Heien vs. North Carolina
December 15, 2014 7:42 AM   Subscribe

This morning, the Supreme Court released an opinion (pdf) in Heien vs. North Carolina, finding that because the Fourth Amendment requires government officials to act reasonably, not perfectly, and gives those officials “fair leeway for enforcing the law,” an officer in North Carolina did not act unconstitutionally when they stopped and searched a car driving with a broken brake light, even though North Carolina law requires only one vehicle brake light to be working.

Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Ginsburg, Breyer, Alito and Kagan joined. Justice Kagan filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Ginsburg joined. Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion.

Oral argument (pdf)

Forbes (from October): Is It Lawful For The Police To Get The Law Wrong?
posted by roomthreeseventeen (126 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
This smacks of "truthiness". Maybe "legalish"?
posted by The Michael The at 7:50 AM on December 15, 2014 [10 favorites]


"This is the North United States - we do what we want."
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:51 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


And yet for us regular-run-of-the-mill-average citizens, it's constantly drilled into our skulls that ignorance of the law does not excuse illegality.

The fundamental nature of a democracy (or democratic republic, in our case), is that we ultimately end up with the government we voted for; the one we deserve. Thus, we it seems now have not only a President who folds as easily as a dishrag and a legislature consumed by self-interest, but also a shit-stain of a Supreme Court so far removed from their charge that it's a wonder we still call them "justices."
posted by The Confessor at 7:53 AM on December 15, 2014 [26 favorites]


"Well-meaning ignorance" is not the motto I want on the side of my police department's cars.
posted by Etrigan at 7:54 AM on December 15, 2014 [64 favorites]


For comparison, a reading of the case before it was argued from The Volock Conspiracy, arguing in favor of the defense.
posted by persona at 8:02 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


And yet for us regular-run-of-the-mill-average citizens, it's constantly drilled into our skulls that ignorance of the law does not excuse illegality.
Petitioner Nicholas Brady Heien, the car’s owner, gave Darisse consent to search the vehicle.
If the owner wasn't so stupid to give his consent it probably would have been a 5-4 in favour of the defendant. It would be like acting off a faulty warrant where the state did its due diligence. The state agent was acting in good faith.

It's the SCOTUS equivalent of "no backsies" not a fundamental breach of our freedoms.
posted by Talez at 8:02 AM on December 15, 2014 [14 favorites]


The state agent was acting in good faith.

This seems to be the gist of the ruling, and I don't disagree with it.
posted by rocket88 at 8:08 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


This officer got to sexually assault a minor during a traffic stop and he isn't facing jail time. and it was the second time he did it!!!

"This officer made a serious mistake, a serious lapse in judgment."

I think it's time we enshrine the immunity of police into law and just straight up make it explicit.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:09 AM on December 15, 2014 [5 favorites]


If the owner wasn't so stupid to give his consent...

You mean "If the owner hadn't wanted to avoid a beatdown" don't you?

This idea that all a civilian has to do is to deny consent and all will be well because it's the law is, at best, naive in the extreme. Especially in this world we find ourselves where cops feel free to do as they please because there are usually no repercussions. In any case, most civilians have no idea they can opt to not consent. And, they've been well-taught that only the bad guys invoke their rights.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:12 AM on December 15, 2014 [46 favorites]


I think it's time we enshrine the immunity of police into law and just straight up make it explicit.

These aren't even remotely similar situations.
posted by Oxydude at 8:12 AM on December 15, 2014


You mean "If the owner hadn't wanted to avoid a beatdown" don't you?

I'm being 100% serious. I really want to know if this has actually happened. Where someone refused a search and was then beaten extra-judicially.
posted by Talez at 8:17 AM on December 15, 2014


My favorite practice is stopping cars with dim license plate bulbs.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:18 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm being 100% serious. I really want to know if this has actually happened. Where someone refused a search and was then beaten extra-judicially.

Yes, absolutely. here is just one case. The person tased and arrested by the police was questioned for sitting in a public area while waiting to pick up his children from daycare.
posted by entropone at 8:21 AM on December 15, 2014 [24 favorites]


Yes, absolutely. here is just one case.

Isn't that force with (what was later proved false PC) incident to arrest not for refusing a search? Because refusing the search is the real important part here.

I'm talking about pull a black guy over, he says "I don't consent to a search" and they beat the shit out of him for it which is what Thorzad was alluding to.
posted by Talez at 8:25 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Malcompetence is now the law!
posted by srboisvert at 8:27 AM on December 15, 2014


I'm being 100% serious. I really want to know if this has actually happened. Where someone refused a search and was then beaten extra-judicially.

My last interaction with the cops went like this. They approached as I was sitting outside my truck. They asked for ID, made some small talk and then asked to search the truck.

I refused and then was frisked and cuffed - very roughly - while they made calls and asked me questions I refused to answer. I was threatened several times. I was absolutely certain I would probably "trip and fall" at some point if they did actually arrest me. Eventually, they failed to secure a warrant and being satisfied that I was clean, they let me go.

I never did get a good answer as to why they approached me to begin with, and really, I believe the fact that I am a reasonably wealthy middle aged white dude is what allowed me to fuck with them so much.

That was two years ago. I've had similar experiences lots of times.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 8:30 AM on December 15, 2014 [54 favorites]


I found this one. The deputy was suspended without pay and then stepped down.
posted by Talez at 8:31 AM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


Well you can apparently get tasered for filming the police from a distance. You can get shot while lying face down in handcuffs. So yes, I think a belief that "bad things will happen if you say no to a cop" is pretty understandable.

I am sure if I had the time, finding a driver beaten for refusing to allow a search would be possible.

Even if there wasn't one, the police have created a climate of fear and invincibility that makes standing up for yourself, even if you know your rights, a risky thing. It might work. Or they might beat the crap out of you. Maybe even kill you. Of course, your odds are better if you're white, but then there's the white woman who lost her case when an officer charged her with assault after she elbowed him when he grabbed her breast. There's the case not long ago, posted here on the Blue, of undercover cops leaping out of a van and trying to grab a 12 year old girl from her own yard because they thought she was a prostitute. Her dad ran out to defend her, and they turned around and charged her with resisting arrest. They didn't talk to her first, or show a badge, or ask any questions. For all she knew, they were just rapists and she did what she had been told to do; fight back. But too bad for her, they were plain clothes cops.

I think that was the case that broke me, honestly. I couldn't see cops the same way ever again.

(The charges were dropped, eventually. But the officers were never punished).
posted by emjaybee at 8:33 AM on December 15, 2014 [59 favorites]


Yeah, the question is not whether or not we can come up with a particular instance where a cop was caught beating someone for refusing consent to a search, the question is whether or not that's a reasonable concern.

Given all of the other places we've seen innocent people beaten by cops because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, the idea that somehow a person is safe in saying "no" because they're inside a vehicle is absurd.

Attempting to escalate bullshit traffic violations is a common police tactic, happened to me twice in the past decade (I'm white and upper middle class, so it didn't work, but I don't pretend that that privilege extends or is infallible), and if some gang asshole with a gun tells me he's gonna search my car, the fact that his gang colors happen to be blue doesn't make me feel any more safe in saying "no".
posted by straw at 8:45 AM on December 15, 2014 [23 favorites]


I reeeally have difficulty believing that cases of people being beaten for asserting a right against searches and seizures are rarer than unicorns.

At any rate, it's primarily because of an implication that an extraordinary presumption of benevolence on the part of police is mandatory that allowing the search has any chance of being the "stupid" option, right? In most situations when you're confronted by a guy with a gun isn't frustrating that guy's desire to look at things the option that would be the stupid one?
posted by XMLicious at 8:46 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


I realize there is a great deal of (quite reasonably justified) dislike and revulsion for cops and their bad behaviour right now. But looking at the case in the articles I can't see how it has anything to do with this case. The officer stopped a car with one brake light out. There is no reason to believe he was just decided he was going to stop this guy and was just grasping for a justification. Nothing else that happens after that point is being argued.

The defense is relying on the fact that this badly written and previously unexamined law means that it's technically not illegal to drive with only one tail light. There is no reasonable way to say that the officer "should have known" or was just trying to trump up charges. A reasonable person (and a reasonable police officer) would have thought that the law was being broken.

