author:
      Chief Justice Rehnquist Justice O’Connor, Justice Scalia,
      Justice Stevens,

text:
    THORNTON v. UNITED STATES
    No. 03-5165.
    Argued March 31, 2004
    Decided May 24, 2004

      Frank W. Dunham, Jr., argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Walter B. Dalton, Frances H. Pratt, and Kenneth P. Troccoli.

      Gregory G. Garre argued the cause for the United States. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Olson, Assistant Attorney General Wray, and Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben.

         A brief of amici curiae urging reversal was filed for the American Civil Liberties Union et al. by Tracey Maclin, Steven R. Shapiro, and Lisa Kemler.

      A brief of amici curiae urging affirmance was filed for the State of Arizona et al. by Terry Goddard, Attorney General of Arizona, Mary R. O’Grady, Solicitor General, Randall M. Howe, Chief Counsel, and Kathleen R Sweeney and Eric J. Olsson, Assistant Attorneys General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: William H. Pryor, Jr., of Alabama, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Charles J. Crist, Jr.,
        of Florida, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Steve Carter of Indiana, Phill Kline of Kansas, J. Joseph Curran, Jr., of Maryland, Michael A. Cox of Michigan, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Henry D. Mc-Master of South Carolina, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Jerry W Kilgore of Virginia, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming.

        Shashank S. Upadhye, pro se, filed a brief as amicus curiae.

   Chief Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court except as to footnote 4.

In New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), we held that when a police officer has made a lawful custodial arrest of an occupant of an automobile, the Fourth Amendment allows the officer to search the passenger compartment of that vehicle as a contemporaneous incident of arrest. We have granted certiorari twice before to determine whether Bel-ton’s rule is limited to situations where the officer makes contact with the occupant while the occupant is inside the vehicle, or whether it applies as well when the officer first makes contact with the arrestee after the latter has stepped out of his vehicle. We did not reach the merits in either of those two cases. Arizona v. Gant, 540 U. S. 963 (2003) (vacating and remanding for reconsideration in light of State v. Dean, 206 Ariz. 158, 76 P. 3d 429 (2003) (en bane)); Florida v. Thomas, 532 U. S. 774 (2001) (dismissing for lack of jurisdiction). We now reach that question and conclude that Bel-ton governs even when an officer does not make contact until the person arrested has left the vehicle.

Officer Deion Nichols of the Norfolk, Virginia, Police Department, who was in uniform but driving an unmarked police car, first noticed petitioner Marcus Thornton when petitioner slowed down so as to avoid driving next to him. Nichols suspected that petitioner knew he was a police officer and for some reason did not want to pull next to him. His suspicions aroused, Nichols pulled off onto a side street and petitioner passed him. After petitioner passed him, Nichols ran a check on petitioner’s license tags, which revealed that the tags had been issued to a 1982 Chevy two-door and not to a Lincoln Town Car, the model of car petitioner was driving. Before Nichols had an opportunity to pull him over, petitioner drove into a parking lot, parked, and got out of the vehicle. Nichols saw petitioner leave his vehicle as he pulled in behind him. He parked the patrol car, accosted petitioner, and asked him for his driver’s license. He also told him that his license tags did not match the vehicle that he was driving.

Petitioner appeared nervous. He began rambling and licking his lips; he was sweating. Concerned for his safety, Nichols asked petitioner if he had any narcotics or weapons on him or in his vehicle. Petitioner said no. Nichols then asked petitioner if he could pat him down, to which petitioner agreed. Nichols felt a bulge in petitioner’s left front pocket and again asked him if he had any illegal narcotics on him. This time petitioner stated that he did, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out two individual bags, one containing three bags of marijuana and the other containing a large amount of crack cocaine. Nichols handcuffed petitioner, informed him that he was under arrest, and placed him in the back seat of the patrol car. He then searched petitioner’s vehicle and found a BryCo 9-millimeter handgun under the driver’s seat.

A grand jury charged petitioner with possession with intent to distribute cocaine base, 84 Stat. 1260, 21 U. S. C. § 841(a)(1), possession of a firearm after having been previously convicted of a crime punishable by a term of imprisonment exceeding one year, 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(1), and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, § 924(c)(1). Petitioner sought to suppress, inter alia, the firearm as the fruit of an unconstitutional search. After a hearing, the District Court denied petitioner’s motion to suppress, holding that the automobile search was valid under New York v. Belton, supra, and alternatively that Nichols could have conducted an inventory search of the automobile. A jury convicted petitioner on all three counts; he was sentenced to 180 months’ imprisonment and 8 years of supervised release.

Petitioner appealed, challenging only the District Court’s denial of the suppression motion. He argued that Belton was limited to situations where the officer initiated contact with an arrestee while he was still an occupant of the car. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. 325 F. 3d 189 (2003). It held that “the historical rationales for the search incident to arrest doctrine — ‘the need to disarm the suspect in order to take him into custody’ and ‘the need to preserve evidence for later use at trial,’ ” id., at 195 (quoting Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113, 116 (1998)), did not require Belton to be limited solely to situations in which suspects were still in their vehicles when approached by the police. Noting that petitioner conceded that he was in “close proximity, both temporally and spatially,” to his vehicle, the court concluded that the car was within petitioner’s immediate control, and thus Nichols’ search was reasonable under Belton. 325 F. 3d, at 196. We granted certiorari, 540 U. S. 980 (2003), and now affirm.

In Belton, an officer overtook a speeding vehicle on the New York Thruway and ordered its driver to pull over. 453 U. S., at 455. Suspecting that the occupants possessed marijuana, the officer directed them to get out of the car and arrested them for unlawful possession. Id., at 454-455. He searched them and then searched the passenger compartment of the car. Id., at 455. We considered the constitutionally permissible scope of a search in these circumstances- and sought to lay down a workable rule governing that situation.

We first referred to Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969), a case where the arrestee was arrested in his home, and we had described the scope of a search incident to a lawful arrest as the person of the arrestee and the area immediately surrounding him. 453 U. S., at 457 (citing Chimel, supra, at 763). This rule was justified by the need to remove any weapon the arrestee might seek to use to resist arrest or to escape, and the need to prevent the concealment or destruction of evidence. 453 U. S., at 457. Although easily stated, the Chimel principle had proved difficult to apply in specific cases. We pointed out that in United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 (1973), a case dealing with the scope of the search of the arrestee’s person, we had rejected a suggestion that “ ‘there must be litigated in each case the issue of whether or not there was present one of the reasons supporting the authority’ ” to conduct such a search. 453 U. S., at 459 (quoting Robinson, supra, at 235). Similarly, because “courts ha[d] found no workable definition of ‘the area within the immediate control of the arrestee’ when that area arguably includefd] the interior of an automobile and the arrestee [wa]s its recent occupant,” 453 U. S., at 460, we sought to set forth a clear rule for police officers and citizens alike. We therefore held that “when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile.” Ibid, (footnote omitted).

