Can Police Search Your Car During an Unlawful Traffic Stop?
Legally, police officers must have probable cause to pull over drivers. Without probable cause, charges cannot be brought and any evidence collected during the stop cannot be used in a court of law. However, a recent Supreme Court ruling may allow police who misunderstand the law to bypass probable cause. The United States Supreme Court recently ruled that there are cases in which a search conducted after an unlawful traffic stop was justified and legal.
Was the Search Reasonable? (Heien v. North Carolina)
A North Carolina police officer pulled over a vehicle because it had only one working brake light. The owner of the vehicle, Nicholas Heien, was asleep in the back seat and his friend was driving. During the stop, Heien consented to a police search of the vehicle and the police officer found a bag of cocaine.
After being charged with attempted drug trafficking, the vehicle owner challenged the charges as a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. Heien claimed his protection against unlawful search and seizure was violated because state law requires a vehicle to have only one working brake light, meaning the traffic stop was unlawful. The case was appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, which reversed a lower courts claim that it did indeed violate the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights. 1
The case was recently heard before the United States Supreme Court in Heien v. North Carolina, No. 13-604. 2 In an 8 to 1 decision, the court ruled that the police officer had a “reasonable misunderstanding” of the law regarding brake lights. Therefore, Heien’s Fourth Amendment protection from unreasonable search and seizure was not violated in the subsequent police search of the vehicle and seizure of cocaine.
Impact of the Supreme Court Decision
The decision was delivered by Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts, and joined by Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer, and Alito, Kagan, and Ginsburg. Justice Kagan filed a concurring opinion joined by Ginsburg. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion.
What impact the Supreme Court ruling could have was noted by Justice Sotomayor in her dissent. She wrote that the ruling, which depends on an “officer’s understanding of the law, reasonable or otherwise,…..erodes the Fourth Amendment’s protection of civil liberties in a context where that protection has already been worn down.” Justice Sotomayor said that under the court interpretation of the law, we are left to wonder how citizens will have to structure their behavior to “avoid these invasive, frightening, and humiliating encounters,” when police can enforce their own interpretation of the law. 3 She wrote that a police officer’s misunderstanding of the law “no matter how reasonable, cannot support the individualized suspicion necessary to justify a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.”
Justice Sotomayor also suggested that by not defining “what makes a mistake of law reasonable,” the high court leaves the courts with a murky law that will be difficult to apply.
Do You Think That Police Officers Should be Allowed to Search a Vehicle after an Illegal Stop?
Wallin & Klarich would like to hear from you about the Supreme Court’s decision to allow a
reasonable misunderstanding of the law to justify a police search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.
Do you believe that if officers pull you over based on their misunderstanding of the law and found drugs in your car during that stop, they should be able to bring charges against you? Do you believe that the courts should allow an officer to bypass probable cause laws because they don’t understand the laws of their state?
Please share your comments about this important issue below.
1. [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/us/politics/justices-find-no-rights-violation-in-officers-misreading-of-law.html]↩
2. [http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-604_ec8f.pdf]↩
3. [http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-604_ec8f.pdf]↩