The defense is one of those really stretching to find some obscure point to get an obviously guilty party free on a technicality.

Have we gotten to the point where the cops are just automatically assumed to be the wrongdoers? I'm firmly on the side that there is a tonne of abuse and it needs to stop now. But I'm not sure I can agree that all cops are monsters and thus even the real criminals should get out of jail free...
posted by cirhosis at 8:48 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


The point is not that the officer was acting with malice aforethought and is secretly Satan. The point is that this ruling widens what's already a very broad double standard where ordinary citizens are expected to comply with the One True Meaning of every law or face arrest, jail time, fines, etc, while police get the benefit of the doubt on their "reasonable interpretation." And if you don't think that's going to be taken advantage of down the line, I've got a bridge to sell you.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:53 AM on December 15, 2014 [53 favorites]


Talez: "Yes, absolutely. here is just one case.

Isn't that force with (what was later proved false PC) incident to arrest not for refusing a search? Because refusing the search is the real important part here.

I'm talking about pull a black guy over, he says "I don't consent to a search" and they beat the shit out of him for it which is what Thorzad was alluding to.
"

------------------

Would be real nice if we had some sort of database of police violence. Funny... convenient, really, how we don't. We have all sorts of crime stats, but nothing to keep an eye on the State's use of violence.
posted by symbioid at 8:55 AM on December 15, 2014 [18 favorites]


On my phone right now so I can't easily link, but there was a case in Denver a few years back where a black man tried to invoke his right to not have his car searched without a warrant and was assaulted by the police.
posted by audi alteram partem at 8:57 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Link
posted by audi alteram partem at 8:59 AM on December 15, 2014 [7 favorites]


Sorry. Just realized there's a graphic photo of his injuries at that link.
posted by audi alteram partem at 9:00 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


I must have missed a change in the law? The law has always been that an officer can search the "immediate vicinity" for *weapons* that might threaten the officer. Consent or no consent, they can search. And of course, anything illegal they find is incidental to the weapons search....

An officer also told me once that "if I follow you for a few miles, I guarantee you will break some kind of traffic law and I can pull you over for that if I want to...."

So which is it? Can they search the "immediate vicinity" if you don't give consent? Or not?

(and btw, I have had a vehicle with friends inside searched in NY and CA and we did *not* give consent. Both times, officers said they were looking for "weapons" and "for my safety.")
posted by CrowGoat at 9:01 AM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


The search is incident to arrest, not a mere stop of the car.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:03 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Not all cops are monsters. Criminals should not go free. But have we reached the point where a substantive percentage of citizens believe that cops are generally the wrongdoers in a situation? Yes. I believe we have. Almost everyone I know fears and loathes them. I am fairly well-to-do older white man living in an upscalish place with no record whatsoever and have been routinely cop-hassled several times. Seemingly just out of cop boredom. It's like the knights pre-Crusades: a bunch of thugs hired to protect you but when there are no real enemies? Hey, they have to fuck with someone; it's what they do. And you're the one in front of them. They are the great shame of our society right now. And that's saying something.
posted by umberto at 9:03 AM on December 15, 2014 [28 favorites]


We've already established that a "reasonable interpretation" of the law is insufficient for a private citizen.
posted by penduluum at 9:05 AM on December 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


Consent or no consent, they can search. And of course, anything illegal they find is incidental to the weapons search....

The officer can search as much as they want. They have the gun. But if you don't give consent you stand a chance of having evidence suppressed later in court if the probable cause is found faulty or they actually needed a warrant. If you give consent then it's all in no matter how sketchy the cop is dancing up to the illegal search line.
posted by Talez at 9:05 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


So which is it? Can they search the "immediate vicinity" if you don't give consent? Or not?

That's not what this case is about. People might want to read the links here because I think we're drifting way off topic.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:06 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


But looking at the case in the articles I can't see how it has anything to do with this case. The officer stopped a car with one brake light out. There is no reason to believe he was just decided he was going to stop this guy and was just grasping for a justification.

From the pdf: Shortly before 8 a.m., a
Ford Escort passed by. Darisse thought the driver looked
“very stiff and nervous,” so he pulled onto the interstate
and began following the Escort. A few miles down the
road, 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.

The brake light had nothing to do with the officer following the Escort. It was his excuse to pull the guy over.
posted by wallabear at 9:11 AM on December 15, 2014 [15 favorites]


But if you don't give consent you stand a chance of having evidence suppressed later in court if the probable cause is found faulty or they actually needed a warrant.

IF the case even makes it to a courtroom.
Which, as we've seen recently, is itself a very big if.
posted by triggerfinger at 9:11 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]



Would be real nice if we had some sort of database of police violence. Funny... convenient, really, how we don't. We have all sorts of crime stats, but nothing to keep an eye on the State's use of violence.


Congress Just Passed A Law Requiring Police Departments To Count How Many People They Shoot
posted by infini at 9:12 AM on December 15, 2014 [9 favorites]


IF the case even makes it to a courtroom.
Which, as we've seen recently, is itself a very big if.


Motion to suppress is a pretrial motion typically. The defense calls for it, both sides give arguments, evidence is in or out. If you get the state's prime evidence suppressed (i.e. illegal search of the car, bag of pot is out) then the case collapses, the defense can raise a motion to dismiss if the prosecuting attorney doesn't drop the charges, and it doesn't even go to trial.
posted by Talez at 9:17 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


I have not read the content of this post yet, I just want to thank the OP for leading with a link to the actual opinion. That alone makes this a far superior outing than most legal threads.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:22 AM on December 15, 2014


Darisse thought the driver looked
“very stiff and nervous,” so he pulled onto the interstate
and began following the Escort.


Good lord. That has to be somewhere on the police spectrum of rationalization that ends with "His hand moved toward his belt, and I feared for my life". Do they teach these bullshit rationalizations in the academy?
posted by Thorzdad at 9:27 AM on December 15, 2014 [9 favorites]


"But if you don't give consent you stand a chance of having evidence suppressed later in court..."

Echoing triggerfinger's concerns above: Happened to my brother-in-law (he was growing mushrooms), when he suggested that he was going after the evidence chain to figure out if the search was lawful, the DA said "If you ask for the call logs, we bring the major drug offender charges in".

So, yeah: 40 minute search yields "a bag" of cocaine. Had the cop dragged him from the car, beat him senseless, it's very likely that he'd then be facing a DA who'd be saying "well, you could plead to this felony and be out in 3 years, or you were in a car with drugs I can break out the drug trafficking charges, and you can take your chances with the public defender at trial". The accused has already been injured by the "justice" system, has no reason to believe in it, why would he think he'd get justice at trial?

Hell, I've served on a jury all the way through to deliver a "not guilty" verdict, I was amazingly impressed by the thoughtfulness and care that my fellow jurors put into the deliberation, and I don't think anyone really gets justice at trial.
posted by straw at 9:29 AM on December 15, 2014 [5 favorites]


infini: "Congress Just Passed A Law Requiring Police Departments To Count How Many People They Shoot"

Does this include baton beatings, punches, toilet plungers and other assorted non-projectile weapons? I mean, I support this, but I think we need a citizens wikipedia of events with as much detail, and information from witnesses that aren't just the police version of events.
posted by symbioid at 9:32 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


It's like the knights pre-Crusades: a bunch of thugs hired to protect you but when there are no real enemies? Hey, they have to fuck with someone; it's what they do. And you're the one in front of them.

It's essentially a peace-time standing army serving no purpose at all. Without the war on some drugs, what do we need this many cops and prisons for? Tear down the whole fucking institution and start again.
posted by empath at 9:39 AM on December 15, 2014 [16 favorites]


Not to mention the bullying of spouses, relatives, etc. by interrogating officers. Sorry for the full url but 'link' doesn't work on my phone

posted by umberto at 9:40 AM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


It's essentially a peace-time standing army serving no purpose at all.

Really?
posted by iviken at 9:46 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


The brake light had nothing to do with the officer following the Escort. It was his excuse to pull the guy over

I guess I missed that... so true it is more relevant then I'd indicated. But still I'm going to land on the side that it was still a reasonable interpretation of the law that the officer was then justified in stopping the driver.

