Today in Supreme Court History: December 15, 1791

12/15/1791: First Ten Amendments ratified.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. 54 (decided December 15, 2014): police can stop you for something they think is illegal but actually isn’t (here, broken brake light, not an offense under state law; upon consensual search of car they found cocaine)

Altria Group v. Good, 555 U.S. 70 (decided December 15, 2008): Maine statute prohibiting false advertising as to cigarettes (here, one brand falsely alleged it had less “tar” and nicotine than another) not preempted by federal statute prohibiting restrictions on advertising of cigarettes which are properly labeled as to health dangers

General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136 (decided December 15, 1997): trial court’s rulings as to admitting expert testimony (here, as to whether exposure to PCBs “promoted” plaintiff’s cancer) are reviewed as to abuse of discretion (this is the traditional standard, now being applied in the context of the guidelines announced in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993)

[Krayt]

Comiing from a PCB state, I ways wondered where the hell were all the long-term studies. Millions of people are a ready-made experiment.

[Frank Drackman]

Tuskegee much? And you clearly have no (real) Scientific Background, but should be an easy experiment to do, because peoples don't ever move from one state to another and don't have any other exposures to confuse thangs. By the way what states are "Non PCB States" ??
Frank

[Krayt]

There was a scandal in the 1970s, where PCBs got into grain feed to cattle, and thence to 90% of the citizens of Michigan and nearby.

Would be nice to see long term follow up.

As to your other random stream of consciousness thoughts, I cannot make headway.

[Frank Drackman]

Long term follow up? all of the Cows died, a lot of the people to (too?).

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Heien v. North Carolina - Sotomayor dissented from this one. If ever she deserved the sobriquet "Wise Latina" it was in this case.

[Frank Drackman]

Seen her lately? more like a Wide Latina.

[SRG2]

Altria is a 5-4, with the pro-corporate justices - Thomas, Rehnquist, Scalia and Alito all dissenting. Shows that in a conflict between corporate rights and states rights, they'd go for the companies.

[SRG2]

Roberts, not Rehnquist. Bloody edit function.

[Frank Drackman]

Rehnquist gave it the Celestial Dissent

[Krayt]

The first thing that jumped out at me was the apparently lawyerly conclusion that notifying about dangers of nicotine, then lying you had less, counted as proper labeling of the dangers.

[Frank Drackman]

Nicotine's not a carcinogen, and the Brain has receptors for it, so obviously Jay-Hey created it for us to enjoy, like Hunter with the Co-Caine-e. Yeah, it can increase your heart rate and blood pressure, like Caffeine or Exercise, but it doesn't cause Cancer. You know what does cause Cancer? Going "In through the Out Door"

Frank

[Krayt]

I have discussed the bait and switch of warning you about nicotine in vaping. When pressed, proponents say if you go to cigarettes, you might already be addicted, and the tar is the bad thing.

It's also a good case study in banning things, people forget the reason, and develop beliefs the thing is inherently bad. Suing lawyers and fraudulent talking heads rely on this.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Frank -- the NIH says that "[s]everal lines of evidence indicate that nicotine may contribute to the development of cancer."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/

[Michael P]

This is wrong, specifically, the falsity was merely alleged by the plaintiffs:

here, one brand falsely alleged it had less “tar” and nicotine than another

From the court's opinion:

Respondents acknowledge that testing pursuant to the Cambridge Filter Method[Footnote 2] indicates that tar and nicotine yields of Marlboro Lights and Cambridge Lights are lower than those of regular cigarettes. Id., at 30a. Respondents allege, however, that petitioners have known at all relevant times that human smokers unconsciously engage in compensatory behaviors not registered by Cambridge Filter Method testing that negate the effect of the tar- and nicotine-reducing features of “light” cigarettes.

The merits of those allegations had not been tried. Does anyone know what happened after the Court ruled the suit could proceed? I couldn't find anything on DuckDuckGo (and don't subscribe to the legal databases/search services).

[Dan Schiavetta]

The only later proceeding has to do with a pending motion to transfer the case to another court, 624 F.Supp.2d 132 (D. Me. 2009), so your research as to what happened is as good as mine.

[Krayt]

They smoke Lites, and so smoke more thinking it's less bad?

Like fatasses drinking diet coke. Although in that case, I wonder as people ewt until they are stuffed. Drinking diet coke is to not make the situation worse.

[Frank Drackman]

See that photo of Christ Christie in shorts? He's got more camel toe than Hilary Rodman, and that's after he had the Gastric Bypass!

[Nameless But Highly Opinionated]

They didn't rule the police can stop you; SCOTUS can't give state police officers powers.

They simply ruled that they're not using the exclusionary rule in such cases.

[Longtobefree]

"12/15/1791: First Ten Amendments ratified."

Kind of a shame they didn't stay ratified - - - - - - - - - - - -

[Bob from Ohio]

12/16/1791: First Ten Amendments started being ignored, twisted and abused

[Dan Schiavetta]

8 - 1 decision, with Sotomayor dissenting, and Kagan and Ginsburg concurring but limiting the holding to minor mistakes in law.