In so holding, we placed no reliance on the fact that the officer in Belton ordered the occupants out of the vehicle, or initiated contact with them while they remained within it. Nor do we find such a factor persuasive in distinguishing the current situation, as it bears no logical relationship to Bel-toris rationale. There is simply no basis to conclude that the span of the area generally within the arrestee’s immediate control is determined by whether the arrestee exited the vehicle at the officer’s direction, or whether the officer initiated contact with him while he remained in the car. We recognized as much, albeit in dicta, in Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032 (1983), where officers observed a speeding car swerve into a ditch. The driver exited and the officers met him at the rear of his car. Although there was no indication that the officers initiated contact with the driver while he was still in the vehicle, we observed that “[i]t is clear . . . that if the officers had arrested [respondent] . . . they could have searched the passenger compartment under New York v. Belton.” Id., at 1035-1036, and n. 1.

In all relevant aspects, the arrest of a suspect who is next to a vehicle presents identical concerns regarding officer safety and the destruction of evidence as the arrest of one who is inside the vehicle. An officer may search a suspect’s vehicle under Belton only if the suspect is arrested. See Knowles, supra, at 117-118. A custodial arrest is fluid and “[t]he danger to the police officer flows from the fact of the arrest, and its attendant proximity, stress, and uncertainty,” Robinson, supra, at 234-235, and n. 5 (emphasis added). See Washington v. Chrisman, 455 U. S. 1, 7 (1982) (“Every arrest must be presumed to present a risk of danger to the arresting officer”). The stress is no less merely because the arrestee exited his car before the officer initiated contact, nor is an arrestee less likely to attempt to lunge for a weapon or to destroy evidence if he is outside of, but still in control of, the vehicle. In either case, the officer faces a highly volatile situation. It would make little sense to apply two different rules to what is, at bottom, the same situation.

In some circumstances it may be safer and more effective for officers to conceal their presence from a suspect until he has left his vehicle. Certainly that is a judgment officers should be free to make. But under the strictures of petitioner’s proposed “contact initiation” rule, officers who do so would be unable to search the car’s passenger compartment in the event of a custodial arrest, potentially compromising their safety and placing incriminating evidence at risk of concealment or destruction. The Fourth Amendment does not require such a gamble.

Petitioner argues, however, that Belton will fail to provide a “bright-line” rule if it applies to more than vehicle “occupants.” Brief for Petitioner 29-34. But Belton allows police to search the passenger compartment of a vehicle incident to a lawful custodial arrest of both “occupant[s]” and “recent occupant[s].” 453 U. S., at 460. Indeed, the respondent in Belton was not inside the car at the time of the arrest and search; he was standing on the highway. In any event, while an arrestee’s status as a “recent occupant” may turn on his temporal or spatial relationship to the car at the time of the arrest and search, it certainly does not turn on whether he was inside or outside the car at the moment that the officer first initiated contact with him.

To be sure, not all contraband in the passenger compartment is likely to be readily accessible to a “recent occupant.” It is unlikely in this case that petitioner could have reached under the driver’s seat for his gun once he was outside of his automobile. But the firearm and the passenger compartment in general were no more inaccessible than were the contraband and the passenger compartment in Belton. The need for a clear rule, readily understood by police officers and not depending on differing estimates of what items were or were not within reach of an arrestee at any particular moment, justifies the sort of generalization which Belton enunciated. Once an officer determines that there is probable cause to make an arrest, it is reasonable to allow officers to ensure their safety and to preserve evidence by searching the entire passenger compartment.

Rather than clarifying the constitutional limits of a Belton search, petitioner’s “contact initiation” rule would obfuscate them. Under petitioner’s proposed rule, an officer approaching a suspect who has just alighted from his vehicle would have to determine whether he actually confronted or signaled confrontation with the suspect while he remained in the car, or whether the suspect exited his vehicle unaware of, and for reasons unrelated to, the officer’s presence. This determination would be inherently subjective and highly fact specific, and would require precisely the sort of ad hoc determinations on the part of officers in the field and reviewing courts that Belton sought to avoid. Id,., at 459-460. Experience has shown that such a rule is impracticable, and we refuse to adopt it. So long as an arrestee is the sort of “recent occupant” of a vehicle such as petitioner was here, officers may search that vehicle incident to the arrest.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.

It is so ordered.

Justice O’Connor,

concurring in part.

I join all but footnote 4 of the Court’s opinion. Although the opinion is a logical extension of the holding of New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), I write separately to express my dissatisfaction with the state of the law in this area. As Justice Scalia forcefully argues, post, at 627-629 (opinion concurring in judgment), lower court decisions seem now to treat the ability to search a vehicle incident to the arrest of a recent occupant as a police entitlement rather than as an exception justified by the twin rationales of Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969). That erosion is a direct consequence of Belton’s shaky foundation. While the approach Justice Scalia proposes appears to be built on firmer ground, I am reluctant to adopt it in the context of a case in which neither the Government nor the petitioner has had a chance to speak to its merit.

Justice Scalia,

with whom Justice Ginsburg joins,

concurring in the judgment.

In Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 762-763 (1969), we held that a search incident to arrest was justified only as a means to find weapons the arrestee might use or evidence he might conceal or destroy. We accordingly limited such searches to the area within the suspect’s “‘immediate control’ — i. e., “the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m].” Id., at 763. In New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454, 460 (1981), we set forth a bright-line rule for arrests of automobile occupants, holding that, because the vehicle’s entire passenger compartment is “in fact generally, even if not inevitably,” within the arrestee’s immediate control, a search of the whole compartment is justified in every case.

When petitioner’s car was searched in this case, he was neither in, nor anywhere near, the passenger compartment of his vehicle. Rather, he was handcuffed and secured in the back of the officer’s squad car. The risk that he would nevertheless “grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m]” from his car was remote in the extreme. The Court’s effort to apply our current doctrine to this search stretches it beyond its breaking point, and for that reason I cannot join the Court’s opinion.

I

I see three reasons why the search in this case might have been justified to protect officer safety or prevent concealment or destruction of evidence. None ultimately persuades me.

The first is that, despite being handcuffed and secured in the back of a squad car, petitioner might have escaped and retrieved a weapon or evidence from his vehicle — a theory that calls to mind Judge Goldberg’s reference to the mythical arrestee “possessed of the skill of Houdini and the strength of Hercules.” United States v. Frick, 490 F. 2d 666, 673 (CA5 1973) (opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part). The United States, endeavoring to ground this seemingly speculative fear in reality, points to a total of seven instances over the past 13 years in which state or federal officers were attacked with weapons by handcuffed or formerly handcuffed arrestees. Brief for United States 38-39, and n. 12. These instances do not, however, justify the search authority claimed. Three involved arrestees who retrieved weapons concealed on their own person. See United States v. Sanders, 994 F. 2d 200, 210, n. 60 (CA5 1993) (two instances); U. S. Dept. of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 49 (2001). Three more involved arrestees who seized a weapon from the arresting officer. See Sanders, supra, at 210, n. 60 (two instances); U. S. Dept. of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted 49 (1998). Authority to search the arrestee’s own person is beyond question; and of course no search could prevent seizure of the officer’s gun. Only one of the seven instances involved a handcuffed arrestee who escaped from a squad car to retrieve a weapon from somewhere else: In Plakas v. Drinski, 19 F. 3d 1143, 1144-1146 (CA7 1994), the suspect jumped out of the squad car and ran through a forest to a house, where (still in handcuffs) he struck an officer on the wrist with a fireplace poker before ultimately being shot dead.

