The United States Supreme Court was presented with the question of whether or not a police officer, without a search warrant, may enter the curtilage of a home and conduct a search of an automobile. (Curtilage is defined as “an area intimately linked to the home, both physically and psychologically, where privacy expectations are most heightened.”). Today, in Collins v. Virginia, the Court answered that question and ruled that a vehicle that is part of a home’s curtilage can not be searched without a search warrant.
The general rule was that a police officer does not need a search warrant to search a car under the automobile exception to the warrant requirement (because cars are readily mobile and subject to government regulation). In Collins, the United States Supreme Court ruled that areas that are deemed curtilage are so important that they trump the automobile exception.