ASSEMBLY, No. 931

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

Introduced Pending Technical Review by Legislative Counsel

PRE-FILED FOR INTRODUCTION IN THE 1996 SESSION

By Assemblyman KRAMER

An Act concerning certain motor vehicle searches and supplementing Title 2A of the New Jersey Statutes.

    Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:

    1. When a driver of a motor vehicle consents to a law enforcement officer's search of that motor vehicle, the officer's failure to obtain the consent of a passenger before searching items that belong to that passenger shall not constitute an improper search pursuant to the New Jersey and United States Constitutions.

    2. This act shall take effect immediately.

STATEMENT

    In State v. Suazo, 133 N.J.315 (1993), decided July 27, 1993, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that cocaine found in a search of an automobile where the defendant had been a passenger could not be admissible as evidence against the defendant because the cocaine had been the product of an illegal search. Although the driver of the automobile had given the police officer his written consent to search the automobile and all its contents, the cocaine was found in a clothes bag belonging to the passenger, and the officer had not received the passenger's consent for the search of the passenger's property.

    This bill would overturn the holding in this case, making it inapplicable to future cases. The bill provides that a motor vehicle driver's consent to a police search of the vehicle extends to all property found in the vehicle, and that a search of a passenger's property under these circumstances does not constitute an improper search pursuant to the New Jersey and United States Constitutions.

Provides that motor vehicle passenger's constitutional rights are not violated during motor vehicle search consented to by driver if passenger fails to consent to the search.