State v. Martin

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

CLIFFORD, J.

The principal issue presented by this appeal, as in the companion case of State v. Alston, 87 N.J. 531, also decided today, involves the level of exigent circumstances sufficient to justify a warrantless search of an automobile under the automobile exception to the Warrant Clause, Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 45 S.Ct. 280, 69 L.Ed. 543 (1925). In Alston, supra, the police stopped defendants’ vehicle on the open highway for traveling in excess of the legal speed limit and conducted a search at the scene of the stop when it became…