"Your Car Is An Extension of Your Home": What does this mean?

[Bailey Guns]

I'm seeing this more and more on this forum and I think many people really don't understand what it means in Colorado. I'm hoping one of our attorney members can chime in and help explain why this isn't necessarily true.

This is my understanding from law enforcement experience (I'm obviously not a lawyer so this free information is worth what you paid):

Yes, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your car. However, not nearly to the extent you do in your home. A car can legally be searched by an officer in a variety of circumstances, without a warrant:

• Search incident to arrest
• Inventory search of an impounded vehicle
• Probable cause and to a lesser/limited scope, reasonable suspicion
• Consent
• Exigent/Emergency circumstances
• Seizure of contraband in plain view (which might lead to a probable cause arrest/search)

Keep in mind, if your car is a public location an officer can look into the car from the outside as much as he/she likes. That's very different from your home where you have a much higher expectation of privacy inside your home and in the curtilage of your home. In other words, if your car is parked on the street an officer could stop and look into it as much as he/she desired and potentially seize contraband in plain view. An officer could not walk on to your lawn and peer into a window of your home and then seize an item in plain view.

Also, the "extension of your home" theory doesn't apply to use of force. I hope everyone knows the "Make My Day" law applies only in a "dwelling" in Colorado. It doesn't generally apply to detached buildings that are not dwellings, places of business or vehicles. Obviously, you can still use force to protect yourself in your car but you won't have the legal protections you might in your home.

Yes, you can have a firearm - or other "weapon" - in your car for protection of self, others and property in Colorado. You don't need a permit to carry a handgun, loaded or otherwise, visible or concealed, in your vehicle or other private means of conveyance. But that doesn't make your car an "extension of your home".

Furthermore, passengers in a vehicle have an even lower degree of expectation of privacy than the operator/owner of the car might.

So, and this is just my opinion, I don't think it's a good idea to throw around the over-broad phrase "extension of your home" when you're talking about your car for lots of reasons.

[spqrzilla]

What does it mean? It means nothing because its simply not true as you illustrate. Its never true.
You can carry a concealed loaded handgun in your car because the statute in Colorado that criminalizes carrying a concealed weapon specifically excludes it. Period. Nothing about any other "doctrine".

[SuperiorDG]

I've heard if you have a lock container in the car they can not search the container itself.

[Bailey Guns]

I've heard if you have a lock container in the car they can not search the container itself.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the circumstances.

Another interesting tidbit: if you give consent to search (which you should probably NEVER do), you can revoke that consent if you choose. You can also exclude areas to be searched if you give consent.

[Kraven251]

I've heard if you have a lock container in the car they can not search the container itself.

This is useful if you do not consent to a search and they actually jump through the hoops for the paperwork to legally search your vehicle. You are required to open the trunk, but not required to open a locked box in the trunk unless it is in the paperwork, granted the officer could possibly still have exigent circumstances on their side to open the locked box etc. If a judge signed off on a search warrant on your vehicle, they already had some sort of probable cause other then "the guy said no."

As with the earlier examples, this is only applicable if you don't have anything visible in the car to give additional reasons to think you are up to something shady. Moral of the story, keep your car clean.

[KevDen2005]

This is useful if you do not consent to a search and they actually jump through the hoops for the paperwork to legally search your vehicle. You are required to open the trunk, but not required to open a locked box in the trunk unless it is in the paperwork, granted the officer could possibly still have exigent circumstances on their side to open the locked box etc. If a judge signed off on a search warrant on your vehicle, they already had some sort of probable cause other then "the guy said no."

As with the earlier examples, this is only applicable if you don't have anything visible in the car to give additional reasons to think you are up to something shady. Moral of the story, keep your car clean.

If there is a search warrant you don't have to be and probably won't be near your car. It will be sealed and impounded until the warrant is approved, most likely.

[Bailey Guns]

This is useful if you do not consent to a search and they actually jump through the hoops for the paperwork to legally search your vehicle. You are required to open the trunk, but not required to open a locked box in the trunk unless it is in the paperwork, granted the officer could possibly still have exigent circumstances on their side to open the locked box etc. If a judge signed off on a search warrant on your vehicle, they already had some sort of probable cause other then "the guy said no."

As with the earlier examples, this is only applicable if you don't have anything visible in the car to give additional reasons to think you are up to something shady. Moral of the story, keep your car clean.

This isn't necessarily true. It depends on how the warrant is written and what items of contraband are named in the warrant.

[Ronin13]

This isn't necessarily true. It depends on how the warrant is written and what items of contraband are named in the warrant.

I loved hearing my buddies son- who's now a defense attorney (but former LEO) in AL- say "It would be very illegal to search through your underwear drawer when the warrant was obtained because of suspicion that you stole a television."

[spqrzilla]

But proving that that was the limit of your consent when it was a verbal discussion? Good luck with that.

"No, your honor, I said he could search the trunk, not the glove box where I hid my hillbilly heroin ..."

[Bailey Guns]

But proving that that was the limit of your consent when it was a verbal discussion? Good luck with that.

"No, your honor, I said he could search the trunk, not the glove box where I hid my hillbilly heroin ..."

True...but that's just another reason not to give consent. I may be mistaken but I think most departments have forms for the operator of a vehicle to sign for consent searches.

I'd say I got a signed consent form (after verbal consent to search) from at least 9 out of 10 people when I asked for consent to search. Pretty astonishing how easily people will surrender their privacy.