BRENNAN, J., concurring 433 U.S. evaluation of a neutral magistrate, before their privacy interests in the contents of the footlocker were invaded.10 Accordingly, the judgment is MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, concurring. Affirmed. I fully join THE CHIEF JUSTICE's thorough opinion for the Court. I write only to comment upon two points made by my Brother BLACKMUN's dissent. First, I agree wholeheartedly with my Brother BLACKMUN that it is "unfortunate" that the Government in this case. "sought . . . to vindicate an extreme view of the Fourth Amendment." Post, at 17. It is unfortunate, in my view, not because this argument somehow "distract [ed]" the Court from other more meritorious arguments made by the Government these arguments are addressed and convincingly rejected in the Court's opinion-but because it is deeply distressing that the Department of Justice, whose mission is to protect the constitutional liberties of the people of the United States, should even appear to be seeking to subvert them by extreme and dubious legal arguments. It is gratifying that the Court today unanimously rejects the Government's position. Second, it should be noted that while Part II of the dissent suggests a number of possible alternative courses of action that the agents could have followed without violating the Constitution, no decision of this Court is cited to support the constitutionality of these courses, but only some decisions of Courts of Appeals. Post, at 23, nn. 4 and 5. In my view, it is not at all obvious that the agents could 10 Unlike searches of the person, United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 (1973); United States v. Edwards, 415 U. S. 800 (1974), searches of possessions within an arrestee's immediate control cannot be justified by any reduced expectations of privacy caused by the arrest. Respondents' privacy interest in the contents of the footlocker was not eliminated simply because they were under arrest. 1 BLACKMUN, J., dissenting legally have searched the footlocker had they seized it after Machado and Leary had driven away with it in their car1 or "at the time and place of the arrests." 2 MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, with whom MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST joins, dissenting. I think it somewhat unfortunate that the Government sought a reversal in this case primarily to vindicate an extreme view of the Fourth Amendment that would restrict the protection of the Warrant Clause to private dwellings and a few other "high privacy" areas. I reject this argument for the reasons stated in Parts (2) and (3) of the Court's opinion, with which I am in general agreement. The overbroad nature of the Goverment's principal argument, however, has served to distract the Court from the more important task of defining the proper scope of a search incident to an arrest. The Court fails to accept the opportunity this case presents to apply the rationale of recent decisions and develop a clear doctrine concerning the proper consequences 1 While the contents of the car could have been searched pursuant to the automobile exception, it is by no means clear that the contents of locked containers found inside a car are subject to search under this exception, any more than they would be if the police found them in any other place. 2 When Machado and Leary were "standing next to [the] open automobile trunk containing the footlocker," and even when they "were seated on it," post, at 23, it is not obvious to me that the contents of the heavy, securely locked footlocker were within the area of their "immediate control" for purposes of the search-incident-to-arrest doctrine, the justification for which is the possibility that the arrested person might have immediate access to weapons that might endanger the officer's safety or assist in his escape, or to items of evidence that he might conceal or destroy. I would think that the footlocker in this case hardly was "within [respondents'] immediate control'-construing that phrase to mean the area from within which [they] might gain possession of a weapon or destructible evidence." Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 763 (1969). One line of recent decisions establishes that no warrant is required for the arresting officer to search the clothing and effects of one placed in custodial arrest. The rationale for this was explained in United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 (1973): "A police officer's determination as to how and where to search the person of a suspect whom he has arrested is necessarily a quick ad hoc judgment which the Fourth Amendment does not require to be broken down in each instance into an analysis of each step in the search. The authority to search the person incident to a lawful custodial arrest, while based upon the need to disarm and to discover evidence, does not depend on what a court may later decide was the probability in a particular arrest situation that weapons or evidence would in fact be found upon the person of the suspect. A custodial arrest of a suspect based on probable cause is a reasonable intrusion under the Fourth Amendment; that intrusion being lawful, a search incident to the arrest requires no additional justification. It is the fact of the lawful arrest which establishes the authority to search, and we hold that in the case of a lawful custodial arrest a full search of the person is not only an exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, but is also a 'reasonable' search under that Amendment." Id., at 235. Accord, Gustafson v. Florida, 414 U. S. 260 (1973). Under this doctrine, a search of personal effects need not be contemporaneous with the arrest, and indeed may be delayed a number of hours while the suspect remains in lawful custody. United States v. Edwards, 415 U. S. 800 (1974). A second series of decisions concerns the consequences of custodial arrest of a person driving an automobile. The car 1 BLACKMUN, J., dissenting may be impounded and, with probable cause, its contents. (including locked compartments) subsequently examined without a warrant. Texas v. White, 423 U. S. 67 (1975); Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433, 439–448 (1973); Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, 47-52 (1970). Moreover, once a car has been properly impounded for any reason, the police may follow a standard procedure of inventorying its contents without any showing of probable cause. South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364 (1976). I would apply the rationale of these two lines of authority and hold generally that a warrant is not required to seize and search any movable property in the possession of a person properly arrested in a public place. A person arrested in a public place is likely to have various kinds of property with him: items inside his clothing, a briefcase or suitcase, packages, or a vehicle. In such instances the police cannot very well leave the property on the sidewalk or street while they go to get a warrant. The items may be stolen by a passer-by or removed by the suspect's confederates. Rather than requiring the police to "post a guard" over such property, I think it is surely reasonable for the police to take the items along to the station with the arrested person. In the present case the Court of Appeals held, and respondents do not contest, that it was proper for the federal agents to seize the footlocker and take it to their office. Given the propriety of seizing the footlocker, there is some reason to believe that the subsequent search a fortiori was permissible. See Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S., at 51-52. I acknowledge, however, that impounding the footlocker without searching it would have been a less intrusive alternative in this case. The police could have waited to conduct their search until after a warrant had been obtained. Nevertheless, the mere fact that a warrant could have been obtained while the footlocker was safely impounded does not necessarily make the warrantless search unreasonable. See, e. g., United States BLACKMUN, J., dissenting 433 U.S. v. Edwards, 415 U. S., at 805; Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U. S. 583, 595-596 (1974) (plurality opinion). As the Court in Robinson recognized, custodial arrest is such a serious deprivation that various lesser invasions of privacy may be fairly regarded as incidental. An arrested person, of course, has an additional privacy interest in the objects in his possession at the time of arrest. To be sure, allowing impoundment of those objects pursuant to arrest, but requiring a warrant for examination of their contents, would protect that incremental privacy interest in cases where the police assessment of probable cause is subsequently rejected by a magistrate. But a countervailing consideration is that a warrant would be routinely forthcoming in the vast majority of situations where the property has been seized in conjunction with the valid arrest of a person in a public place. I therefore doubt that requiring the authorities to go through the formality of obtaining a warrant in this situation would have much practical effect in protecting Fourth Amendment values.1 I believe this sort of practical evaluation underlies the Court's decisions permitting clothing, personal effects, and automobiles to be searched without a warrant as an incident of arrest, even though it would be possible simply to impound these items until a warrant could be obtained. The Court's opinion does not explain why a wallet carried in the arrested person's clothing, but not the footlocker in the present case, is subject to "reduced expectations of privacy caused by 1 A search warrant serves additional functions where an arrest takes place in a home or office. The warrant assures the occupants that the officers have legal authority to conduct the search and defines the area to be searched and the objects to be seized. See Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523, 532 (1967). But a warrant would serve none of these functions where the arrest takes place in a public area and the authorities are admittedly empowered to seize the objects in question. Cf. United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411, 414-424 (1976) (warrant not required for arrest, based on probable cause, in public place). |