Is Gorsuch saying that if someone steals a car, they have property rights over the car, except in the case of the legal owner?
I wouldn’t characterize the boyfriend as having stolen the car. The girlfriend let him borrow it, in violation of the rental contract...to me the interesting part has to do with violation of the rental contract. If the fine print says the contract is voided by this violation, does that mean that she suddenly has an ill gotten car, that neither of them could refuse a search?
A lot of rentals say this or that voids the contract.
If this unauthorized loan did, now the car is solely the baby of the rental firm. It’s up to them to complain about 4th amendment violation if they want to, and if it was a property confiscation case (this doesn’t seem to be one) they probably would. But for a customer they probably wouldn’t. Our car, the renter’s violation, the second borrower’s complicity, the bust is well and truly yours. But it could go Gorsuch’s way. Here he is looking more like Thomas than like the late Scalia.
He didn’t steal the car. It was loaned to him by someone with legal possession. She may not have had the legal right to loan it, but he wouldn’t necessarily have known that. I can’t see how that means he gives up his rights. I’m with Gorsuch.
Maybe I missed something, but I thought they were discussing SUSPICIONLESS cases.
Any time the police have reasonable suspicion, the police have the power to arrest you for possessing a stolen car. But if they have no such reasonable suspicion and stop you capriciously or randomly, and then discover you are driving a stolen car, then you could not be LEGALLY arrested in that case, since you are secure in "your property", even if it is stolen. Ithink that is what Goresuch is arguing. Now quite obviously, the real owner possess the car. The theif or the person in possession of the stolen car has no property right to ownership of that car. So the discussion cannot be actual ownership. I think what is being discussed is, does someone driving a stolen car have a Constitutional right to not have the police investigate that if they have no other reason to contact you based on reasonable suspicion. So if you are weaving down the street drunk and in the course of investigating your DUI they find you are driving astolen car, that is a valid Constitutional police power. But they cant just pull over a car full of 18 year old black guys just to check and see if they are driving in a stolen car. They need a reason. "
With regard to the fourth amendment, yes. The theft would bring up other issues not present in this case.
He did not steal the car. Had he done so, the question of probable cause would be absent. Your line of discussion is moot.
No. They did not “steal” the car. Any “theft of service” was on the part of the person who rented the car AND LET the other person use it. Control - possession - was in the hands of the renter and they passed control - contrary to their rental contract - to the other person. That breach of the contract may be a legal-civil matter between the outfit that rented the car and the person who rented it - but it is not “theft”.
“Is Gorsuch saying that if someone steals a car, they have property rights over the car, except in the case of the legal owner?”
I don’t think he is expanding his logic on the 4th Amendment protections to a thief driving a stolen car. No one who has legal possession at any time voluntarily passes possession of a stolen car to the car thief.