For the record I'm not 100% on the side of the law either. I'm not comfortable with the idea of a cop following someone till he could find a flimsy justification to stop him and then harass the driver untill he get's "permission" to search. But that's also in the category that we need better trained cops that have more trust from the average citizen.
posted by cirhosis at 9:46 AM on December 15, 2014


The time has long past when the police will have trust from the average citizen.
posted by umberto at 9:51 AM on December 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


umberto... I agree that the average citizen doesn't trust the police... but the way you say it implies to me that you don't believe they ever will trust the police again. Don't you have any hope that things can be fixed?
posted by cirhosis at 9:55 AM on December 15, 2014




I'm being 100% serious. I really want to know if this has actually happened. Where someone refused a search and was then beaten extra-judicially.

Of course you know full well you won't find any such cases in the judicial system itself, because any such case will be disguised or covered up long before it reaches official status.
posted by MartinWisse at 10:02 AM on December 15, 2014 [9 favorites]


But, dios, aren't those issues intertwined? The decision is all about a "reasonable" mistake of the law.

Those of us who bicycle hear constantly about getting harassed by cops who aren't up on the vehicle code. Is being told to get out of the lane and on to the (dangerous) shoulder a "reasonable mistake of the law"?

"reasonable" mistakes are those that we, the general public, can believe are made in good faith. The point is that for a huge portion of the population, animosity with law enforcement has reached a level that many of us aren't going to buy "reasonable", because it's way too easy for a cop to say "oh, whoops, my bad".

And if we don't believe the cops are playing by the rules, we've got no incentive to either.
posted by straw at 10:20 AM on December 15, 2014 [7 favorites]


Talez: Petitioner Nicholas Brady Heien, the car’s owner, gave Darisse consent to search the vehicle.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa! Why was this VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL not included in the FPP description?
posted by IAmBroom at 10:21 AM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


Cirhosis, I respect your opinion and the measured way you have presented it. But, no. I think things are getting much worse. The attitude that law enforcement has -- we are right and shut up and put your hands up because security; the fact they wish to be regarded as heroes yet at events like Columbine or VA Tech they sit outside until the killing is over, THEN act all macho, the article I read in the last week where an official blatantly said, just do what I tell you, even if it's wrong, and you won't have a problem, and if I do something wrong and it leads to your injury or death it's your fault for not shutting up and getting cuffed, makes me think the public will never respect the police again. Just fear them. And tragically that seems to be what they want. And while not one of the 1%, I'm probably one of the 15%. If me and my cohorts fear and despise the police, how must people in worse circumstances feel? They have made themselves into unthinking brutes, and it demeans our society.
posted by umberto at 10:22 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Whoa whoa whoa whoa! Why was this VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL not included in the FPP description?

Because it isn't relevant or important to the initial stop which was the subject matter of the lawsuit.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:23 AM on December 15, 2014 [11 favorites]


Just to clarify: when laws are ambiguous and a law enforcement officer gets it wrong, the law enforcement officer is given leeway to be reasonably mistaken. When a non-law enforcement officer gets an ambiguous law wrong, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Even though legal experts employed by the state need to clarify the actual meaning of the law.

Am I reading this correctly?
posted by ryoshu at 10:26 AM on December 15, 2014 [10 favorites]


How is it not relevant? The court, in their naivete, mentioned it in the third sentence of their opinion; somehow they thought that the defendants gave permission to be searched was somehow relevant.
posted by IAmBroom at 10:26 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


The officer stopped a car with one brake light out. There is no reason to believe he was just decided he was going to stop this guy and was just grasping for a justification.

The point is that it wasn't a justification, grasped for or otherwise. It wasn't illegal. He might as well have pulled him over for driving a blue sedan.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:28 AM on December 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


Why was this VERY IMPORTANT DETAIL not included in the FPP description?

From the SCOTUSblog analysis: Although Justice Ginsburg twice inquired why the lawful consent didn’t eliminate the issue of the stop, the traditional rule has been that the “fruits” of an invalid stop must be suppressed. Apparently the Justices themselves decided it wasn't that relevant.
posted by penduluum at 10:28 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Am I reading this correctly?

You're also comparing procedural errors to crimes but don't let that stop you.
posted by Talez at 10:29 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


The point is that it wasn't a justification, grasped for or otherwise. It wasn't illegal. He might as well have pulled him over for driving a blue sedan.

There's that little matter of "reasonableness". The point is that it's reasonable for an officer to assume that a tail light being out would probably be in violation of the law even if it's not technically a violation of the law because the law is different from common assumption. No reasonable person is going to assume that a car being blue is something that someone needs to be pulled over and cited for.
posted by Talez at 10:32 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


From the SCOTUSblog analysis: Although Justice Ginsburg twice inquired why the lawful consent didn’t eliminate the issue of the stop, the traditional rule has been that the “fruits” of an invalid stop must be suppressed. Apparently the Justices themselves decided it wasn't that relevant.

But other case law has stated that when police officers act in good faith of faulty warrants the results of searches can stay in. This is a similar circumstance although in this case a faulty warrant is a "reasonable" assumption on behalf of the officer.
posted by Talez at 10:34 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


It was relevant, certainly - they had to ask why it wasn't the deciding factor.

This case does not simply boil down to "Can a cop just search your car on a whim?", as the FPP and much of the argumentation makes it sound. The case is about whether the voluntary search has to be thrown out because the cops stopped a vehicle that hadn't broken the law.
posted by IAmBroom at 10:36 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


There's that little matter of "reasonableness". The point is that it's reasonable for an officer to assume that a tail light being out would probably be in violation of the law even if it's not technically a violation of the law because the law is different from common assumption.

No, it isn't. At all. It's reasonable for the cop to know the damn law. It's not reasonable for the cop to pretend he thought the law was something that it wasn't, which is probably what happened here and certainly what will happen very frequently in the future thanks to this decision.
posted by IAmUnaware at 10:37 AM on December 15, 2014 [14 favorites]


There is no reasonable way to say that the officer "should have known" or was just trying to trump up charges.

Isn't the whole "I need to search your car because you have one tail light out" not only trumped up charges, but a stereotypical trumping up of charges?
posted by corb at 10:38 AM on December 15, 2014 [25 favorites]


The cops are routinely wrong about the law. Routinely. There is no way on earth I'm going to argue with a cop who is plainly wrong on the point of law. I just do my best to avoid them like a turd on the sidewalk you don't want to step in.

My wife bikes to work. She's had many, many, many encounters with cops you shout out at her to do this that and the third on the sidewalk or in a crossing, and their demands are black on white wrong - because we've checked the relevant laws about bikes on sidewalks in a particular location and on crossings, and we've even called legal help in city hall and have confirmed before we even purchased the bikes. Do you imagine for one second that my wife stops to argue with a fascist pig about the law? No, she complies with the idiot's demands. If a white woman on a nice bike gets hassled pointlessly by these animals, you can imagine what happens to minorities on bikes.

Meanwhile I've had my own experiences with cops utter abysmal ignorance of the law when it comes to public photography. As someone who has made his living with photography, I'm very motivated to keep up on the relevant law. They're idiots high on power trips. Do I argue with this scum, even though I'm in the right? Nope. I pack my equipment and move on. It's just not worth being arrested by some jackbooted thug who will make up lies about everything, and his gangster friends on the force will back him up - lost work and a photograph missed, or being beaten up and brought up on trumped up charges... hmm, I don't find the choice hard at all.

That's the price you pay for living in what is fast becoming a police state - even the highest court of law sides with state power representatives. The rights you supposedly have, are purely theoretical when you are heavily penalized for exercising them, and when the state is under no obligation to respect them in practice. The only thing I find puzzling is why do they bother to chip away at these theoretical rights, when in practice they are laugh out loud irrelevant in any case.
posted by VikingSword at 10:44 AM on December 15, 2014 [45 favorites]


The case is about whether the voluntary search has to be thrown out because the cops stopped a vehicle that hadn't broken the law.

Well, kind of. The case is about whether the cops acted correctly in stopping a vehicle that they reasonably believed was in violation of the law, even if it wasn't. It specifically doesn't reach as far as the search.

If they were incorrect in conducting the stop, the voluntary nature of the search would have been relevant. Fruit of the poison tree and all that. But the case didn't approach that question -- see the "good faith" exemption discussion in the SCOTUSblog analysis. They were specifically not arguing about remedy.
posted by penduluum at 10:47 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


No, it isn't. At all. It's reasonable for the cop to know the damn law. It's not reasonable for the cop to pretend he thought the law was something that it wasn't, which is probably what happened here and certainly what will happen very frequently in the future thanks to this decision.

