. He was arrested in May 2022 when police officers were surveilling his residence as part of a narcotics and weapons investigation. While one group of officers approached Poller’s house to execute their search and arrest warrants, another group approached his car.

Because the windows were tinted, one officer used his iPhone camera to look inside the car, touching the vehicle in the process.

According to court documents, the officer said he saw two firearms wedged between the front seats and a bag containing an unknown substance.

But Poller argued the officers’ observations into his car violated his reasonable expectation of privacy and that the officers’ physical touching of his car constituted a trespassory search.

A lower court denied Poller’s motion to suppress the evidence, and the appellate panel agreed.

“Whatever Poller’s subjective expectation of privacy may have been, his expectation that the installation of tinted windows shielded the car’s interior from all observations is not a reasonable one,” U.S. Circuit Judge Joseph F. Bianco, a Donald Trump appointee, said in the panel’s decision.

The panel added that Poller’s car was registered in Connecticut, which bars drivers from imposing tinted windows that entirely block a vehicle’s interior from outside view.

“This law, passed by a Connecticut Legislature elected through the democratic process, evinces, at least to some degree, that society has not approved of tinted windows that conceal a car’s interior from all view,” Bianco wrote.

In fact, an individual’s car is where they have the lowest expectation of privacy, University at Buffalo Professor Shawn Donahue said.

“Generally, if you’re sitting at a stoplight, you can kind of look over and see the other person in the car,” Donahue said.

Pointing to a century-old U.S. Supreme Court decision, Donahue added that it has long been established that law enforcement can search a vehicle without a warrant if they have probable cause to believe it contains evidence of a crime.

“A person’s home is their castle — that’s where you get some of the most protection,” Donahue said. “For automobiles, you’re going to have some of the least protection.”

The panel also disagreed with Poller’s assertion that the officers engaged in a trespassory search by repeatedly touching his car while trying to peer inside, finding that the officers would have been able to see in the car using the iPhone camera even if they hadn’t touched it.

“Even assuming a trespassory search occurred here, suppression is unwarranted because the search was not the but-for cause of the officers’ acquisition of the challenged evidence,” Bianco said.

U.S. Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr., a George W. Bush appointee, and U.S. Circuit Judge William J. Nardini, a Trump appointee, also participated in the panel’s decision.

Neither party responded to a request for comment.

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