Supreme Court Upholds Auto Stop With No Traffic Violation

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, opined, "Darisse could have reasonably, even if mistakenly, read the vehicle code to require that both brake lights be in good working order." The court held that an officer's mistake of law will not invalidate a stop if the mistake was reasonable.

Roberts wrote, "Reasonable suspicion arises from the combination of an officer's understanding of the facts and his understanding of the relevant law. The officer may be reasonably mistakenly on either ground."

Although Roberts conceded, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse," both for citizens and police officers, he added, "ut just because mistakes of law cannot justify either the imposition or the avoidance of criminal liability, it does not follow that they cannot justify an investigatory stop." Heien, Roberts pointed out, "is not appealing a brake-light ticket; he is appealing a cocaine-trafficking conviction as to which there is no asserted mistake of fact or law."

Sotomayor Dissents

Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the court's opinion. She would hold that in the course of determining whether a search or seizure is reasonable, a court should evaluate "an officer's understanding of the facts against the actual state of the law."

Citing the 1996 case of Ornelas v. United States, Sotomayor wrote, "[w]hat matters ... are the facts as viewed by an objectively reasonable officer, and the rule of law - not an officer's conception of the rule of law, and not even an officer's reasonable misunderstanding about the law, but the law."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie-cohn/supreme-court-upholds-aut_b_6579916.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Another example of making allowances for a failing education system.