Would have been decided differently by the Warren court.

[apedad]

One North Carolina Court of Appeals judge agrees with Q.a.!

Facts of the case

On April 29, 2010, Sergeant Darisse of the Surry County Sheriff's Department observed Maynor Javier Vasquez driving north on I-77 with a broken brake light. When Darisse pulled over the vehicle, he noticed another man, Nicholas Heien, lying under a blanket in the backseat. Darisse spoke with the two men, felt that their stories did not match up, and was concerned that Heien had not gotten up from the back seat. Darisse asked for permission to search the vehicle. Heien agreed, and Darisse found a bag containing 54.2 grams of cocaine in the car.

A grand jury indicted Heien for two counts of trafficking cocaine. Heien filed a motion to suppress the evidence discovered during the search of his vehicle, and the trial court denied the motion. The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and held that the traffic stop was not objectively reasonable because North Carolina law only required one working brake light. The North Carolina Supreme Court reversed and held that when an officer's mistake of the law is reasonable, it may give rise to the "reasonable suspicion" required for a traffic stop of a vehicle under the Fourth Amendment. That North Carolina Supreme Court sent the case back to the state Court of Appeals.

The North Carolina Court of Appeals found no error in the trial court's judgment. A dissenting judge, however, stated that the North Carolina Supreme Court's ruling created "fundamental unfairness" because it held citizens to the traditional rule that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" while allowing police to be ignorant of the law. Based on this dissent, Heien again appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court which rejected Heien's appeal.

Question

Does a police officer's mistake of law provide the individualized reasonable suspicion that the Fourth Amendment requires to justify a traffic stop?

Conclusion

Yes. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., delivered the opinion for the 8-1 majority. The Court held that a search or seizure is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when an officer has made a reasonable factual or legal mistake. Because Fourth Amendment jurisprudence turns on the question of reasonableness, governing officials have traditionally been allowed leeway to enforce the law for the community's protection. As long as the mistake of fact or law in question was reasonable, the Fourth Amendment does not hold such mistakes to be incompatible with the concept of reasonable suspicion. However, the Court also held that those mistakes must be objectively reasonable; an officer cannot gain the benefits of Fourth Amendment reasonableness through a sloppy or incomplete knowledge of the law.

In her concurring opinion, Justice Elena Kagan emphasized that the majority opinion's analysis was limited to when the mistake of law in question is an objectively reasonable one. Justice Kagan also wrote that the test to determine whether an officer made an objectively reasonable mistake is much more stringent than the one to determine whether a government official is entitled to qualified immunity. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined in the concurring opinion.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissenting opinion in which she argued that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has traditionally focused on the officer's factual conclusions rather than understanding of the law. Expanding leeway allowed to police officers with respect to their factual assessment to the meaning of the laws they are meant to enforce runs the risk of eroding the Fourth Amendment's protections. In the absence of any evidence that holding police officers to this standard would prevent effective enforcement of the law, mistakes of law should not be considered reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. (oyez)

[Frank Drackman]

C'mon Man!, you know we Jews invented The Crack back in the 80's to enslave you stupid Knee-grows,
like Don Zaluchi said in "1", "Keep the (Drug) Traffic in the dark people, the Coloreds".
Parkinsonian Joe even voted to increase the sentences for Crack over the Powder Cocaine his son prefers.

Frank

[SRG2]

Supports the general position, never consent to searches.

[SMP0328]

Would have been decided differently by the Warren court.

A good chunk of Roberts Court decision would have come out very differently if handed down by the Warren or Burger Courts (e.g., Kennedy v. Bremerton School District).

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yes, you can refuse consent, but what will the police do next? Probably follow you home and surveil afterwards.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The thing to remember here is that many vehicles initially only came with one tail/brake light. My grandmother's 1949 Willys Jeep only had one on the left, with a red reflector on the right. The center mount brake light didn't arrive until 1984 and the Federal specs at all until after Ralph Nader's _Unsafe at any Speed_ which raised the issue of the vehicle and not the driver was at fault in accidents.

What I never understood here is that the stop couldn't have been justified for defective equipment, even as a courtesy.

[Dan Schiavetta]

A friend of mine in California got stopped because he had only one brake light, but his 1951 pickup truck only had one. (Also only one blinker light!) This was in 1984.

[Frank Drackman]

Hey-Zeus,
Is there any topic you're not an "Expert" in?
OK, "Circle Change vs Straight Change"
compare and contrast, give examples, and no jokes about "Circle Jerks"

Frank

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This is like neckties . . . don't toss out those Warren/Burger authorities, because they will be back.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I never understood why they didn't just put in two when they were putting two in cars, but trucks usually only had one (until the Feds stepped in, post-Nader).

It must have been customary for some reason -- maybe the practice of hanging one red lantern off the back of a wagon. IDK

Then there's Mercedes Benz which has *one* rear red fog lamp, but a second one on the other side that goes on if the first one is burnt out.