4.1.1
On Monday, June 20th, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 on a case that will now allow evidence obtained following an illegal stop to be used in court.
The case involves an incident in which a police detective found contraband on a driver after conducting an illegal stop. Detective Douglas Fackrell, the defendant, was tasked with staking out a house that allegedly was used for drug distribution and sale. Fackrell staked out the house in South Salt Lake City, Utah about 3 hours a week. Fackrell witnessed Joseph Strieff, the plaintiff, exit the house and pulled over Strieff without valid cause. Fackrell asked for Streiff’s ID and discovered that Strieff had an outstanding warrant for an unpaid parking ticket. Fackrell then arrested Streiff and gave him a routine search during which he found a small bag of methamphetamine.
Under the “exclusionary rule,” evidence obtained from an illegal search cannot be used in court. However, this particular case challenged the applicability of the exclusionary rule, and questioned whether an arrest warrant outweighs an illegal stop.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote the majority opinion ruled that Fackrell’s actions were not a flagrant violation of the law and that “while Officer Fackrell’s decision to initiate the stop was mistaken, his conduct thereafter was lawful.”
The Court ruling resulted in outcry among liberal leaning legal commentators. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who opposed the ruling, issued a dissent arguing that the new rules will impede American’s Fourth Amendment rights. “The Court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer’s violation of your Fourth Amendment rights.” said Sotomayor in her dissent.
Sotomayor quoted a statistic reported by the Department of Justice which showed that of the 21,000 residents of Ferguson, Missouri, 16,000 of these residents had an outstanding warrant in 2015. Most of the warrants that were minor offenses such as parking violations. Similarly, Cincinnati for example, has 100,000 pending warrants for not showing up to a court date and New York City also currently has 1.2 million outstanding warrants. Federal databases show that there are more than 7.8 million warrants nationwide. In many cases, people might not even realize that they are the subject of an outstanding warrant. Does this Supreme Court ruling mean that police officers don’t need to worry about the exclusionary rule for people with outstanding warrants for minor violations?
It is important to note, that this is not the only instance that has been used to allow in evidence that would otherwise be subject to the exclusionary rule. A case from 1984 was referenced during the hearing, in which several officers entered an apartment while waiting for a warrant. The 1984 case also ruled in favor of the officers. However, Justice Sotomayor stated that the 1984 case did not apply in this instance because the only way Fackrell would have found the evidence is if he had committed an illegal act. Sotomayor raised the concern that the ruling may encourage officers to conduct unlawful searches in order to “fish for evidence.”
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