Owens v. Commonwealth

Opinion of the Court by

Chief Justice MINTON.

The United States Supreme Court has remanded this case to us for consideration in light of its recent opinion in Arizona v. Gant, 1 rendered after the issuance of our original opinion in this case. 2 This revised opinion contains our analysis of Gant, but we have concluded that Gant does not affect the ultimate outcome of this case.

This appeal requires us to decide whether a police officer working a traffic stop may exercise discretion to conduct a pat-down search for weapons of a vehicle’s passenger, who exited the vehicle to accommodate a search…