# Opening Car Doors & Police Search Warrant

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opening-car-doors-police-search-warrant/710892>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 26, 2015, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opening-car-doors-police-search-warrant/710892 "2015-01-26T00:25:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 11

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/opening-car-doors-police-search-warrant/710892/11 "2015-01-26T19:42:10Z")

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> [@Loach](#):
>
> In the OP there is no search.

Sure there is. A “search” is any invasion of a reasonable expectation of privacy. That includes ordering the opening of a car door, assuming that reveals areas of the car not otherwise visible through windows (as it would on my car, and many models).

> [@Loach](#):
>
> If you refuse to open the car door you can be ordered out of the car completely and that is legal under Mimms.

Wrong. Mimms only means ordering them out of the car is legal under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. It doesn’t make it legal under state law, and it would be illegal in Vermont, Massachusetts, and probably other jurisdictions that don’t follow Mimms as to their state constitutional protections.

Moreover, your premise, that opening the door is included in ordering the driver out, may not necessarily follow for all the reasons I gave in the post to which you responded.

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