No, it does not.
At the time of the stop, there was no reason to believe only one working light was required. AFTER THE STOP, a court case was decided by a lower court that interpreted the law to mean only one light was required. Another passage in the same law strongly indicates the lower court decided incorrectly. The NC Supreme Court was not asked to rule on the validity of the lower court’s interpretation, so they did not.
In any case, it was completely & 100% reasonable for a cop to interpret NC law as requiring all the lights to work AT THE TIME THE INCIDENT TOOK PLACE. No cop can be required to outguess what a future court ruling might decide.
Further, there is no constitutional right to not be stopped. A cop can stop you for any reason and not violate your rights. He has not arrested you, nor has the state punished you in any way. There is no constitutional right to not be pulled over. There never has been.
Once you have been pulled over, if you then give the police permission to search your car, the search is not illegal or unconstitutional. Why? Because you gave permission.
The “good faith” exception to search has already been in existence for years. This is nothing new.
Well no, that is not true or even accurate.
There must be reasonable suspicion or probable cause.
They cannot pull you over randomly for any invented reason.
The stop must be germain to cause.
So, if a cop asks to search my car, am I well advised to decline? Am I within my rights to do so? I would never have cocaine or any other such substance, and I would love to say no, but I’m nervous that a cop can do and say anything.
“Why? Because you gave permission.”
Needs to be repeated.
All that you say is correct except that is not what the court ruled.
What law school did you graduate from and when?
I wish (though it will never happen) that legislators would make clear that in many circumstances involving police, any "consent" should be presumed coerced and any police who wish to claim they had permission to do something would be required to prove that it was genuinely voluntarily.
I would suggest that the vast majority of people who "consent" to searches really don't want to police to search, and don't believe that the police would be able to find a legal basis to search without consent, but believe (perhaps correctly) that the police will use their discretionary authority to make their lives more unpleasant if they refuse the search than if they "consent". I would not call consent given in such cases voluntary.