I could kick myself. I just re-read the United States Supreme Court's decision in Arizona v. Gant, and I am annoyed because I could have had these facts before the Court had my client not plead. Why is my case not in the pipeline; better yet, why is my case not the Gant case? In a nutshell, the Court held in Gant that the police could not search a car pursuant to arrest unless the arrestee had access to the car at the time of the search. The Court undid about a million assumptions about how those facts should go. Ironically, the holding makes perfect sense.
The Court limited its holding in an earlier case, Belton v. New Jersey, that allowed police to search the a car if the client was in it at some point before his arrest even if he was arrested 100 feet from the car, was handcuffed, and looking out from the lock doors of the police cruiser.
I bet that, if you are reading this case and you are a lawyer, you are amazed at the ruling. You may have even plead a client with these facts, or maybe you stopped short of a United States Supreme Court cert. petition thinking that such a step would be fruitless.
By contrast, I bet if you are not a lawyer or are a new lawyer, this ruling makes logical sense. How can police search for a weapon, in an effort to protect themselves, when the suspect is not even near the car? Now that I read the majority opinion, it's obvious again.
So, why would a lawyer be surprised and a layperson or beginner think that it all makes perfect sense?
Consider zenmaster Shunryu Suzuki's words spoken first in a lecture and later in his phenomenal book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, "In beginner's mind we have many possibilities, but in expert mind there is not much possibility." The sentiment may also be found in Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, expressed as the problem of knowledge. The problem with trying to communicate ideas when you are an expert is that you cannot imagine what it is like to not know something. James Surowiecki has found in his book, The Wisdom of Crowds, that the problem of expertise actually limits the possibility of an elegant solution to a problem. When you know about a subject you can think of fewer possibilities. You know all the rules and assume all the assumptions.
Somewhere along the way, somebody saw Mr. Gant's arrest as something that made no logical sense and the law governing the search as wrong.
The trick is not to unlearn everything you know. The trick is to approach every case with a beginner's mind. If you are a lawyer, think of all of the Arizona v. Gants that may be sitting in your filing cabinet. If you are a client, then ask yourself whether your attorney, who hopefully is an expert, is looking at your situation with a beginner's mind.
