Demonstrate a critical thought process about below: The brilliant constitutional lawyer and historian Telford Taylor (1969) con- cluded from his research into the history of search and seizure 11 that search of an arrested person and premises without warrants or probable cause is as old as the institution of arrest itself" (28). Searches incident to arrest-searches of lawfully arrested suspects without probable cause or a warrant-are old. But are they rea- sonable Fourth Amendment searches? Definitely "yes" says SCOTUS, for three reasons: 1. They protect officers from suspects who might injure or kill them. 2. They prevent arrested suspects from escaping. 3. They preserve evidence that suspects might destroy or damage. There's some debate about Professor Taylor's history (Davies 1999), but as for searches of arrested persons without warrants, there's no doubt about their constitutionality. The same certainty doesn't extend to searching the place where arrests take place. In fact, an analysis of decisions that SCOTUS, the lower federal courts, and the state courts and commentators have interrogated reveal zigging and zagging, creating enormous confusion. As early as 1969, SCOTUS tried to clear up the confusion over how far beyond the arrested person an officer can search. In Chime/ v. California (1969), our next case excerpt, SCOTUS interrogated and decided that officers who arrested Ted Chimel in his home could search only as far as Chime! could reach either to grab a weapon or to destroy evidence. Before we get to the case, you should be aware of empirical evidence that the cases hardly ever mention about what officers do in practice when they arrest suspects. After they arrest suspects, officers automatically and immediately handcuff them. That's what department rules prescribe; it's what police cadets are trained to do; it's what most officers do (Moskovitz 2002). Keep this in mind as you interrogate Chimel and all the materials in this section on searches incident to arrest. Now, let's interrogate other criminal procedure ideals raised by searches incident to arrests, including how the courts define the "grabbable" -or searchable-area and whether it extends to vehicles; the time frame officers have to conduct a search before it is no longer considered incident to the arrest; and searches incident to misdemeanors and pretext arrests.