Of course, the Government need not document specific instances in order to justify measures that avoid obvious risks. But the risk here is far from obvious, and in a context as frequently recurring as roadside arrests, the Government’s inability to come up with even a single example of a handcuffed arrestee’s retrieval of arms or evidence from his vehicle undermines its claims. The risk that a suspect handcuffed in the back of a squad car might escape and recover a weapon from his vehicle is surely no greater than the risk that a suspect handcuffed in his residence might escape and recover a weapon from the next room — a danger we held insufficient to justify a search in Chimel, supra, at 763.

The second defense of the search in this case is that, since the officer could have conducted the search at the time of arrest (when the suspect was still near the car), he should not be penalized for having taken the sensible precaution of securing the suspect in the squad car first. As one Court of Appeals put it: “‘[I]t does not make sense to prescribe a constitutional test that is entirely at odds with safe and sensible police procedures.”’ United States v. Mitchell, 82 F. 3d 146, 152 (CA7 1996) (quoting United States v. Karlin, 852 F. 2d 968, 971 (CA7 1988)); see also United States v. Wesley, 293 F. 3d 541, 548-549 (CADC 2002). The weakness of this argument is that it assumes that, one way or another, the search must take place. But conducting a Chimel search is not the Government’s right; it is an exception — justified by necessity — to a rule that would otherwise render the search unlawful. If “sensible police procedures” require that suspects be handcuffed and put in squad cars, then police should handcuff suspects, put them in squad cars, and not conduct the search. Indeed, if an officer leaves a suspect unrestrained nearby just to manufacture authority to search, one could argue that the search is. unreasonable precisely because the dangerous conditions justifying it existed only by virtue of the officer’s failure to follow sensible procedures.

The third defense of the search is that, even though the arrestee posed no risk here, Belton searches in general are reasonable, and the benefits of a bright-line rule justify upholding that small minority of searches that, on their particular facts, are not reasonable. The validity of this argument rests on the accuracy of Belton’s claim that the passenger compartment is “in fact generally, even if not inevitably,” within the suspect’s immediate control. 453 U. S., at 460. By the United States’ own admission, however, “[t]he practice of restraining an arrestee on the scene before searching a car that he just occupied is so prevalent that holding that Belton does hot apply in that setting would ... 'largely render Belton a dead letter.’ ” Brief for United States 36-37 (quoting Wesley, supra, at 548). Reported cases involving this precise factual scenario — a motorist handcuffed and secured in the back of a squad car when the search takes place — are legion. See, e. g., United States v. Doward, 41 F. 3d 789, 791 (CA1 1994); United States v. White, 871 F. 2d 41, 44 (CA6 1989); Mitchell, supra, at 152; United States v. Snook, 88 F. 3d 605, 606 (CA8 1996); United States v. McLaughlin, 170 F. 3d 889, 890 (CA9 1999); United States v. Humphrey, 208 F. 3d 1190, 1202 (CA10 2000); Wesley, supra, at 544; see also 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 7.1(c), pp. 448-449, n. 79 (3d ed. 1996 and Supp. 2004) (citing cases). Some courts uphold such searches even when the squad car carrying the handcuffed arrestee has already left the scene. See, e. g., McLaughlin, supra, at 890-891 (upholding search because only five minutes had elapsed since squad car left).

The popularity of the practice is not hard to fathom. If Belton entitles an officer to search a vehicle upon arresting the driver despite having taken measures that eliminate any danger, what rational officer would not take those measures? Cf. Moskovitz, A Rule in Search of a Reason: An Empirical Reexamination of Chimel and Belton, 2002 Wis. L. Rev. 657, 665-666 (citing police training materials). If it was ever true that the passenger compartment is “in fact generally, even if not inevitably,” within the arrestee’s immediate control at the time of the search, 453 U. S., at 460, it certainly is not true today. As one judge has put it: “[I]n our search for clarity, we have now abandoned our constitutional moorings and floated to a place where the law approves of purely exploratory searches of vehicles during which officers with no definite objective or reason for the search are allowed to rummage around in a car to see what they might find.” McLaughlin, supra, at 894 (Trott, J., concurring). I agree entirely with that assessment.

II

If Belton searches are justifiable, it is not because the arrestee might grab a weapon or evidentiary item from his car, but simply because the car might contain evidence relevant to the crime for which he was arrested. This more general sort of evidence-gathering search is not without antecedent. For example, in United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56 (1950), we upheld a search of the suspect’s place of business after he was arrested there. We did not restrict the officers’ search authority to “the area into which [the] arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m],” Chimel, 395 U. S., at 763, and we did not justify the search as a means to prevent concealment or destruction of evidence. Rather, we relied on a more general interest in gathering evidence relevant to the crime for which the suspect had been arrested. See 339 U. S., at 60-64; see also Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145, 151-152 (1947); Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192, 199 (1927); Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 30 (1925); cf. Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 392 (1914).

Numerous earlier authorities support this approach, referring to the general interest in gathering evidence related to the crime of arrest with no mention of the more specific interest in preventing its concealment or destruction. See United States v. Wilson, 163 F. 338, 340, 343 (CC SDNY 1908); Smith v. Jerome, 47 Misc. 22, 23-24, 93 N. Y. S. 202, 202-203 (Sup. Ct. 1905); Thornton v. State, 117 Wis. 338, 346-347, 93 N. W. 1107, 1110 (1903); Ex parte Hurn, 92 Ala. 102, 112, 9 So. 515, 519-520 (1891); Thatcher v. Weeks, 79 Me. 547, 548-549, 11 A. 599, 599-600 (1887); 1 F. Wharton, Criminal Procedure §97, pp. 136-137 (J. Kerr 10th ed. 1918); 1 J. Bishop, Criminal Procedure §211, p. 127 (2d ed. 1872); cf. Spalding v. Preston, 21 Vt. 9, 15 (1848) (seizure authority); Queen v. Frost, 9 Car. & P. 129, 131-134 (1839) (same); King v. Kinsey, 7 Car. & P. 447 (1836) (same); King v. O’Donnell, 7 Car. & P. 138 (1835) (same); King v. Barnett, 3 Car. & P. 600, 601 (1829) (same). Bishop’s 1872 articulation is typical:

“The officer who arrests a man on a criminal charge should consider the nature of the charge; and, if he finds about the prisoner’s person, or otherwise in his possession, either goods or moneys which there is reason to believe are connected with the supposed crime as its fruits, or as the instruments with which it was committed, or as directly furnishing evidence relating to the transaction, he may take the same, and hold them to be disposed of as the court may direct.” Bishop, supra, §211, at 127.