Having one non-functional brake light is a violation (and legal justification for a stop) in most jurisdictions. Most descriptions of the North Carolina law refer to it as 'ambiguous'.
That ambiguity was never resolved by a judge's interpretation until after the event in question.
The rest of your comment is pure conjecture, but the actual facts of the case lean toward the error in law as reasonable and in good faith.

I think the fact that this is a war-on-drugs charge is clouding some opinions. Would so many people be as eager to see a rapist or child-molester go free on a similar technicality?
posted by rocket88 at 10:49 AM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


Because that hypothetical definitely isn't going to cloud opinions.
posted by penduluum at 10:53 AM on December 15, 2014 [12 favorites]


rocket88: Cops don't follow priests cars for miles waiting for a minor justification to pull them over.

Oh, sorry, that was a bit inflammatory. That being said, unless the your hypthetical rapist/molester has evidence of the rape/molestation in their car, waiting to be found as evidence, your hypothetical is patent nonsense.

The fact is we have cops that decide who they want to pull over and then follow them waiting for any legal justification they can find to pull them over. A brake light that is out is one. Another one is an 'illegal lane change' (without signaling). Another common bullshit (illegal lie) that cops use is that the people were 'serving into the other lane'.

The initial justification that the person acted nervous, so they were going to follow them... Well holy shit, most people in this thread (and most minorities) are awfully nervous when they see a cop.
posted by el io at 10:58 AM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


You're also comparing procedural errors to crimes but don't let that stop you.

It didn't stop Orin Kerr, why should it stop me?

From a layman's point of view, why is a law enforcement officer allowed to be ignorant of the law they are charged with enforcing, while a regular person is supposed to know all ambiguous laws that impact her actions?
posted by ryoshu at 11:04 AM on December 15, 2014 [7 favorites]


Would so many people be as eager to see a rapist or child-molester go free on a similar technicality? I would like rapists and child molesters to be arrested based on valid police work, not trumped-up charges. Because once you allow trumped -up charges for the bad guys, guess what? They get used on everyone. You got your rapist! But now you have innocent people being arrested too. That is not a win.

It probably is impossible to have a discussion solely about this particular case. Thanks to Ferguson and lots of other recent events, the issue of police brutality and corruption looms over any discussion of law enforcement. It's the poison in the well. I'm sure we all do wish we could have that clear, calm, finer-points-of-the-law discussion, but that well is really and truly poisoned.

Just this week, the Cleveland police union bitched and demanded an apology about some Browns players wearing I Can't Breathe shirts. Never mind that no one (as far as I know) accused the Cleveland cops of anything in particular in the process. Just the assertion that some cop, somewhere, had done something wrong, well, that was offensive.

There can't be any trust in the police again so long as that kind of attitude is the norm.
posted by emjaybee at 11:06 AM on December 15, 2014 [32 favorites]


Would so many people be as eager to see a rapist or child-molester go free on a similar technicality?

The frustrating thing is that the civil liberties side often declines to pursue cases that aren't as strong as they could be while the authoritarian side just tosses out hypotheticals and it seems to suffice.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 11:07 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


During critical mass rides, we had a problem with cops just making up random laws on the spot. They'd rattle off numbers and say they were vehicle code statutes. They stopped once we started carrying full copies of the California Vehicle Code with us. We had video of them quoting stuff that turned out to be something about commercial truck weights when we pulled out our books.

Lesson learned: most cops will lie if it's convenient and they think they can get away with it.
posted by ryanrs at 11:12 AM on December 15, 2014 [32 favorites]


ChurchHatesTucker: Defense lawyers (who care about the civil liberties of their clients anyways) vigorously defend their clients as best they can (or at least that's their jobs).

Civil Liberty organizations (ACLU, etc) have an interest in only trying to pursue cases that will help establish precedent that will further civil liberties. Weak cases might help establish bad precedents and are unwise to pursue (tactically). But civil liberty organizations certainly cases with unpopular defendants (trying to secure habeas corpus for accused terrorists, fighting for the right of the KKK to march in parades, etc).

(Why is 'corpus' in my browsers dictionary, but 'habeas' not in that same dictionary? It makes NO SENSE.)
posted by el io at 11:14 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


ryanrs: It's legal for the cops to lie to you. This is allowed.

Also, it's illegal for you to lie to cops - that's a crime.
posted by el io at 11:15 AM on December 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


Yes, we knew it was legal for them to lie. But confronting them about their lies, with proof in hand, on video, helped a bunch when we proceeded to ignore their orders and then get arrested for it. All this was planned beforehand with our legal team.

And the cops knew we understood the law backwards and forward, and they knew everything they said was being videoed by multiple people. And they still lied to our faces basically just for funsies (the cops were smirking and giggling at each other on camera while they did it). So dear reader, when they pull you over on the side of the highway with no cameras and no witnesses, you can be sure they'll lie to you as well.
posted by ryanrs at 11:23 AM on December 15, 2014 [20 favorites]


There's a lot of not RTFA in this thread--on both sides, really. I think Sotomayor's dissent is excellent in laying out the issues and what's at stake, but amongst other things it makes very clear that this is not the shocking new legal principle that many in this thread seem to imagine. For one thing, it is only in North Carolina and the few other states that don't allow the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule that this ruling would have made any difference to whether or not the evidence was admissible in court. In other words, in the vast majority of US states it is clear and settled law that a mistake of this nature would not see the evidence gathered being dismissed.

Indeed, a key part of Orin Kerr's (also very good) analysis at that Volokh Conspiracy link above is that the Supremes ought to find for the defense because doing so would make almost no difference to the current situation, and that therefore there's no good argument for admitting even a largely theoretical erosion of our legal respect for the Fourth Amendment. I think Sotomayor is correct in arguing that the cost of letting this one defendant walk free (because of his having the luck to be arrested in North Carolina by a state policeman; the arrest would have been unquestionable in any other state and if he was being prosecuted under federal law the "good faith" exemption to the exclusionary principle would allow the evidence to stand in any case) is not worth the price of encouraging police to have even less respect for the Fourth Amendment than they now do; but I don't think even Sotomayor thinks that this is the end of the world as we've known it.
posted by yoink at 11:24 AM on December 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


76 year old tazed for not having a valid inspection sticker he was not required to have. Thanks to SCOTUS this is a perfectly reasonable stop. Even though the car did not require a valid inspection tag - it had dealer plates - the officer had a reasonable expectation for all cars to have a valid inspection tag. The 76 year old man should have known that the officer had a reasonable expectation to not know the law and should have complied immediately.
posted by ryoshu at 11:25 AM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


I agree with the Court in this instance. Because of these lines from the relevant statue :

(d) Rear Lamps. - Every motor vehicle, and every trailer or semitrailer attached to a motor vehicle and every vehicle which is being drawn at the end of a combination of vehicles, shall have all originally equipped rear lamps or the equivalent in good working order...

and

(g) No person shall sell or operate on the highways of the State any motor vehicle, motorcycle or motor-driven cycle, manufactured after December 31, 1955, unless it shall 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.


The last line of section (g) is ambiguous as to whether or not a stop lamp is also considered a rear lamp, and if so, section (d) clearly states that all rear lamps should be working, meaning one broken brake light would be an infraction. This isn't a case of an officer not know the law, or choosing to misinterpret it; this was a poorly worded statute that had multiple reasonable interpretations, and was never before clarified in a court. If this exact same situation appeared again in front of the Supreme Court, they would be expected to rule in favor of the civilian, as this law has now been unambiguously clarified.

That said, I think it's an entirely other issue to discuss how police routinely get the law incorrect, or can create a reasonable suspicion out of almost anything after-the-fact, and how these abilities seem to be used much more often against minorities. But it's an (intentional) limitation of the Judicial branch in that they can only decide what's legal, and not what's good law. If the United States had a police force that was professional, self-improving, and well-regarded, then I'd be perfectly pleased with this ruling. However, I know rulings such as this will be used to further extend the reach of the most corrupt, and I find that distressing.
posted by Skephicles at 11:28 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


ryoshu: "Thanks to SCOTUS this is a perfectly reasonable stop. Even though the car did not require a valid inspection tag - it had dealer plates - the officer had a reasonable expectation for all cars to have a valid inspection tag. The 76 year old man should have known that the officer had a reasonable expectation to not know the law and should have complied immediately."

