Commonwealth v. Ortiz

In this case we must decide whether a driver's consent to allow the police to search for narcotics or firearms "in the vehicle" authorizes a police officer to search under the hood of the vehicle and, as part of that search, to remove the vehicle's air filter. We hold that it does not. A typical reasonable person would understand the scope of such consent to be limited to a search of the interior of the vehicle, including the trunk. Because the police here exceeded this scope by searching under the hood and removing the air filter, and because the search was not otherwise supported by…