Can a police officer conduct a warrantless inventory search of a car that he or she chooses not to impound?

First, while it is lawful to conduct an inventory search of an impounded car, no legal authority supports the proposition that a police officer may conduct a warrantless search of car that he or she chooses not to impound. The purpose of an inventory search is to catalog items in an impounded vehicle, to ensure that the items are properly maintained, and to protect the police from dangerous instruments. See People v. Johnson, 1 N.Y.3 at 256. No such purpose exists when a car is not impounded by the police.

Second, the exigent circumstances doctrine permits a warrantless search of a vehicle only when there is probable cause to believe that the vehicle is the instrumentality of a crime and exigent circumstances, such as the vehicle's imminent departure, exist. See People v. White, 70 AD3d 1316, 1317 (4th Dep't), lv. denied, 14 NY3d 845 (2010); People v. Sweezey, 215 AD2d 910, 914 (3rd Dep't), lv. denied 85 NY2d 980 (1995). Given the lack of probable cause that defendant's car was the instrumentality of a crime, exigent circumstances justifying the search of the car were absent.