Posted on 12/30/2014 3:52:48 PM PST by lbryce
In a blow to the constitutional rights of citizens, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Heien v. State of North Carolina that police officers are permitted to violate American citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights if the violation results from a “reasonable” mistake about the law on the part of police. The Rutherford Institute
4th amendment gone
Acting contrary to the venerable principle that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” the Court ruled that evidence obtained by police during a traffic stop that was not legally justified can be used to prosecute the person if police were reasonably mistaken that the person had violated the law. The Rutherford Institute had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hold law enforcement officials accountable to knowing and abiding by the rule of law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court’s lone dissenter, warned that the court’s ruling “means further eroding the Fourth Amendment’s protection of civil liberties in a context where that protection has already been worn down.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thefreethoughtproject.com ...
Not too long ago there was a thread on a article from a police officer who basically said that if the police stop you just shut up and do what you’re told. If you think the stop was illegal then you an sort it out later. Obviously the ‘sort it out later’ part of that advice just went out the window.
Then read the case for yourself: Heien v. North Carolina
Until you read up on the exclusionary rule, what it means and when it is applied, we have no basis for communication. IN fact, until you bother to read the decision, we have nothing to discuss.
I’ve posted the link to the actual decision. It is well written and reasonable, which is to be expected when all the court’s conservatives agree.
Anyone who wants to think we’re all about to be oppressed by jack-booted thugs based on this decision, as HiTech RedNeck has said will happen (post 62), can feel free to get their panties in a wad. But only a stupid person, or a person who refuses to read the decision, will do so.
Rather than taking the word of a journalism major trying to sell newspapers, let's look at the actual decision:
"On the morning of April 29, 2009, Sergeant Matt Darisse of the Surry County Sheriff's Department sat in his patrol car near Dobson, North Carolina, observing northbound traffic on Interstate 77... the Escort braked as it approached a slower vehicle, but only the left brake light came on. Noting the faulty right brake light, Darisse activated his vehicle's lights and pulled the Escort over. App. 4-7, 15-16.
Two men were in the car: Maynor Javier Vasquez sat behind the wheel, and petitioner Nicholas Brady Heien lay across the rear seat. Sergeant Darisse explained to Vasquez that as long as his license and registration checked out, he would receive only a warning ticket for the broken brake light. A records check revealed no problems with the documents, and Darisse gave Vasquez the warning ticket. But Darisse had become suspicious during the course of the stop--Vasquez appeared nervous, Heien remained lying down the entire time, and the two gave inconsistent answers about their destination. Darisse asked Vasquez if he would be willing to answer some questions. Vasquez assented, and Darisse asked whether the men were transporting various types of contraband. Told no, Darisse asked whether he could search the Escort. Vasquez said he had no objection, but told Darisse he should ask Heien, because Heien owned the car. Heien gave his consent, and Darisse, aided by a fellow officer who had since arrived, began a thorough search of the vehicle. In the side compartment of a duffle bag, Darisse found a sandwich bag containing cocaine. The officers arrested both men. 366 N. C. 271, 272-273, 737 S. E. 2d 351, 352-353 (2012); App. 5-6, 25, 37.
The State charged Heien with attempted trafficking in cocaine. Heien moved to suppress the evidence seized from the car, contending that the stop and search had violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. After a hearing at which both officers testified and the State played a video recording of the stop, the trial court denied the suppression motion, concluding that the faulty brake light had given Sergeant Darisse reasonable suspicion to initiate the stop, and that Heien's subsequent consent to the search was valid. Heien pleaded guilty but reserved his right to appeal the suppression decision. App. 1, 7-10, 12, 29, 43-44.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed. 214 N. C. App. 515, 714 S. E. 2d 827 (2011). The initial stop was not valid, the court held, because driving with only one working brake light was not actually a violation of North Carolina law. The relevant provision of the vehicle code provides that a car must be
"equipped with a stop lamp on the rear of the vehicle. The stop lamp shall display a red or amber light visible from a distance of not less than 100 feet to the rear in normal sunlight, and shall be actuated upon application of the service (foot) brake. The stop lamp may be incorporated into a unit with one or more other rear lamps." N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. §20-129(g) (2007).
Focusing on the statute's references to "a stop lamp" and "[t]he stop lamp" in the singular, the court concluded that a vehicle is required to have only one working brake light--which Heien's vehicle indisputably did. The justification for the stop was therefore "objectively unreasonable," and the stop violated the Fourth Amendment. 214 N. C. App., at 518-522, 714 S. E. 2d, at 829-831.
