The cops opened the trunk after a records check showed that the vehicle bore stolen temporary license tags. And, lo and behold, they found a .25-caliber pistol.
It seems the ruling is more on the 4th than the 2nd. Did the officers have the authority to search the trunk iof an automobile they suspected was stolen? Under those circumstances, with no license and questionable tags, I'd say yes, the search was justified.
That the firearm conviction hangs on the validity of the search, is the question.
If they guy had a taillight out and his papers were all good, the car not appearing to be stolen, the search would have been bogus (no probable cause). We don't know how he would have ruled because that was not the case.
But what did you expect from the person who wrote the first part of that dreck? Of course they will spin Roberts as anti-gun. They didn't understand that the question had nothing to do with guns, and everything to do with the search.
"Said ruling reversed a gun-possession conviction because police had, according to the court, overstepped their bounds in searching the trunk of the suspect's car. To be more precise, the car the suspect was driving (with a suspended license).
The cops opened the trunk after a records check showed that the vehicle bore stolen temporary license tags. And, lo and behold, they found a .25-caliber pistol."
My recollection of the details is a bit different. It was the middle of the night, there was a light out on the car, the plates were stolen and there was no registration. As Roberts noted, it is common to find the real plates in the trunk of a car stolen and having false plates hence the cops were reasonable in their search.