BOEHM, J.
The defendant was arrested at a public restaurant for an unrelated crime. A drug dog called to sniff the defendant’s car in the restaurant’s parking lot indicated narcotics in the car. We hold that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit a warrantless search of an operational vehicle found in a public place if the police have probable cause to believe the vehicle contains evidence of a crime. We also hold that the search was reasonable and did not violate the Indiana Constitution because the defendant was already under arrest and the dog’s alert gave the officers probable cause to believe the car contained contraband.
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Hobbs contends that because the arrest occurred inside the Pizza Hut restaurant, away from his vehicle and there was no threat to officer safety, the search of his car was not authorized as a search incident to arrest. We agree. . . . More recently, in Gant v. Arizona, 129 S. Ct. 1710, 1723 4 (2009), the court made clear that the preservation of evidence justified a warrantless search only if the officer has a reasonable belief that the automobile contains evidence of the crime for which the suspect is being arrested. Here, we agree with Hobbs that neither officer safety nor preservation of evidence justified the search of Hobbs’s car as one conducted incident to arrest. Hobbs had already been secured and was not close to the car, so he presented no threat to officer safety. And because the arrest was for a different crime in another county, there was no reasonable belief that evidence of the “crime of arrest” would be found. The exception for searches incident to arrest is therefore inapplicable.
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The “automobile exception” to the warrant requirement allows police to search a vehicle without obtaining a warrant if they have probable cause to believe evidence of a crime will be found in the vehicle. . . . .
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The defendant contends he “was not in any position to control any aspect of the vehicle.” But the automobile exception does not require that there be an imminent possibility the vehicle may be driven away. . . . Under the exception, an operational vehicle is inherently mobile, whether or not a driver is behind the wheel or has ready access. . . . With probable cause, this inherent mobility is enough to conduct a warrantless search under the automobile exception. . . .Nothing in the record indicates that Hobbs’s vehicle was not operational. Because Hobbs’s admittedly mobile vehicle was in the parking area of a restaurant, it was subject to the automobile exception and no warrant was required to search the vehicle if the officers had probable cause to believe it contained evidence of a crime.
Officers are not authorized to detain a person stopped under reasonable suspicion of a crime for a longer period than is required to resolve the suspicion. . . . But here Hobbs was arrested with probable cause supported by a warrant for a previous unrelated crime. He was not detained based on suspicion of the crimes charged in this case, and his detention was not prolonged at all by the call for the dog or the subsequent search and seizure.
The automobile exception requires probable cause to believe the vehicle contains evidence of a crime. The officers’ own observations of Hobbs entering the vehicle and placing something inside gave probable cause to believe the contents of the car were possessed by Hobbs. The subsequent dog sniff provided probable cause that the vehicle contained illicit drugs. . . . It is well settled that a dog sniff is not a search protected by the Fourth Amendment. . . . Accordingly, no degree of suspicion is required to summon the canine unit to the scene to conduct an exterior sniff of the car or to conduct the sniff itself.
In sum, Hobbs’s car was an operational vehicle in a public place; the dog sniff was not conducted under circumstances where Hobbs was unconstitutionally seized, and the dog sniff provided probable cause that the car contained evidence of a crime. There therefore was no Fourth Amendment violation in the search of Hobbs’s car or the seizure of the contraband found in the car.
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Hobbs also claims that the warrantless search violated Article I, section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. The text of this provision of the Indiana Constitution is identical to the Fourth Amendment, but the two have been given somewhat different interpretations. . . . Conformity of a search to the Indiana Constitution turns on an evaluation of the “reasonableness” of the conduct of the law enforcement officers, not on the expectation of privacy commonly associated with Fourth Amendment analysis. . . . Relevant considerations in evaluating reasonableness of a search under all the circumstances include the degree to which the search or seizure disrupts the suspect’s normal activities, and those facts and observations that support the officer’s decision to initiate the search or seizure. . . . We agree with the Court of Appeals that the officer’s actions here were reasonable. There was no disruption of Hobbs’s normal activities. At the time the search of his vehicle took place Hobbs was already under arrest for a different crime and would remain in custody whether the search took place or not. Once the dog alerted, the officers had a high degree of confidence that the vehicle contained evidence of a crime, and the same considerations underlying the federal automobile exception support permitting the officers to secure the evidence without delay.
Shepard, C.J., and Dickson, J., concur.
SULLIVAN, J., dissents with separate opinion, which Rucker, J., joins:
Exceptions to general rules, especially to constitutional rules like the warrant requirement, should be narrow, not broad. Defendant’s lack of proximity to the automobile at the time of arrest – he was inside his place of employment and the car was parked outside in the lot –should render the automobile exception unavailable. The trial court understood this and granted Defendant’s motion to suppress. I would affirm that determination.