Nevada police may search your car without your consent if either:
- The police have a search warrant;
- The police reasonably believe a search is required for their own safety;
- The police have probable cause to believe your vehicle contains evidence of a crime;
- You have been arrested, and the search is “incident to” the arrest.
- Your car was impounded.
1. Can police search my car with a search warrant?
Police may search your vehicle in Nevada if police have a valid and current search warrant authorizing the search.
In order to obtain a search warrant, police need to show the judge that they have probable cause to believe the car contains evidence of criminal activity. Plus the warrant must be specific and not overly broad.
If the police search your vehicle with an invalid warrant or go beyond the bounds of the warrant during the search, any evidence they find can potentially be suppressed (disregarded) if you get criminally charged.1
2. Can police search my car for their own safety?
If police pull you over for a traffic stop in Nevada, they are allowed to search the passenger compartment of your car if they have a reasonable belief that you are dangerous and may be able to gain immediate control of a weapon.
This typically occurs if:
- You are being threatening;
- The police see your hands reaching for something; or
- The police see weapons through the window.
This type of search is similar to a “stop and frisk”, where police may pat you down if they reasonably fear you are armed. Though since you are in a car, the search area expands to the entire passenger compartment.2
3. Can police search my car for criminal evidence?
When police pull you over to cite you for a traffic violation in Nevada, they cannot search your car unless they have probable cause to believe that your vehicle contains evidence of a crime. Probable cause is much more than a “hunch.”
Common examples of things that would cause police to have probable cause to search your car include:
- the smell of alcohol emanating from the car (indicating a DUI occurred)
- an open container of alcohol “in plain view” in the cup holder (indicating an open container crime occurred)
- an item reported stolen is “in plain view” in the back seat (indicating a theft crime occurred)
Once police have probable cause, they can search whatever parts of the car they believe may contain that evidence (including the trunk). They can do this without you being arrested first.
Note that police are allowed to shine a flashlight into your car if you are stopped for a traffic violation at night. Under the “automobile exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, drivers and passengers have a lower expectation of privacy than they would if they were at home.
Also note that police may bring K-9 drug-sniffing dogs to sniff your car as long as doing so does not unreasonably prolong the traffic stop. So if you get pulled over for a minor traffic violation and give police no reasonable suspicion you have drugs, the police should not make you wait for them to bring a dog on the scene.3
You are advised to politely decline if police ask for permission to search your car.
4. Can police search my car if I am arrested?
If you are the driver or passenger in a vehicle in Nevada – and the police arrest you for a crime – then the police may conduct a “search incident to arrest.”
A “search incident to arrest” permits police to search the area within your immediate control. If you are in a car, this would include the vehicle’s passenger compartment as well as any containers – unlocked or locked – inside the passenger compartment.
Examples of “containers” includes:
- glove compartments
- consoles
- luggage
- bags or boxes
- clothing
However, the police may not search the vehicle’s trunk “incident to an arrest” since the trunk would not be in your immediate control.
Furthermore, a “vehicle search incident to arrest” must occur contemporaneously with the arrest while you are still on the scene. If the police wait to search your car until after you are driven away, then any evidence they find in the car could likely be suppressed as evidence.4
5. Can police search my car if it was impounded?
Yes. If your car gets lawfully impounded in Nevada, police may conduct an inventory search of the entire vehicle – including the trunk. They do not need probable cause to believe the car contains evidence of a crime.
Common reasons vehicles get lawfully towed and impounded include
- parking violations and
- DUI arrests.
If police ever impound a car for unlawful reasons, then any evidence found in the car can be suppressed as evidence.5
See our related article, Four times Nevada police can search your trunk.
Legal References
- State v. Allen (2003) .
- Michigan v. Long (1983) 103 S. Ct. 3469. (“Alhough Terry [ v. Ohio] involved the stop and subsequent patdown search for weapons of a person suspected of criminal activity, it did not restrict the preventive search to the person of the detained suspect. Protection of police and others can justify protective searches when police have a reasonable belief that the suspect poses a danger.“). Wright v. State (1972) 88 Nev. 460.
- U.S. v. Ross, (1982) 456 U.S. 798 (1982)(“[I]f probable cause justifies the search of a lawfully stopped vehicle, it justifies the search of every part of the vehicle and its contents that may conceal the object of the search[.]). Carroll v. U.S., (1925) 267 U.S. 132 (1925)(“[C]ontraband goods concealed and illegally transported in an automobile or other vehicle may be searched for without a warrant[.]”). Knowles v. Iowa, (1998) 525 U.S. 113 (“But while the concern for officer safety in this context may justify the “minimal” additional intrusion of ordering a driver and passengers out of the car, it does not by itself justify the often considerably greater intrusion attending a full fieldtype search.”). Fletcher v. State, (1999) 115 Nev. 425 (“[A] warrantless search of a parked, immobile, unoccupied automobile requires: (1) probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains contraband; and (2) exigent circumstances sufficient to dispense with the need for a warrant…[A]lthough there may have been probable cause to believe criminal evidence was in the vehicle, there were no exigent circumstances sufficient to dispense with the need for a separate warrant because the opportunity to search the car was not “fleeting.”). People v. Dickinson (1996) 928 P.2d 1309 (“The United States Supreme Court has held that shining a flashlight to illuminate the interior of a vehicle or building does not constitute a search that triggers Fourth Amendment protections”). State v. Lloyd (2013) 129 Nev. 739. Jim v. State (2021) 495 P.3d 478. Hughes v. State (2000) 116 Nev. 975. State v. Beckman (2013) 129 Nev. 481. Shum v. State (1981) 97 Nev. 15. Rodriguez v. State (2015) 575 U.S. 348.
- New York v. Belton (1981 ) 453 U.S. at 460 (“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.“). Camacho v. State (2003) 119 Nev. 395. State v. Nye (2020) 468 P.3d 369.
- Weintraub v. State, (1994) 110 Nev. 287 (“[P]olice officers need not comply with the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause and warrant requirements when they are conducting an inventory search of an automobile in order to further some legitimate caretaking function.”). Heffley v. State, (1967) 83 Nev. 100 (“If, however, the policing conduct indicates that the intention is exploratory rather than inventory the fruits of that search are forbidden.”).