Only in the years leading up to Chimel did we start consistently referring to the narrower interest in frustrating concealment or destruction of evidence. See Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40, 67 (1968); Preston v. United States, 376 U. S. 364, 367 (1964).

There is nothing irrational about broader police authority to search for evidence when and where the perpetrator of a crime is lawfully arrested. The fact of prior lawful arrest distinguishes the arrestee from society at large, and distinguishes a search for evidence of his crime from general rummaging. Moreover, it is not illogical to assume that evidence of a crime is most likely to be found where the suspect was apprehended.

Nevertheless, Chimel’s narrower focus on concealment or destruction of evidence also has historical support. See Holker v. Hennessey, 141 Mo. 527, 539-540, 42 S. W. 1090, 1093 (1897); Dillon v. O’Brien, 16 Cox C. C. 245, 250 (Exch. Div. Ir. 1887); Reifsnyder v. Lee, 44 Iowa 101, 103 (1876); S. Welch, Essay on the Office of Constable 17 (1758). And some of the authorities supporting the broader rule address only searches of the arrestee’s person, as to which Chimel’s limitation might fairly be implicit. Moreover, carried to its logical end, the broader rule is hard to reconcile with the influential case of Entick v. Carrington, 19 How. St. Tr. 1029, 1031, 1063-1074 (C. P. 1765) (disapproving search of plaintiff’s private papers under general warrant, despite arrest). But cf. Dillon, supra, at 250-251 (distinguishing Entick); Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U. S. 294, 303-304 (1967).

In short, both Rabinowitz and Chimel are plausible accounts of what the Constitution requires, and neither is so persuasive as to justify departing from settled law. But if we are going to continue to allow Belton searches on stare decisis grounds, we should at least be honest about why we are doing so. Belton cannot reasonably be explained as a mere application of Chimel. Rather, it is a return to the broader sort of search incident to arrest that we allowed before Chimel — limited, of course, to searches of motor vehicles, a category of “effects” which give rise to a reduced expectation of privacy, see Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U. S. 295, 303 (1999), and heightened law enforcement needs, see id., at 304; Rabinowitz, supra, at 73 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting).

Recasting Belton in these terms would have at least one important practical consequence. In United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218, 235 (1973), we held that authority to search an arrestee’s person does not depend on the actual presence of one of Chimel’s two rationales in the particular case; rather, the fact of arrest alone justifies the search. That holding stands in contrast to Rabinowitz, where we did not treat the fact of arrest alone as sufficient, but upheld the search only after noting that it was “not general or exploratory for whatever might be turned up”.but reflected a reasonable belief that evidence would be found. 339 U. S., at 62-63; see also Smith, 47 Misc., at 24, 93 N. Y. S., at 203 (“This right and duty of search and seizure extend, however, only to articles which furnish evidence against the accused”); cf. Barnett, supra, at 601 (seizure authority limited to relevant evidence); Bishop, supra, §211, at 127 (officer should “consider the nature of the charge” before searching). The two different rules make sense: When officer safety or imminent evidence concealment or destruction is at issue, officers should not have to make fine judgments in the heat of the moment. But in the context of a general evidence-gathering search, the state interests that might justify any over-breadth are far less compelling. A motorist may be arrested for a wide variety of offenses; in many cases, there is no reasonable basis to believe relevant evidence might be found in the car. See Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U. S. 318, 323-324 (2001); cf. Knowles v. Iowa, 525 U. S. 113, 118 (1998). I would therefore limit Belton searches to cases where it is reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle.

In this ease, as in Belton, petitioner was lawfully arrested for a drug offense. It was reasonable for Officer Nichols to believe that further contraband or similar evidence relevant to the crime for which he had been arrested might be found in the vehicle from which he had just alighted and which was still within his vicinity at the time of arrest. I would affirm the decision below on that ground.

Justice Stevens,

with whom Justice Souter joins,

dissenting.

Prior to our decision in New York v. Belton, 453 U. S. 454 (1981), there was a widespread conflict among both federal and state courts over the question “whether, in the course of a search incident to the lawful custodial arrest of the occupants of an automobile, police may search inside the automobile after the arrestees are no longer in it.” Id., at 459. In answering that question, the Court expanded the authority of the police in two important respects. It allowed the police to conduct a broader search than our decision in Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 762-763 (1969), would have permitted, and it authorized them to open closed containers that might be found in the vehicle’s passenger compartment.

Belton’s basic rationale for both expansions rested not on a concern for officer safety, but rather on an overriding desire to hew “to a straightforward rule, easily applied, and predictably enforced.” 453 U. S., at 459. When the case was decided, I was persuaded that the important interest in clarity and certainty adequately justified the modest extension of the Chimel rule to permit an officer to examine the interior of a car pursuant to an arrest for a traffic violation. But I took a different view with respect to the search of containers within the car absent probable cause, because I thought “it palpably unreasonable to require the driver of a car to open his briefcase or his luggage for inspection by the officer.” Robbins v. California, 453 U. S. 420, 451-452 (1981) (dissenting opinion). I remain convinced that this aspect of the Belton opinion was both unnecessary and erroneous. Whether one agrees or disagrees with that view, however, the interest in certainty that supports Belton’s bright-line rule surely does not justify an expansion of the rule that only blurs those clear lines. Neither the rule in Chimel nor Belton’s modification of that rule would have allowed the search of petitioner’s car.

A fair reading of the Belton opinion itself, and of the conflicting cases that gave rise to our grant of certiorari, makes clear that we were not concerned with the situation presented in this case. The Court in Belton noted that the lower courts had discovered ChimeVs reaching-distance principle difficult to apply in the context of automobile searches incident to arrest, and that “no straightforward rule ha[dj emerged from the litigated cases.” 453 U. S., at 458-459. None of the cases cited by the Court to demonstrate the disarray in the lower courts involved a pedestrian who was in the vicinity, but outside the reaching distance, of his or her car. Nor did any of the decisions cited in the petition for a writ of certiorari present such a case. Thus, Belton was demonstrably concerned only with the narrow but common circumstance of a search occasioned by the arrest of a suspect who was seated in or driving an automobile at the time the law enforcement official approached. Normally, after such an arrest has occurred, the officer’s safety is no longer in jeopardy, but he must decide what, if any, search for incriminating evidence he should conduct. Belton provided previously unavailable and therefore necessary guidance for that category of cases.

The bright-line rule crafted in Belton is not needed for cases in which the arrestee is first accosted when he is a pedestrian, because Chimel itself provides all the guidance that is necessary. The only genuine justification for extending Belton to cover such circumstances is the interest in uncovering potentially valuable evidence. In my opinion, that goal must give way to the citizen’s constitutionally protected interest in privacy when there is already in place a well-defined rule limiting the permissible scope of a search of an arrested pedestrian. The Chimel rule should provide the same protection to a “recent occupant” of a vehicle as to a recent occupant of a house.

