This legal loophole simply means the police won’t get in trouble in court if they use evidence a civilian found in a private search. So if someone discovers their roommate is dealing drugs and drives the roommate’s car to the police station to tell them, “I saw drugs in this car,” the police won’t violate the Fourth Amendment by looking in the car. The proverbial cat is out of the bag. In addition, you may be surprised to know that police can conduct a warrantless search on your motor vehicle in a range of other situations.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States forbids the government from violating, “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” What does that mean for your house and other belongings? That a judge must declare a search “reasonable” and issue a warrant. But this doesn’t apply to your car.

There is a legal precedent for a “motor vehicle exception” to this Fourth Amendment. A police officer can conduct a warrantless search of a motor vehicle if it is on public property (such as a road), it is apparently mobile (or needs a very minor repair), they have reason to expect it contains evidence of a crime (probable cause), and they follow the same procedure for searching with a warrant (only searching for the evidence stated).

This exception does not mean a police officer can come on to your property to search a car parked in your garage just because they feel like it. In that case, they would need a warrant just like if they were searching your house. Unless of course “the cat’s out of the bag.”

Here’s another hypothetical example: A car breaks down, the owner calls a mechanic, the mechanic picks up the car and in working on it finds illegal paraphernalia. They then call the police and say, “Here is what’s in this car, how should we proceed?” At this point, the police can come and examine the vehicle, even looking inside in the same way the mechanic did. They are not violating the Fourth Amendment, they are not completing an “unreasonable” search or seizure.

The key here is that someone has already told the police what evidence of a crime they will find in the car. Thus the figure of speech, “cat’s out of the bag.” And once they’ve done this, said evidence of a crime is considered “in plain sight” which means the evidence itself is the “probable cause” and the police no longer need a warrant to complete a search.

So what about the mechanic or roommate who searched the vehicle? Did they break the Fourth Amendment? Nope, because this law does not apply to civilians and any private searches they carry out.

Next, find out whether a passenger can walk away during a police traffic stop, or hear an attorney discuss the ins and outs of the ‘cat out of the bag’ search loophole in the video below: