United States v. Chadwick

United States v. Chadwick was a 1977 decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that, absent exigency, the warrantless search of double-locked luggage just placed in the trunk of a parked vehicle is a violation of the Fourth Amendment and not justified under the automobile exception. The court reasoned that while luggage is movable like an automobile, it does not have the lesser expectation of privacy associated with an automobile.

The Supreme Court later cast doubt on Chadwick's holding in California v. Acevedo, though it declined to explicitly overrule it.