Cite as: 526 U. S. 295 (1999)
Stevens, J., dissenting
Amendment required a warrant to search Houghton's purse, cf. Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 153 (1925), at the very least the trooper in this case had to have probable cause to believe that her purse contained contraband. The Wyoming Supreme Court concluded that he did not. 956 P. 2d 363, 372 (1998); see App. 20-21.
Finally, in my view, the State's legitimate interest in effective law enforcement does not outweigh the privacy concerns at issue.3 I am as confident in a police officer's ability to apply a rule requiring a warrant or individualized probable cause to search belongings that are—as in this case—obviously owned by and in the custody of a passenger as is the Court in a "passenger-confederate[']s" ability to circumvent the rule. Ante, at 305. Certainly the ostensible clarity of the Court's rule is attractive. But that virtue is insufficient justification for its adoption. Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U. S.
dividualized suspicion); Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U. S. 85, 91, 94-96 (1979) (explaining that "a person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person," and discussing Di Re); Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 52 (1979); Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, 62-63 (1968); see also United States v. Padilla, 508 U. S. 77, 82 (1993) (per curiam) ("Expectations of privacy and property interests govern the analysis of Fourth Amendment search and seizure claims. Participants in a criminal conspiracy may have such expectations or interests, but the conspiracy itself neither adds to nor detracts from them").
3 To my knowledge, we have never restricted ourselves to a two-step Fourth Amendment approach wherein the privacy and governmental interests at stake must be considered only if 18th-century common law "yields no answer." Ante, at 299. Neither the precedent cited by the Court, nor the majority's opinion in this case, mandate that approach. In a later discussion, the Court does attempt to address the contemporary privacy and governmental interests at issue in cases of this nature. Ante, at 303-306. Either the majority is unconvinced by its own recitation of the historical materials, or it has determined that considering additional factors is appropriate in any event. The Court does not admit the former; and of course the latter, standing alone, would not establish uncertainty in the common law as the prerequisite to looking beyond history in Fourth Amendment cases.
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