Unwilling to confine the Belton rule to the narrow class of cases it was designed to address, the Court extends Belton's reach without supplying any guidance for the future application of its swollen rule. We are told that officers may search a vehicle incident to arrest “[s]o long as [the] arrestee is the sort of ‘recent occupant’ of a vehicle such as petitioner was here.” Ante, at 623-624. But we are not told how recent is recent, or how close is close, perhaps because in this case “the record is not clear.” 325 F. 3d 189, 196 (CA4 2003). As the Court cautioned in Belton itself, “[w]hen a person cannot know how a court will apply a settled principle to a recurring factual situation, that person cannot know the scope of his constitutional protection, nor can a policeman know the scope of his authority.” 453 U. S., at 459-460. Without some limiting principle, I fear that today’s decision will contribute to “a massive broadening of the automobile exception,” Robbins, 453 U. S., at 452 (Stevens, J., dissenting), when officers have probable cause to arrest an individual but not to search his car.

Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

       The Court of Appeals did not reach the District Court’s alternative holding that Nichols could have conducted a lawful inventory search. 325 F. 3d, at 196.

       Petitioner argues that if we reject his proposed “contact initiation” rule, we should limit the scope of Belton to “recent occupant[s]” who are within “reaching distance” of the car. Brief for Petitioner 35-36. We decline to address petitioner’s argument, however, as it is outside the question on which we granted certiorari, see this Court’s Rule 14.1(a), and was not addressed by the Court of Appeals, see Peralta v. Heights Medical Center, Inc., 485 U. S. 80, 86 (1988). We note that it is unlikely that petitioner would even meet his own standard as he apparently conceded in the Court of Appeals that he was in “close proximity, both temporally and spatially,” to his vehicle when he was approached by Nichols. 325 F. 3d 189, 196 (CA4 2003).

       Justice Stevens contends that Belton’s bright-line rule “is not needed for cases in which the arrestee is first accosted when he is a pedestrian, because Chimel [v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969),] itself provides all the guidance that is necessary.” Post, at 636 (dissenting opinion). Under Justice Stevens’ approach, however, even if the car itself was within the arrestee’s reaching distance under Chimel, police officers and courts would still have to determine whether a particular object within the passenger compartment was also within an arrestee’s reaching distance under Chimel. This is exactly the type of unworkable and fact-specific inquiry that Belton rejected by holding that the entire passenger compartment may be searched when “ ‘the area within the immediate control of the arrestee’ . . . arguably includes the interior of an automobile and the arrestee is its recent occupant.” 453 U. S., at 460.

       Whatever the merits of Justice Scalia's opinion concurring in the judgment, this is the wrong case in which to address them. Petitioner has never argued that Belton should be limited “to cases where it is reasonable to believe evidence relevant to the crime of arrest might be found in the vehicle,” post, at 632, nor did any court below consider Justice Scalia’s reasoning. See Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections v. Yeskey, 524 U. S. 206, 212-213 (1998) (“ ‘Where issues are neither raised before nor considered by the Court of Appeals, this Court will not ordinarily consider them’ ” (quoting Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co., 398 U. S. 144, 147, n. 2 (1970))). The question presented — “[w]hether the bright-line rule announced in New York v. Belton is confined to situations in which the police initiate contact with the occupant of a vehicle while that person is in the vehicle,” Pet. for Cert. — does not fairly encompass Justice Scalia’s analysis. See this Court’s Rule 14.1(a) (“Only the questions set out in the petition, or fairly included therein, will be considered by the Court”). And the United States has never had an opportunity to respond to such an approach. See Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 536 (1992). Under these circumstances, it would be imprudent to overrule, for all intents and purposes, our established constitutional precedent, which governs police authority in a common occurrence such as automobile searches pursuant to arrest, and we decline to do so at this time.

       We did characterize the entire office as under the defendant’s “immediate control,” 339 U. S., at 61, but we used the term in a broader sense than the one it acquired in Chimel. Compare 339 U. S., at 61, with 395 U. S., at 763.

       Chimel’s officer-safety rationale has its own pedigree. See Thornton v. State, 117 Wis. 338, 346-347, 93 N. W. 1107, 1110 (1903); Ex parte Hurn, 92 Ala. 102, 112, 9 So. 515, 519-520 (1891); Closson v. Morrison, 47 N. H. 482, 484-485 (1867); Leigh v. Cole, 6 Cox C. C. 329, 332 (Oxford Cir. 1853); Welch, Essay on the Office of Constable, at 17.

       The Court asserts that my opinion goes beyond the scope of the question presented, citing this Court’s Rule 14.1(a). Ante, at 624, n. 4. That Rule, however, does not constrain our authority to reach issues presented by the case, see Vance v. Terrazas, 444 U. S. 252, 259, n. 5 (1980); Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation v. Hood, ante, at 443, and in any event does not apply when the issue is necessary to an intelligent resolution of the question presented, see Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U. S. 33, 38 (1996).

       The Court gleaned from the case law “the generalization that articles inside the relatively narrow compass of the passenger compartment of an automobile are in fact generally, even if not inevitably, within ‘the area into which an arrestee might reach in order to grab a weapon or evidentiary ite[m].’ ” Belton, 453 U. S., at 460 (quoting Chimel, 395 U. S., at 763). “In order to establish the workable rule this category of cases require[d],” the Court then read “Chimel’s definition of the limits of the area that may be searched in light of that generalization.” 453 U. S., at 460. Thus, Belton held “that when a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile.” Ibid. (footnote omitted).

       Because police lawfully may search the passenger compartment of the automobile, the Court reasoned, it followed “that the police may also examine the contents of any containers found within the passenger compartment, for if the passenger compartment is within reach of the arrestee, so also will containers in it be within his reach.... Such a container may, of course, be searched whether it is open or closed, since the justification for the search is not that the arrestee has no privacy interest in the container, but that the lawful custodial arrest justifies the infringement of any privacy interest the arrestee may have.” Id., at 460-461 (footnote omitted).

       The Court extolled the virtues of “ ‘[a] single, familiar standard ... to guide police officers, who have only limited time and expertise to reflect on and balance the social and individual interests involved in the specific circumstances they confront.’” Id., at 458 (quoting Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200, 213-214 (1979)).

       In Robbins, a companion case to Belton, the Court held that police officers cannot open closed, opaque containers found in the trunk of a car during a lawful but warrantless search. 453 U. S., at 428 (plurality opinion). Because the officer in Robbins had probable cause to believe the car contained marijuana, I would have applied the automobile exception to sustain the search. Id., at 452 (dissenting opinion). But I expressed concern that authorizing police officers to search containers in the passenger compartment without probable cause would “provide the constitutional predicate for broader vehicle searches than any neutral magistrate could authorize by issuing a warrant.” Ibid.