Their lawyers found a way to interpret the law so that only one working taillight might be acceptable, and found an Appellate court to buy the argument. - T317
The State appealed, and the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed. 366 N. C. 271, 737 S. E. 2d 351. Noting that the State had chosen not to seek review of the Court of Appeals' interpretation of the vehicle code, the North Carolina Supreme Court assumed for purposes of its decision that the faulty brake light was not a violation. Id., at 275, 737 S. E. 2d, at 354. But the court concluded that, for several reasons, Sergeant Darisse could have reasonably, even if mistakenly, read the vehicle code to require that both brake lights be in good working order. Most notably, a nearby code provision requires that "all originally equipped rear lamps" be functional. Id., at 282-283, 737 S. E. 2d, at 358-359 (quoting N. C. Gen. Stat. Ann. §20-129(d)). Because Sergeant Darisse's mistaken understanding of the vehicle code was reasonable, the stop was valid. "An officer may make a mistake, including a mistake of law, yet still act reasonably under the circumstances. . . . [W]hen an officer acts reasonably under the circumstances, he is not violating the Fourth Amendment." Id., at 279, 737 S. E. 2d, at 356.
The North Carolina Supreme Court remanded to the Court of Appeals to address Heien's other arguments for suppression (which are not at issue here). Id., at 283, 737 S. E. 2d, at 359. The Court of Appeals rejected those arguments and affirmed the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress. ___ N. C. App. ___, 741 S. E. 2d 1 (2013). The North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed in turn. 367 N. C. 163, 749 S. E. 2d 278 (2013). We granted certiorari. 572 U. S. ___ (2014).
II
The Fourth Amendment provides:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreason- able searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
A traffic stop for a suspected violation of law is a "seizure" of the occupants of the vehicle and therefore must be conducted in accordance with the Fourth Amendment. Brendlin v. California, 551 U. S. 249, 255-259 (2007). All parties agree that to justify this type of seizure, officers need only "reasonable suspicion"--that is, "a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped" of breaking the law. Prado Navarette v. California, 572 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (slip op., at 3) (internal quotation marks omitted). The question here is whether reasonable suspicion can rest on a mistaken understanding of the scope of a legal prohibition. We hold that it can.
...
Finally, Heien and amici point to the well-known maxim, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse," and contend that it is fundamentally unfair to let police officers get away with mistakes of law when the citizenry is accorded no such leeway. Though this argument has a certain rhetorical appeal, it misconceives the implication of the maxim. The true symmetry is this: Just as an individual generally cannot escape criminal liability based on a mistaken understanding of the law, so too the government cannot impose criminal liability based on a mistaken understanding of the law. If the law required two working brake lights, Heien could not escape a ticket by claiming he reasonably thought he needed only one; if the law required only one, Sergeant Darisse could not issue a valid ticket by claiming he reasonably thought drivers needed two. But just because mistakes of law cannot justify either the imposition or the avoidance of criminal liability, it does not follow that they cannot justify an investigatory stop. And Heien is not appealing a brake-light ticket; he is appealing a cocaine-trafficking conviction as to which there is no asserted mistake of fact or law.
The STOP can be justified by an OBJECTIVELY reasonable mistake of law, but the imposition of criminal liability can NOT!! - T317
Sotomayor's dissent:
I would hold that determining whether a search or seizure is reasonable requires evaluating an officer's understanding of the facts against the actual state of the law. I would accordingly reverse the judgment of the North Carolina Supreme Court, and I respectfully dissent from the Court's contrary holding."
She wants a SUBJECTIVE standard to be used when deciding if an officer's mistake is reasonable, which is, as we all expect from her, ludicrous. - T317
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=13-604
(All bold and italics and underlining and color changes are mine)
Good post.
Laughably moronic, and every criminal's dream. Virtually EVERY law, as they are written today, can be twisted so as to have potentially contradicting clauses. In this very case, the attorney found a way to find ONE clause that made it seem uncertain as to whether one or two working lamps were required. The court itself notes that in a nearby sentence, that law requires all original light to be working... and yet, even though they did not, the cocaine dealers argued it all the way up to the US Supreme Court. Even with only one subsection of one traffic regulation using "the" and "a", their attorney claimed uncertainty and contradiction in the law. Any decent defense attorney could find such contradictions in almost every law... so your proposal would end all law enforcement until the higher courts could personally review every single one. Ludicrous.
Thanks, but it was mostly SCOTUS’s, not mine. ;)
I doubt it - pick a law at random and point out the contradiction.
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