You have an expectation of privacy for the contents of your trunk, but it's less firm than that of your house --- your trunk can be searched without a warrant to "inventory" it if it's merely impounded, without suspicion or an arrest.
If the police had a device that enabled them to see into car trunks, it would likely constitute a search requiring "reasonableness" to use it.
Which it should be noted, they do. Semi-truck sized x-ray machines exist, especially at border control, but also elsewhere, and is used to see inside of semi-trucks. Using that same device against a car seems entirely feasible. But as you point out, if they impound the vehicle, they can just inventory the trunk directly, assuming they have the key. If you have a locked safe in the trunk, I don't think they're (legally) allowed to x-ray it to find out what's inside of that, although they can parallel-reconstrution their way to having a reason after the fact.
Under what conditions is a car impounded? For a car to be impounded it already was somewhere it shouldn't have been or the driver themselves impaired in some way. Of course they need to be able to search trunks in such a case.
tptacek|2 years ago
If the police had a device that enabled them to see into car trunks, it would likely constitute a search requiring "reasonableness" to use it.
fragmede|2 years ago
chrisco255|2 years ago
tacocataco|2 years ago
Does the expectation of privacy go up and down depending if the mobile home is driving?