       See United States v. Benson, 631 F. 2d 1336, 1337 (CA8 1980) (defendant arrested “while sitting in a car”); United States v. Sanders, 631 F. 2d 1309, 1311-1312 (CA8 1980) (occupants in car at time officers approached); United States v. Rigales, 630 F. 2d 364, 365 (CA5 1980) (defendant apprehended during traffic stop); United States v. Dixon, 558 F. 2d 919, 922 (CA9 1977) (“[T]he agents placed appellant under arrest while he was still in his car”); United States v. Frick, 490 F. 2d 666, 668, 669 (CA5 1973) (defendant arrested “at his car in the parking lot adjacent to his apartment building”; at time of arrest, attache ease in question was lying on back seat of car “approximately two feet from the defendant” and “readily accessible” to him); Hinkel v. Anchorage, 618 P. 2d 1069 (Alaska 1980) (defendant arrested while in car immediately following collision); Ulesky v. State, 379 So. 2d 121, 123 (Fla. App. 1979) (defendant arrested while in car during traffic stop).

       Pet. for Cert. in New York v. Belton, O. T. 1980, No. 80-328, p. 7.

       See United States v. Agostino, 608 F. 2d 1035, 1036 (CA5 1979) (suspect in car when notified of police presence); United States v. Neumann, 585 F. 2d 355, 356 (CA8 1978) (defendant stopped by police while in car); United States v. Foster, 584 F. 2d 997, 999-1000 (CADC 1978) (suspects seated in parked car when approached by officer); State v. Hunter, 299 N. C. 29, 33, 261 S. E. 2d 189, 192 (1980) (defendant pulled over and arrested while in car); State v. Wilkens, 364 So. 2d 934, 936 (La. 1978) (defendant arrested in automobile).


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice O’Connor

license: Public Domain

text:
    NELSON v. CAMPBELL, COMMISSIONER, ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al.
    No. 03-6821.
    Argued March 29, 2004
    Decided May 24, 2004

      Bryan A. Stevenson argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were Michael Kennedy McIntyre, by appointment of the Court, 540 U. S. 1102, H. Victoria Smith, and LaJuana Davis.

      Kevin C. Newsom, Solicitor General of Alabama, argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief were Rickard F. Allen, Acting Attorney General, and Michael B. Billingsley, Deputy Solicitor General.

       Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of Ohio et al. by Jim Petro, Attorney General of Ohio, Douglas R. Cole, State Solicitor, Christopher D. Stock, Deputy Solicitor, Charles L. Wille, Assistant Attorney General, by Christopher L. Morano, Chief State’s Attorney of Connecticut, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Terry Goddard of Arizona, Bill Lockyer of California, Ken Salazar of Colorado, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Charlie Crist of Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Steve Carter of Indiana, Phill Kline of Kansas, Gregory D. Stumbo of Kentucky, Charles C. Foti, Jr., of Louisiana, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Brian Sandoval of Nevada, Patricia A Madrid of New Mexico, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, W. A Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Gerald J. Pappert of Pennsylvania, Henry Dargan McMaster of South Carolina, Lawrence E. Long of South Dakota, Paul G. Summers of Tennessee, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, Jerry W. Kilgore of Virginia, and Patrick J. Crank of Wyoming; for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger; and for Senator Orrin G. Hatch et al. by Ed R. Haden.

        George H. Kendall filed a brief for Laurie Dill, M.’ D., et al. as amici curiae.

   Justice O’Connor

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Three days before his scheduled execution by lethal injection, petitioner David Nelson filed a civil rights action in District Court, pursuant to Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging that the use of a “cut-down” procedure to access his veins would violate the Eighth Amendment. Petitioner, who had already filed one unsuccessful federal habeas application, sought a stay of execution so that the District Court could consider the merits of his constitutional claim. The question before us is whether § 1983 is an appropriate vehicle for petitioner’s Eighth Amendment claim seeking a temporary stay and permanent injunctive relief. We answer that question in the affirmative, reverse the contrary judgment of the Eleventh Circuit, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I

Because the District Court dismissed the suit at the pleading stage, we assume the allegations in petitioner’s complaint to be true. Petitioner was found guilty by a jury in 1979 of capital murder and sentenced to death. Following two resentencings, the Eleventh Circuit, on June 3,2002, affirmed the District Court’s denial of petitioner’s first federal habeas petition challenging the most recent death sentence. Nelson v. Alabama, 292 F. 3d 1291. Up until and at the time of that disposition, Alabama employed electrocution as its sole method of execution. On July 1,2002, Alabama changed to lethal injection, though it still allowed inmates to opt for electrocution upon written notification within 30 days of the Alabama Supreme Court’s entry of judgment or July 1, 2002, whichever is later. Ala. Code §15-18-82.1 (Lexis Supp. 2003). Because he failed to make a timely request, petitioner waived his option to be executed by electrocution.

This Court denied petitioner’s request for certiorari review of the Eleventh Circuit’s decision on March 24, 2003. Nelson v. Alabama, 538 U. S. 926. Two weeks later, the Alabama Attorney General’s office moved the Alabama Supreme Court to set an execution date. App. 81. Petitioner responded by letter that he “ha[d] no plans to contest [the] motion,” agreeing “that an execution date should be set promptly by the court in the immediate future.” Id., at 89. Hearing no objection, the Alabama Supreme Court, on September 3,2003, set petitioner’s execution for October 9,2003.

Due to years of drug abuse, petitioner has severely compromised peripheral veins, which are inaccessible by standard techniques for gaining intravenous access, such as a needle. Id., at 7. In August 2003, counsel for petitioner contacted Grantt Culliver, warden of Holman Correctional Facility where the execution was to take place, to discuss how petitioner’s medical condition might impact the lethal injection procedure. Counsel specifically requested a copy of the State’s written protocol for gaining venous access prior to execution, and asked that a privately retained or prison physician consult with petitioner about the procedure. Id., at 8-9, 25-26. The warden advised counsel that the State had such a protocol, but stated that he could not provide it to her. He nevertheless assured counsel that “medical personnel” would be present during the execution and that a prison physician would evaluate and speak with petitioner upon his arrival at Holman Correctional Facility. Id., át 8, 26.

Petitioner was transferred to Holman shortly after the Alabama Supreme Court set the execution date. Warden Cul-liver and a prison nurse met with and examined petitioner on September 10,2003. Id., at 9-10. Upon confirming that petitioner had compromised veins, Warden Culliver informed petitioner that prison personnel would cut a 0.5-inch incision in petitioner’s arm and catheterize a vein 24 hours before the scheduled execution. Id., at 11. At a second meeting on Friday, October 3, 2003, the warden dramatically altered the prognosis: prison personnel would now make a 2-inch incision in petitioner’s arm or leg; the procedure would take place one hour before the scheduled execution; and only local anesthesia would be used. Id., at 12. There was no assurance that a physician would perform or even be present for the procedure. Counsel immediately contacted the Alabama Department of Corrections Legal Department requesting a copy of the State’s execution protocol. Id., at 13, 27. The legal department denied counsel’s request. Id., at 28.