This is not true. From Kagan's concurrence:

First, an officer’s “subjective understanding” is irrelevant: As the Court notes, “[w]e do not examine” it at all. That means the government cannot defend an officer’s mistaken legal interpretation on the ground that the officer was unaware of or untrained in the law. And it means that [...] an officer’s reliance on “an incorrect memo or training program from the police department” makes no difference to the analysis. 366 N. C. 271, 284, 737 S. E. 2d 351, 360 (2012) (Hudson, J., dissenting). Those considerations pertain to the officer’s subjective understanding of the law and thus cannot help to justify a seizure.

So in this case, the plain language of the statute said that he was not required to have a valid inspection tag. The test here is whether there is a "vexing question" of law that reasonable judges might have differing opinions about:

Or to make the same point without the Latin, the test is satisfied when the law at issue is “so doubtful in construction” that a reasonable judge could agree with the officer’s view.

And further:

A court tasked with deciding whether an officer’s mistake of law can support a seizure thus faces a straightforward question of statutory construction. If the statute is genuinely ambiguous, such that overturning the officer’s judgment requires hard interpretive work, then the officer has made a reasonable mistake. But if not, not. As the Solicitor General made the point at oral argument, the statute must pose a “really difficult” or “very hard question of statutory interpretation.”
posted by tkfu at 11:35 AM on December 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


the hatred people have for cops is just as important a part of the system of control as the hatred cops have for people because the more focused you are on cops, the less you are about who the cops work for.

the question is: why do the libertarian groups that promote these kind of news stories want you to hate cops?
posted by ennui.bz at 11:42 AM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


I hate cops because I fear they will harm me and because I feel sympathy for their victims. Basically the same reason I hate violent criminals.
posted by ryanrs at 11:47 AM on December 15, 2014 [9 favorites]


while the authoritarian side just tosses out hypotheticals and it seems to suffice.

I can assure you I'm no authoritarian or even a supporter of police...not even close.

I just think this case, on its own merits (and attempting to put aside my own biases) was decided correctly. Hypotheticals about how cops could take advantage of the ruling from now on and feign ignorance of the law are moot, because they already had and have the power to lie about their motivations for stopping drivers. This case went to the SCOTUS because this cop apparently didn't lie.
posted by rocket88 at 11:50 AM on December 15, 2014


I'm being 100% serious. I really want to know if this has actually happened. Where someone refused a search and was then beaten extra-judicially.

The best I could find was a video of a cop slapping a guy, taking his car keys to conduct an illegal search, and then threatening to rip his head off and shit down his neck. Which isn't actually a beating, so it doesn't count, which means it probably never happens.

And it's probably just a coincidence that, a week after video of the event surfaced and the officer resigned, the guy who got slapped was charged with attempting to run over a security guard.
posted by compartment at 12:02 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


This ruling chafes people because we want cops to be held to a higher standard than the public. That is obviously not the case right now. Daloy Polizei
posted by Gor-ella at 12:05 PM on December 15, 2014


umberto I see your arguments about police and sadly I don't really have any counters... I see the situation in the States from the outside, being Canadian, so I really can only comment as an outsider. We have our problems with the Police up here as well, but I think they probably haven't progressed quite to the point they have down there. There is definitely more unease with the Police up here then there should be (ie the police definitely need to fix processes and attitude so that people can fully trust them) but I don't think it has gone as far.

Having had the chance to read some more of the documents, I have to agree with Yoink's opinion in the end that this really should be a case of the good faith exception to the fourth rather than this sort of case.

Which probably just shows that North Carolina just seems really bad at writing laws....
posted by cirhosis at 12:08 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Which probably just shows that North Carolina just seems really bad at writing laws....

Thankfully, the police are in place to exercise their Constitutional mandate to interpret badly written laws.
posted by Etrigan at 12:16 PM on December 15, 2014


The police really aren't meant to be legal experts. It's absurd to suggest that there's something shocking or culpable about a cop not having every relevant statute off by heart. The more arcane details of the law are, quite rightly, the court's business, and not the cops'.

Clearly this was an issue on which you could have stumped even experts in the relevant field (North Carolina vehicle laws). It is not a reasonable standard to ask every single police officer to be better informed than the experts in every field of the law in which they might expect to make a related arrest. It is particularly unreasonable to say that cops ought to have a clear understanding of laws which experts in the field hold to be ambiguous and unclear.

The issue in this case was never going to be whether or not the cop ought to face some sort of disciplinary action.

(As for the issue of the disparity between his actual reasons for being suspicious ["he looked nervous"] and his claimed reasons for pulling the car over [the brake light], that's settled law, as Sotomayor points out in her dissent. Cops have been explicitly given permission by the Supremes to look out for legal excuses to pull someone over whom they suspect for reasons that would not survive judicial examination.)
posted by yoink at 12:38 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


While Canadian police aren't perfect (no police force is), I've read many articles about police officers doing bad illegal things... And then getting fired and prosecuted for the criminal activity. It shocked me the first time I read such an article. Eventually I got used to it, and it led me to believe that the Canadian have a few bad apples - and the system in Canada tries very hard to root them out and bring them to justice.

It's pretty awesome.
posted by el io at 12:40 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh, it's worth noting that there isn't nearly as much animosity towards the police in Canada. In my brief encounters with them (walking down the sidewalk drunk on the way home) I've found them to be polite and professional.
posted by el io at 12:41 PM on December 15, 2014


The police really aren't meant to be legal experts. It's absurd to suggest that there's something shocking or culpable about a cop not having every relevant statute off by heart. The more arcane details of the law are, quite rightly, the court's business, and not the cops'.

Yet everyone else is supposed to be a legal expert and know all relevant statutes of everything they do every day. That's the issue that is gnawing at this layman.
posted by ryoshu at 12:49 PM on December 15, 2014 [8 favorites]


It's absurd to suggest that there's something shocking or culpable about a cop not having every relevant statute off by heart.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:49 PM on December 15, 2014 [4 favorites]


The actual cases of people being beaten for refusing searches is most likely pretty small. But that's not to say that a cop can't destroy someone's life pretty effectively and legally for refusing a search on a shady pretense.

I've been followed for miles for looking shady and poor and pulled over for a flimsy excuse and then been asked to permit a search. Remember that discussion last week about how hard it is to get out of poverty and cars being towed? That creates a low of leverage against poor people when the police ask to search the car.

If you decline, they can say they smelled pot (or whatever) and they're holding you to get a search warrant. Even if you're clean, that can hold you up long enough that you don't get to your job on time (or your child's daycare) and you get fired or lose the childcare you require in order to go to your job.

They can give you a stiff ticket for something they say they observed you doing and it's your word against their in court. You might or might not be able to fight it in court, but if you lose, that ticket's half your take-home pay for the week. And you can't take time off from work to fight it and you can't afford a lawyer for a traffic ticket. Or you worry they might trump up something even larger and take you in and tow your car in the process.

So even though you know the reason they pulled you over is bullshit and that you have a legal right to say no, you suck it up and say yes. Not all cops are bad (in fact, most of my experiences have been good, but I have a lot of privilege) but pretending that everyone has the ability to just say no to an officer is naive. There's many things you can win in court given time and money, but the people disproportionately targeted for things like driving while black don't have those.
posted by Candleman at 12:51 PM on December 15, 2014 [12 favorites]


the system in Canada

There isn't a "system in Canada." Just like in the US, police forces are municipal, provincial and federal. Different police forces have wildly different reputations. When I lived in Montreal, the police were regarded largely as incompetent thugs by white people and as a particularly brutal criminal gang by people of color. Rare indeed was the story of any police officer facing serious legal consequences for their many, many derelictions of duty.
posted by yoink at 12:52 PM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


The actual cases of people being beaten for refusing searches is most likely pretty small. But that's not to say that a cop can't destroy someone's life pretty effectively and legally for refusing a search on a shady pretense.

