| Court: | US Supreme Court |
| Facts: | Long got pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving. Officers saw that he had a big knife on the floor of the passenger compartment. They frisked him, then looked in the car. This revealed a bag of marijuana sticking out from under the armrest. They arrest him, and it turns out there were 75 lbs more of marijuana in the trunk. |
| Posture: | State courts suppressed the marijuana. |
| Issue: | Can officers frisk a vehicle? |
| Holding: | Yes. |
| Rule: | Search of the "grabbable area" is permitted. |
| Reasoning: | The goal here is to protect the safety of the officers, so they need to be able to look in all the spaces where the subject could have easy access. Why frisk a drunk driver to begin with? They saw the big knife. |
| Dicta: | |