The following Monday, three days before his scheduled execution, petitioner filed the present §1983 action alleging that the so-called “cut-down” procedure constituted cruel and unusual punishment and deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Id., at 21 (complaint), 102 (amended complaint). Petitioner sought: a permanent injunction against use of the cut-down; a temporary stay of execution to allow the District Court to consider the merits of his claim; an order requiring respondents to furnish a copy of the protocol setting forth the medical procedures to be used to gain venous access; and an order directing respondents, in consultation with medical experts, to promulgate a venous access protocol that comports with contemporary standards of medical care. Id., at 22. Appended to the complaint was an affidavit from Dr. Mark Heath, a board certified anesthesiologist and assistant professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, attesting that the cut-down is a dangerous and antiquated medical procedure to be performed only by a trained physician in a clinical environment with the patient under deep sedation. In light of safer and less-invasive contemporary means of venous access, Dr. Heath concluded that “there is no comprehensible reason for the State of Alabama to be planning to employ the cut-down procedure to obtain intravenous access, unless there exists an intent to render the procedure more painful and risky than it otherwise needs to be.” Id., at 37.

Respondents moved to dismiss the complaint for want of jurisdiction on the grounds that petitioner’s § 1983 claim and accompanying stay request were the “'functional equivalent’ ” of a second or successive habeas application subject to the gatekeeping provisions of 28 U. S. C. § 2244(b). App. 82. The District Court agreed and, because petitioner had not obtained authorization to file a second or successive application as required by § 2244(b)(3), dismissed the complaint. A divided panel of the Eleventh Circuit affirmed. Relying on Fugate v. Department of Corrections, 301 F. 3d 1287 (2002), in which the Eleventh Circuit had held that § 1983 claims challenging the method of execution necessarily sound in ha-beas, the majority held that petitioner should have sought authorization to file a second or successive habeas application. 347 F. 3d 910, 912 (2003). The majority also con-eluded that, even were it to construe petitioner’s appeal as a request for such authorization, it would nevertheless deny the request because petitioner could not show that, but for the purported Eighth Amendment violation, “ ‘no reasonable factfinder would have found [him] guilty of the underlying offense.’” Ibid, (quoting 28 U. S. C. §2244(b)(2)(B)(ii)). Thus, the Eleventh Circuit held that petitioner was without recourse to challenge the constitutionality of the cut-down procedure in Federal District Court. We granted certiorari, 540 U. S. 1046 (2003), and now reverse.

II

A

Section 1983 authorizes a “suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress,” against any person who, under color of state law, “subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution.” Petitioner’s complaint states such a claim. Despite its literal applicability, however, § 1983 must yield to the more specific federal habeas statute, with its attendant procedural and exhaustion requirements, where an inmate seeks injunctive relief challenging the fact of his conviction or the duration of his sentence. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 489 (1973). Such claims fall within the “core” of habeas corpus and are thus not cognizable when brought pursuant to §1983. Ibid. By contrast, constitutional claims that merely challenge the conditions of a prisoner’s confinement, whether the inmáte seeks monetary or injunctive relief, fall outside of that core and may be brought pursuant to § 1983 in the first instance. See Muhammad v. Close, 540 U. S. 749, 750 (2004) (per curiam); Preiser, supra, at 498-499.

We have not yet had occasion to consider whether civil rights suits seeking to enjoin the use of a particular method of execution — e.g., lethal injection or electrocution — fall within the core of federal habeas corpus or, rather, whether they are properly viewed as challenges to the conditions of a condemned inmate’s death sentence. Neither the “conditions” nor the “fact or duration” label is particularly apt. A suit seeking to enjoin a particular means of effectuating a sentence of death does not directly call into question the “fact” or “validity” of the sentence itself — by simply altering its method of execution, the State can go forward with the sentence. Cf. Weaver v. Graham, 450 U. S. 24, 32-33, n. 17 (1981) (no ex post facto violation to change method of execution to more humane method). On the other hand, imposition of the death penalty presupposes a means of carrying it out. In a State such as Alabama, where the legislature has established lethal injection as the preferred method of execution, see Ala. Code § 15-18-82 (Lexis Supp. 2003) (lethal injection as default method), a constitutional challenge seeking to permanently enjoin the use of lethal injection may amount to a challenge to the fact of the sentence itself. A finding of unconstitutionality would require statutory amendment or variance, imposing significant costs on the State and the administration of its penal system. And while it makes little sense to talk of the “duration” of a death sentence, a State retains a significant interest in meting out a sentence of death in a timely fashion. See Calderon v. Thompson, 523 U. S. 538, 556-557 (1998); In re Blodgett, 502 U. S. 236, 238 (1992) (per curiam); McCleskey v. Zant, 499 U. S. 467, 491 (1991) (“[TJhe power of a State to pass laws means little if the State cannot enforce them”).

We need not reach here the difficult question of how to categorize method-of-execution claims generally. Respondents at oral argument conceded that § 1983 would be an appropriate vehicle for an inmate who is not facing execution to bring a “deliberate indifference” challenge to the constitutionality of the cut-down procedure if used to gain venous access for purposes of providing medical treatment. Tr. of Oral Arg. 40 (“I don’t disagree ... that a cut-down occurring for purposes of venous access, wholly divorced from an execution, is indeed a valid conditions of confinement claim”); see also Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 104 (1976) (“We therefore conclude that deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the ‘unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain’ proscribed by the Eighth Amendment” (citation omitted)). We see no reason on the face of the complaint to treat petitioner’s claim differently solely because he has been condemned to die.

Respondents counter that, because the cut-down is part of the execution procedure, petitioner’s challenge is, in fact, a challenge to the fact of his execution. They offer the following argument: A challenge to the use of lethal injection as a method of execution sounds in habeas; venous access is a necessary prerequisite to, and thus an indispensable part of, any lethal injection procedure; therefore, a challenge to the State’s means of achieving venous access must be brought in a federal habeas application. Even were we to accept as given respondents’ premise that a challenge to lethal injection sounds in habeas, the conclusion does not follow. That venous access is a necessary prerequisite does not imply that a particular means of gaining such access is likewise necessary. Indeed, the gravamen of petitioner’s entire claim is that use of the cut-down would be gratuitous. Merely labeling something as part of an execution procedure is insufficient to insulate it from a § 1983 attack.

If as a legal matter the cut-down were a statutorily mandated part of the lethal injection protocol, or if as a factual matter petitioner were unable or unwilling to concede acceptable alternatives for gaining venous access, respondents might have a stronger argument that success on the merits, coupled with injunctive relief, would call into question the death sentence itself. But petitioner has been careful throughout these proceedings, in his complaint and at oral argument, to assert that the cut-down, as well as the warden’s refusal to provide reliable information regarding the cut-down protocol, are wholly unnecessary to gaining venous access. Petitioner has alleged alternatives that, if they had been used, would have allowed the State to proceed with the execution as scheduled. App. 17 (complaint) (proffering as “less invasive, less painful, faster, cheaper, and safer" the alternative procedure of “percutaneous central line placement”); id., at 37-38 (affidavit of Dr. Mark Heath) (describing relative merits of the cut-down and percutaneous central line placement). No Alabama statute requires use of the cut-down, see Ala. Code § 15-18-82 (Lexis Supp. 2003) (saying only that method of execution is lethal injection), and respondents have offered no duly-promulgated regulations to the contrary.