Yeah. People being actually beaten for refusing a search? That's going to be a small number. But cops have lots of options and are accustomed to always getting their way. They also have no oversight at all, so.... Physical threats aren't the only tool in their toolbox.

I've always told my son that calling the cops is like inviting a vampire in to deal with your werewolf problem. It might be your only good option, but likely as not will just make things worse.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 12:59 PM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


Yet everyone else is supposed to be a legal expert and know all relevant statutes of everything they do every day.

No, they aren't. The saying "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is not an injunction that every citizen is required to memorize every relevant statute that might apply to them, and no requirement is made of ordinary citizens that they are expected to do so. No ordinary citizen is presumed, ever, to have read a single line of any statute and will never be held to be culpable for not having done so. Being found culpable of breaking a law is not and never has been held to be aggravated by a failure to have previously studied the law.

The police are placed in the extraordinary position of being asked to enforce the law, which is a radically different thing from the position of every citizen of being held responsible for failure to conform to the law. It is obviously incumbent upon policemen to have a better understanding of the law than the average person on the street, and a policeman could be fairly held to have failed in the requirements of his or her job if he proved unwilling to or incapable of gaining a reasonable working knowledge of relevant law. But it is, quite clearly, unreasonable to expect every policeman to know every possible law, no matter how odd or obscure, that might be relevant to every encounter that they have during a working day.
posted by yoink at 1:04 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


But it is, quite clearly, unreasonable to expect every policeman to know every possible law, no matter how odd or obscure, that might be relevant to every encounter that they have during a working day.

I find it to be eminently reasonable to demand that any other person in our society knows precisely why he or she is allowed to detain or attack me, take or damage my property, or even kill me. If there are too many odd or obscure laws, then the default should not be "I'm pretty sure that I can because I have a badge and a stick and a gun." Your definition of "reasonable" appears to differ from mine.
posted by Etrigan at 1:12 PM on December 15, 2014 [8 favorites]


+1 to yoink's comment about Canadian police. I lived in Montreal for 7 years and can confirm how terrible they are. I grew up in nice, friendly Saskatoon, where there was a 25-year cover-up of the standard practice of cops taking indigent, drunk aboriginal people outside the city limits in the dead of winter, kicking them out of the car, and leaving them to freeze to death.

There might be good police forces in Canada, but just like in the states, in a lot of places how the police treat you has everything to do with the colour of your skin and/or your apparent social standing.
posted by tkfu at 1:14 PM on December 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


Regarding Canadian police - fair points all. To specify, I've read multiple stories about Ontario police officers being held to account for their criminal activities. (I sort of view Quebec as an entirely different place than the rest of Canada). But certainly, Canada differs in many ways between provinces.
posted by el io at 1:22 PM on December 15, 2014


The saying "ignorance of the law is no excuse" is not an injunction that every citizen is required to memorize every relevant statute that might apply to them, and no requirement is made of ordinary citizens that they are expected to do so.

But...there absolutely is such a requirement. If I break a law that I didn't know was a law, I can still be sent to prison, fined, lose my job, be required to notify potential employers of my criminal record, lose my voting rights, etc. The only way to be certain of avoiding those consequences is not to break the law, and the only way to be sure you're not breaking the law is to know the law. All the law. Otherwise you're depending on police and prosecutors to go easy on you as a matter of their own discretion.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:22 PM on December 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


But...there absolutely is such a requirement.

No, there is not. You are saying that you, personally, think it a wise precaution to study up on the law. That is not the same thing as saying that you are required under pain of some penalty or other to study those laws. There is no requirement, at all, for any citizen simply by virtue of their citizenship to study the laws under which they live, any more than you are required to study the laws of, say, France, before you visit France as a tourist, even though you are legally obliged to obey those laws while you are there, and can face criminal prosecution under those laws if you fail to do so.

I find it to be eminently reasonable to demand that any other person in our society knows precisely why he or she is allowed to detain or attack me, take or damage my property, or even kill me.

I find that reasonable too. They should know exactly under what laws and under what conditions they are allowed to detain, attack etc. etc. They should know, for example, that they should not do these things unless they have a reasonable suspicion that you are breaking the law (please note that "reasonable suspicion" does not mean "know for a fact because they can quote the relevant statute in full").

That is not the same thing, however, as making the (impossible) requirement that they should have memorized every single statute on the books and have formed clear and compelling legal interpretations of every single disputable or poorly written one.

You cannot be seriously advancing an argument that police should be required to know more about the law than, say, judges or DAs, can you? A North Carolina judge who could not have told you off the top of their heads, without consulting a book, whether or not cars in North Carolina were required to have two functioning brake lights would be held by precisely no one to be failing in his or her duty. Are you really, in all seriousness, suggesting that this is a reasonable standard to impose on police? And are you quite happy to live with the fact that any attempt to impose this standard would mean the elimination of all police of all kinds overnight--including the ones who arrest the people you actually like being arrested as well as the ones whose arrests you disapprove of.
posted by yoink at 1:36 PM on December 15, 2014


There is no requirement, at all, for any citizen simply by virtue of their citizenship to study the laws under which they live, any more than you are required to study the laws of, say, France, before you visit France as a tourist, even though you are legally obliged to obey those laws while you are there, and can face criminal prosecution under those laws if you fail to do so.

I think we're operating under different definitions of "requirement" because I read that sentence as paradoxical. If you can be punished for doing something regardless of mens rea then you are also presumed to know that you're not allowed to do it.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:47 PM on December 15, 2014


I think we're operating under different definitions of "requirement" because I read that sentence as paradoxical.

So you have never visited a foreign country without memorizing every possible statute in their laws? Or you have visited foreign countries without doing that, but with a guilty sense that you have failed to honor something that you were "required" to do?
posted by yoink at 1:50 PM on December 15, 2014


A reasonable person (and a reasonable police officer) would have thought that the law was being broken.

There's a stretch of road near my house that is broad, flat, and straight. It's a city street, but a fairly major arterial. It's two lanes in either direction with a center turn lane -- it's wide enough for a city bus to do a U-turn. It's completely reasonable to believe that the speed limit on that road is 35 miles per hour, the standard speed limit for city arterials. But it isn't -- it's 25. And the reasonableness of people's beliefs otherwise doesn't stop the cops from ticketing about a dozen people daily on that stretch. If ignorance of an unreasonable law doesn't stop a citizen from being punished, then it shouldn't enable a cop to stop a driver.
posted by KathrynT at 1:58 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


"You cannot be seriously advancing an argument that police should be required to know more about the law than, say, judges or DAs, can you?"

I know you're not addressing me... But I sure as heck expect the police to have a VALID reason for detaining me, or arresting me, or trying to enforce a law. I don't expect them to know every supreme court precedent ever set for criminal law, but I sure as hell expect them to be fucking certain that when they are making assertions about the law when they are actively fucking with me to be... You know, right.

For example, in this case, I expect the cop to know that an electronic version of proof-of-insurance is actually valid in that jurisdiction (they gave him a ticket for that). Apparently that cop knew that the reason they were pulling him over (his music) wasn't actually against the law (hence no ticket for that 'offense'). Now there are factual disputes in that case (was he wearing his seatbelt).

A cop doesn't need to know how big a sign is allowed to be before it falls under the cities advertising laws (made up stuff here), but if they are trying to give you a ticket for breaking that ordinance, then they sure as hell should know.

The problem with this 'ignorance is an excuse' ruling (only for the cops, mind you) is that it incentivizes ignorance, and incentivizes police departments not training their cops on the law. Shit, if they are ignorant of the law, but don't get penalized for that, why would you want to train the cops?

In the past, supreme court decisions have come down (to say, mirandize a suspect) where if the cop didn't follow the law, the case would be thrown out... Suddenly police departments around the country are incentivized to train their officers on the new law to ensure that their cases don't get thrown out.

This is a bad ruling.
posted by el io at 1:59 PM on December 15, 2014 [7 favorites]


If ignorance of an unreasonable law doesn't stop a citizen from being punished, then it shouldn't enable a cop to stop a driver.

And, again, if you RTFA you'd realize that the cop's "ignorance" was not relevant to the court's decision. The standard the court has created has to do with whether or not the law is objectively clear, not to do with whether or not the cop had a subjectively weak or strong understanding of the law. The basis of their decision was that a reasonable person who had read and understood the law could fairly think that the law did require two functioning tail lights, even if, ultimately, a court might rule otherwise.

