The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a police officer can make a traffic stop for the wrong reason so long as they have a \u201creasonable\u201d understanding of the law they are enforcing, NBC News reported on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be reasonable is not to be perfect,\u201d Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the court\u2019s 8-1 decision. \u201cAnd so the Fourth Amendment allows for some mistakes on the part of government officials, giving them \u2018fair leeway for enforcing the law in the community\u2019s protection.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The case concerned the 2009 arrest of Nicholas Heien near Dobson, North Carolina. Sgt. Matt Darisse pulled Heien over for having only one working brake light, then found a bag of cocaine while searching his vehicle and charged him with attempted drug trafficking. However, the state only requires motorists to have one brake light working at any time. Heien\u2019s attorneys argued that this made Darisse\u2019s search unlawful.<\/p>\n
Roberts wrote that the ruling \u201cdoes not discourage officers from learning the law,\u201d because the Fourth Amendment only covers \u201cobjectively reasonable\u201d errors from police.<\/p>\n
Justices Elena Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed separate concurring opinions. Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed the only dissent, arguing that the ruling meant \u201cfurther eroding the Fourth Amendment\u2019s protection of civil liberties\u201d at a time when that protection has already been deteriorated.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne wonders how a citizen seeking to be law-abiding and to structure his or her behavior to avoid these invasive, frightening, and humiliating encounters could do so,\u201d Sotomayor wrote. \u201cIn addition to these human consequences\u2014including those for communities and for their relationships with the police\u2014permitting mistakes of law to justify seizures has the perverse effect of preventing or delaying the clarification of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n