If on remand and after an evidentiary hearing the District Court concludes that use of the cut-down procedure as described in the complaint is necessary for administering the lethal injection, the District Court will need to address the broader question, left open here, of how to treat method-of-execution claims generally. An evidentiary hearing will in all likelihood be unnecessary, however, as the State now seems willing to implement petitioner’s proposed alternatives. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 45-46 (“I think there is no disagreement here that percutaneous central line placement is the preferred method and will, in fact, be used, a cut-down to be used only if actually necessary”).

We note that our holding here is consistent with our approach to civil rights damages actions, which, like method-of-execution challenges, fall at the margins of habeas. Although damages are not an available habeas remedy, we have previously concluded that a §1983 suit for damages that would “necessarily imply” the invalidity of the fact of an inmate’s conviction, or “necessarily imply” the invalidity of the length of an inmate’s sentence, is not cognizable under § 1983 unless and until the inmate obtains favorable termination of a state, or federal habeas, challenge to his conviction or sentence. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477, 487 (1994); Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U. S. 641, 648 (1997). This “favorable termination” requirement is necessary to prevent inmates from doing indirectly through damages actions what they could not do directly by seeking injunctive relief — challenge the fact or duration of their confinement without complying with the procedural limitations of the federal habeas statute. Muhammad, 540 U. S., at 751. Even so, we were careful in Heck to stress the importance of the term “necessarily.” For instance, we acknowledged that an inmate could bring a challenge to the lawfulness of a search pursuant to § 1983 in the first instance, even if the search revealed evidence used to convict the inmate at trial, because success on the merits would not “necessarily imply that the plaintiff’s conviction was unlawful.” 512 U. S., at 487, n. 7 (noting doctrines such as inevitable discovery, independent source, and harmless error). To hold otherwise would have cut off potentially valid damages actions as to which a plaintiff might never obtain favorable termination — suits that could otherwise have gone forward had the plaintiff not been convicted. In the present context, focusing attention on whether petitioner’s challenge to the cut-down procedure would necessarily prevent Alabama from carrying out its execution both protects against the use of §1983 to circumvent any limits imposed by the habeas statute and minimizes the extent to which the fact of a prisoner’s imminent execution will require differential treatment of his otherwise cognizable § 1983 claims.

B

There remains the question whether petitioner’s request for a temporary stay of execution, subsequently recharacter-ized by petitioner as a request for a preliminary injunction, App. 49, transformed his conditions of confinement claim into a challenge to the validity of his death sentence. Normally, it would not. If a request for a permanent injunction does not sound in habeas, it follows that the lesser included request for a temporary stay (or preliminary injunction) does not either.

There is a complication in the present case, however. In his prayer for relief, petitioner asked the District Court, among other things, to “[ejnter an order granting injunctive relief and staying [petitioner’s] execution, which is currently scheduled for October 9, 2003.” Id,., at 22. Though he did not specify what permanent injunctive relief he was seeking, a fair reading of the complaint leaves no doubt that petitioner was asking only to enjoin the State’s use of the cut-down, not his execution by lethal injection. The same cannot be said of petitioner’s stay request. There, he explicitly requested that the District Court stay his execution, seemingly without regard to whether the State did or did not resort to the cut-down. This observation is potentially significant given the fact that the State has maintained, from the outset of this litigation, that it would attempt other methods of venous access prior to engaging in the cut-down. See id., at 51-52; id., at 93-94 (affidavit of Warden Gulliver). By asking for broader relief than necessary, petitioner undermines his assertions that: (1) his § 1983 suit is not a tactic for delay, and (2) he is not challenging the fact of his execution, but merely a dispensable preliminary procedure.

Whatever problem this failing might have caused before this Court entered a stay, the execution warrant has now expired. If the State reschedules the execution while this case is pending on remand and petitioner seeks another similarly broad stay, the District Court will need to address the question whether a request to enjoin the execution, rather than merely to enjoin an allegedly unnecessary precursor medical procedure, properly sounds in habeas. See also 18 U. S. C. § 3626(a)(2) (“Preliminary injunctive relief [in prison conditions cases] must be narrowly drawn, extend no further than necessary to correct the harm the court finds requires preliminary relief, and be the least intrusive means necessary to correct that harm”).

c

Respondents argue that a decision to reverse the judgment of the Eleventh Circuit would open the floodgates to all manner of method-of-execution challenges, as well as last minute stay requests. But, because we do not here resolve the question of how to treat method-of-execution claims generally, our holding is extremely limited.

Moreover, as our previous decision in Gomez v. United States Dist. Court for Northern Dist. of Cal., 503 U. S. 653 (1992) (per curiam), makes clear, the mere fact that an inmate states a cognizable § 1983 claim does not warrant the entry of a stay as a matter of right. Gomez came to us on a motion by the State to vacate a stay entered by an en banc panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that would have allowed the District Court time to consider the merits of a condemned inmate’s last-minute § 1983 action challenging the constitutionality of California’s use of the gas chamber. We left open the question whether the inmate’s claim was cognizable under §1983, but vacated the stay nonetheless. The inmate, Robert Alton Harris, who had already filed four unsuccessful federal habeas applications, waited until the eleventh hour to file his challenge despite the fact that California’s method of execution had been in place for years: “This claim could have been brought more than a decade ago. There is no good reason for this abusive delay, which has been compounded by last-minute attempts to manipulate the judicial process. A court may consider the last-minute nature of an application to stay execution in deciding whether to grant equitable relief.” Id., at 654.

A stay is an equitable remedy, and “[ejquity must take into consideration the State’s strong interest in proceeding with its judgment and . . . attempts] at manipulation.” Ibid. Thus, before granting a stay, a district court must consider not only the likelihood of success on the merits and the relative harms to the parties, but also the extent to which the inmate has delayed unnecessarily in bringing the claim. Given the State’s significant interest in enforcing its criminal judgments, see Blodgett, 502 U. S., at 239; McCleskey, 499 U. S., at 491, there is a strong equitable presumption against the grant of a stay where a claim could have been brought at such a time as to allow consideration of the merits without requiring entry of a stay.

Finally, the ability to bring a § 1983 claim, rather than a habeas application, does not entirely free inmates from substantive or procedural limitations. The Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (Act) imposes limits on the scope and duration of preliminary and permanent injunctive relief, including a requirement that, before issuing such relief, “[a] court shall give substantial weight to any adverse impact on .. . the operation of a criminal justice system caused by the relief.” 18 U. S. C. § 3626(a)(1); accord, § 3626(a)(2). It requires that inmates exhaust available state administrative remedies before bringing a § 1983 action challenging the conditions of their confinement. 110 Stat. 1321-71, 42 U. S. C. § 1997e(a) (“No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted”). The Act mandates that a district court “shall,” on its own motion, dismiss “any action brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title ... if the court is satisfied that the action is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, or seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief.” § 1997e(c)(l). Indeed, if the claim is frivolous on its face, a district court may dismiss the suit before the plaintiff has exhausted his state remedies. § 1997e(c)(2).

For the reasons stated herein, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.