This decision does not create any incentive for cops to remain ignorant about the law so that they can enforce whatever their personal understanding of the law might be, any more than a traffic judge's ruling that you can be excused from a speeding ticket because, in fact, the signage on a particular stretch of road is unclear grants you special privilege to drive at whatever speed you choose.
posted by yoink at 2:04 PM on December 15, 2014


This isn't about my (or anyone's) guilty conscience, it's about a simple question - can I be punished for failure to comply with only those laws of which I am aware (or could be reasonably expected to be aware), or can I be punished for failure to comply with any law currently on the books? If the latter, then I'm implicitly required to both know and comply with the law.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:05 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


The problem with this 'ignorance is an excuse' ruling

And, again, that's not the basis of the ruling.
posted by yoink at 2:05 PM on December 15, 2014


This isn't about my (or anyone's) guilty conscience, it's about a simple question - can I be punished for failure to comply with only those laws of which I am aware (or could be reasonably expected to be aware), or can I be punished for failure to comply with any law currently on the books? If the latter, then I'm implicitly required to both know and comply with the law.

You seem to have a personal definition of the word "require" which means something like "makes it a good idea to." You think its prudent for a citizen to study the law. Perhaps so (although, in fact, nobody other than specialists does and nobody is ever criticized for not having made such a study other than specialists who have failed in some professional obligation). But I'm afraid that is not what the word means for most English language speakers. To say "I am required to study and memorize the statutes" is not, at all, the same thing as saying "it would be a good idea for me to study and memorize the statutes." I am required to carry a driver's license with me when I drive my car on public roads in my state. It is a good idea for me to have a first aid kit in the car, but I am not required to have a first aid kit in the car.

For an individual to study and memorize statutes is analogous to the first-aid kit. It's a good idea with might prove absolutely life-saving, but it is not "required." It is also no doubt a good idea for police to study more than the relatively small body of statute law that they are required by the nature of their jobs to study, but it would be absurd to make it a requirement of their job that they have more and better legal knowledge than every single DA and every single judge in the land.

But I sure as heck expect the police to have a VALID reason for detaining me, or arresting me, or trying to enforce a law.


Of course they should have a "valid reason." But that "valid reason" need not be that you have, in fact, broken the law; that question is, quite rightly, left for the courts to adjudicate. I am amazed that you people don't realize that you're actually demanding that the police take on a judicial function here. There's a reason that police say "save it for the judge" and we should bloody well be grateful that they do. The very last thing we want is a system where it is up to the police not merely to determine that they have sufficient grounds on which to carry out an arrest but also that they arrive at a determination of precisely the crime of which you are guilty and, presumably, of the sentence which should be imposed.
posted by yoink at 2:16 PM on December 15, 2014


But I'm not actually "required" to carry a driver's license with me when I drive on a public road. It's merely a good idea, if I don't want to potentially face consequences that could be inflicted on me by the government. Every time I go driving, and am not pulled over by the police, I didn't actually need to have my license with me. It wasn't "required" of me. Perhaps something to do with flying or international travel would make a better example for you.

But the word itself is perhaps a silly sticking point to argue over? No, there is no law that requires me to know every law. But yes, the government can punish me for violating any law, whether I know about it or not. Is that good? Is it necessary (for the system to include that feature)?
posted by solitary dancer at 2:41 PM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


So.. really the cop should face some sort of charge as well correct?
I mean ok, perhaps he made an honest mistake and the SC has now decided that such things are reasonable as far as the knock on effect is concerned.

However... if the officer committed an error of law himself then he should also be charged with a violation. As others have noted, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. If I unintentionally speed I can't plead I didn't know I was speeding therefore I am innocent, even if it is demonstrably (somehow) true that I didn't know I was speeding, or that I had crossed into a different speed zone unawares. I would think that failing to accurately uphold the law in some fashion would be a crime of some sort.

But perhaps it isn't.

It should be however.
posted by edgeways at 2:42 PM on December 15, 2014


The very last thing we want is a system where it is up to the police not merely to determine that they have sufficient grounds on which to carry out an arrest but also that they arrive at a determination of precisely the crime of which you are guilty and, presumably, of the sentence which should be imposed.

The very last thing my personal portion of "we" wants is a system where a legislature writes vague laws that are enforced at the whim of the police (or the registrar of voters, or the planning commission, etc.) for some grander purpose, and then the courts say, "Eh, close enough."
posted by Etrigan at 2:42 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


> If you can be punished for doing something regardless of mens rea then you are also presumed to know that you're not allowed to do it.

I don’t view it that way. I think my government realizes that I can break a law now out of malice but because I didn’t know there was a rule against it. It’s not that they expect me to know every single law; it’s that it would be impractical to cut me a break for not knowing about the law I broke, since if ignorance were an excuse, my DA would have to prove not just that I did the illegal thing but also that I knew it was illegal, which is usually impossible. If ignorance of the law were a defense, we’d all be incentivized to know as little as possible about the laws of the land.

For the most part, though, this isn’t a problem, because most of criminal law covers things that are obviously illegal. If a cop tells you you broke a law that you didn’t know existed, usually the worst thing that will happen to you is a ticket. An exception, of course, is during traffic stops, which is why I think more stringent rules should apply in that context — after all, the cop in this case admitted that he wanted to pull this guy over but had to wait until he had pretense.

And that’s the other thing. A law about brake lights is not an obscure thing. I don’t expect a cop to know all laws perfectly, but I do expect that cop to know whether the law permits someone to have only one brake light. This can’t be the first time this has come up. And if the problem is the ambiguous wording of the law, there’s not much of an excuse for police in North Carolina not to have pressed for clarification of the law, or have some sort of clear policy they can point to that shows what they construe the law to say.
posted by savetheclocktower at 2:53 PM on December 15, 2014


> However... if the officer committed an error of law himself then he should also be charged with a violation.

The problem with this is that cops would simply decline to enforce laws that they judged to be ambiguous, lest they be punished for a wrong interpretation.

Unless you’re also proposing violations of omission — i.e., that a cop should be punished for not enforcing a law that they should, in which case I’d wish you luck on your difficult quest.
posted by savetheclocktower at 2:58 PM on December 15, 2014


"Do you imagine for one second that my wife stops to argue with a fascist pig about the law? No, she complies with the idiot's demands. If a white woman on a nice bike gets hassled pointlessly by these animals, you can imagine what happens to minorities on bikes."

Part of the problem that I've bumped up against (since I'm a bicyclist and a photographer) is the problem that a "lawful order" has to be obeyed. Your remedy is to file a civil complaint against the officer for misrepresenting the law, but in the moment you're required to do what they say or they can straight up murder you and walk away scot free. (That used to be a hyperbolic example; I think everyone's a little more aware of its literal force now.)
posted by klangklangston at 3:24 PM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


The fourth amendment protections should be inalienable. You cannot consent to an otherwise illegal search for the same reasons that a minor cannot consent to sex with an adult.
posted by rustcrumb at 3:29 PM on December 15, 2014 [7 favorites]


Traffic stops are the stop-and-frisk of automobile travel. Read this cop forum and it's clear that pulling people over for equipment or traffic violations is a means to an end (i.e. pulling over a car you want to pull over)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:36 PM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]


I'm not a legal expert, but it seems the questions before the court were whether this officer's error of law was reasonable or unreasonable, and more importantly whether a 'reasonable' error should invoke 4th amendment protections and result in the inadmissibility of evidence.

Many of the comments here seem to think this result means cops now have Carte Blanche to commit any errors they want. It doesn't. The fruits of unreasonable errors are still inadmissible, as they should be.

The 4th amendment protects against bad faith actions of the state, and the court found that there were no bad faith actions in this case. The argument that constitutional protections should be absolute and inalienable are the same ones used by 2nd amendment advocates.
posted by rocket88 at 5:01 PM on December 15, 2014 [1 favorite]


If you can consent to an otherwise-illegal search, why can't employees consent to working for less than minimum wage? It sounds like you think that we should have compromise on the Second and Fourth Amendments, so why not the Thirteenth Amendment too?

