Fourth Amendment advocates scored a victory today when the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled 8-1 against a warrantless police search that involved an officer entering private property
for the purpose of examining a motorcycle stored under a tarp in the driveway near a home. "In physically intruding on the curtilage of [Ryan Austin] Collins' home to search the motorcycle," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority in
Collins v. Virginia, the officer "not only invaded Collins' Fourth Amendment interest in the item searched,
i.e., the motorcycle, but also invaded Collins' Fourth Amendment interest in the curtilage of his home."