Anyways, I stand by my point. There's nothing in the constitution about statutory rape, but I think those are generally not bad laws. Removing the fig leaf of "consent" would, I think actually make police interactions safer and more predictable. It's scary and stressful to think that in the heat of the moment of interaction with a police officer, you might say or do something which exposes you to severe consequences. The idea that there should be magic words that a suspect can invoke, which will dispel the legal threat, is absurd. The idea that the suspect should be held legally responsible for not knowing, or not "exercising" his rights peacefully against armed thugs who murder with official impunity, is laughable.
posted by rustcrumb at 5:48 PM on December 15, 2014 [7 favorites]


I think some of the confusion here is that there are two levels of "reasonable" at work in this case (as in most 4th Amendment cases): the "right" and the "remedy". As usual, SCOTUSblog does a fairly good job explaining the decision. On the "rights" stage, the question is whether the defendant's fourth amendment rights were violated in the first place, based as ever on the slippery notion of "reasonable" in the text of that amendment; on the "remedy" stage, the question is whether, given that a violation took place, is it remedied by excluding the evidence, or do we make a "good faith" exception that the cop was, though incorrect in some way, acting reasonably? NC is one of the few states that does not have a "good faith" exception on the books; if it did, the evidence would probably have been allowed on these grounds even if the fourth amendment rights had been violated. But in any case, the Court decided based purely on the rights stage anyway: the law was sufficiently ambiguous that anyone acting as the officer did was acting reasonably, even if it was, ultimately, incorrect.

Because ultimately this opinion applies mainly to interpretations of ambiguous statutes, yoink is correct that not "even Sotomayor thinks that this is the end of the world as we've known it." But that's just to say the end has been much more gradual and began much longer ago. The Fourth Amendment has been steadily narrowed for decades, both on the rights stage and on the remedies stage (eg, Michigan v. DeFillippo, U.S. v. Sparks, U.S. v. Cashman, Herring v. United States and the original "good faith" exception, U.S. v. Leon, which dates only back to 1984).

But to be honest, I'm not a lawyer, I've probably gotten some of the details wrong, and I don't really care. What matters is that this is an active area of political warfare. Reagan wanted to abolish the exclusionary rule altogether; many on the right still do. There is no "true", Scalia-type meaning to "reasonable" -- what matters is what kind of society we want. Those on the right, including in the courts, want to give more leeway to the police both on the right and remedy stages, and are actively working to do so piece by piece. First one type of ambiguity is decided in their favor, then another, and eventually (already) ambiguity itself becomes a tool, as Sotomayor points out in her dissent. And yes, there is a double standard; the scotusblog writer claims that this has nothing to do with "ignorance is no excuse" for the rest of us, but all he manages is Lambert v. California, a rare exception to an otherwise prevalent pattern of finding against defendants in a wide range of situations where ambiguity and uncertainty could, under more liberal interpretations, have exculpated them. Kerr himself in the Post piece points out this disparity (III.4), so it's not just political types like me who find it egregious. This decision is part of much larger pattern, and if in itself it makes little precedent, that's only because most of the destruction has already happened.
posted by chortly at 6:54 PM on December 15, 2014 [6 favorites]


You make it sound like police not enforcing ambiguous laws is a bad thing. I think a lot of the police think a lot like this. Eager, ready, willing, excited to shoot the hell out of someone, anyone.
posted by umberto at 7:05 PM on December 15, 2014


Traffic stops are the stop-and-frisk of automobile travel. Read this cop forum and it's clear that pulling people over for equipment or traffic violations is a means to an end

The cops can stop you whenever they want. All they have to claim is that you were "driving on the left side of the lane" or "making too many lane changes" or "didn't signal 100 feet before changing lanes".

Read the blog cited by RobotVoodooPower and see their reasoning laid bare:

1) You should be able to stop a driver whenever you want to, just because. To see who's driving or what's in the car: "Use the equipment violation for your stop and then get nosey. "

2) It's OK to stop people for BS reasons because that's how you make big busts/seize a lot of property: " you look for minors, give a lot of warnings, and look beyond the violation for criminal activity. You have to learn how to interview people, how to read criminal indicators, how to build RS or locate PC. This will net you the highest return for making criminal arrest, drug seizures, and money/property seizures."

3) You shouldn't do it if you live in a small town. Not because it's wrong, but because it will piss off people that know you. Try to focus on out-of-towners: "The politics in small towns are very different and you're probably not going to find your job easier should you start stopping everyone for tag lights. In a small town, you need to cooperation of the citizens and they can make your job miserable if you become the hard azz traffic cop."

4) If you pull over a "good citizen" you should let them go with a warning. If you pull over a "D-bag" or someone who gives you attitude, you should cite them: " I don't write a ticket for license plate light out unless it is needed, ie horrible attitude. "

5) You should establish a pattern of pretextual stops (stopping people for BS reasons) early in your career so that when you finally nab a big offender, it won't seem suspicious that you pulled them over for essentially no reason other than a hunch: "I intend to start using this one a little more often to establish a pattern and add it to the tool box to help with the spider sense stops."

6) You should study the vehicular code so that you'll have a variety of different ways to justify pulling someone over for no reason: " Learn em all, use them, start building a base of all forms of stops so there can never be a day where you have to let one go because they just didnt do something. You can find something to stop any car in a mile - trust me..... "

7) If you don't study hard, you might not be able to find a BS reason to pull someone over. After all, there are a lot of laws. Who can remember them all? "A good way to learn / remember these traffic laws is read the traffic section of your statute book and pick out a traffic violation that you've never stopped for or didn't know about then go look for that violation and stop it."

Is it any wonder we've lost respect for the police? We are nobodies to them - they have the right to arbitrarily detain/beat/kill us without any consequences. One of the more vociferous authoritarians on that cop forum has a different quote from A Few Good Men in his sig: "I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it"
posted by etherist at 7:06 PM on December 15, 2014 [20 favorites]


Have we gotten to the point where the cops are just automatically assumed to be the wrongdoers?

They have power without accountability, so, yes.
posted by Mars Saxman at 10:06 PM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]


Have we gotten to the point where the cops are just automatically assumed to be the wrongdoers?

I personally cannot imagine someone wanting to be a police officer--given the bare facts of how corrupt and degenerate most departments seem to be--and also being a "good person".
posted by maxwelton at 12:36 AM on December 16, 2014


In August, at our State Fair, the National Guard had on display a huge armored tank-like thing with thick bullletproof windows. I asked a guardsman if such things were in use domestically and he told me quickly "oh no, these are serious military vehicles only deployed in war zones; they would never be used in situations that involve Citizens."

Aboout a month ago the local press carried a story that one such vehice had been "given" to our local law enforcement agencies.

This is not a good sign.
posted by kinnakeet at 4:54 AM on December 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


C-SPAN has the oral argument audio so that you can hear the full-bodied sneer in Scalia's every word, if you want to.

I hadn't noticed this before:
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: There is a problem, however ­­— I'm sorry. The police officer wasn't stopping him because of the brake light. The police officer was involved in criminal interdictions and admitted that this was a pretext, a lawful pretext, he thought.

So he wasn't there just to tell him ­­— if he had just stopped him and said, you know, fix your brake light, and drove away, there would never be a lawsuit, correct?

MR. MONTGOMERY: That's correct.
So cirhosis's statement above,

There is no reason to believe he was just decided he was going to stop this guy and was just grasping for a justification... There is no reasonable way to say that the officer "should have known" or was just trying to trump up charges.

would appear to be the complete opposite of the truth: this is all being considered in the context of the officer having intentionally trumped up a justification to carry out a traffic stop and obtain the leverage necessary to get his search, and that intent evidently is not inconsistent with what the government considers benevolence and acting in good faith.
posted by XMLicious at 8:18 AM on December 16, 2014 [1 favorite]


would appear to be the complete opposite of the truth: this is all being considered in the context of the officer having intentionally trumped up a justification to carry out a traffic stop and obtain the leverage necessary to get his search, and that intent evidently is not inconsistent with what the government considers benevolence and acting in good faith.

That's why it's called "legal fiction".
posted by Talez at 6:15 PM on December 17, 2014


Unless I'm misunderstanding, this wouldn't be an example of a legal fiction, would it? If it were, Justice Sotomayor wouldn't be describing it as something the officer had "admitted" to.
posted by XMLicious at 7:18 PM on December 17, 2014


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