Heien v. State of North Carolina

[KeeFus]

This was an interdiction stop, plain and simple. After the items (warning ticket, etc.) were returned, the officer engaged the driver in a friendly conversation and consent was granted. Why is this important? Because once an officer gives you these items back the Court has ruled that the traffic stop is over the people who were stopped are free to leave. At that point the people could tell the officer to pound sand and there is nothing that could be done about it. These 2 chose to stay and conversate which led to inconsistent statements and a valid consent search ensued. So, lets go to the decision rendered by the Court and see.

From page 5:

Two men were in the car: Maynor Javier Vasquez sat behind the wheel, and petitioner Nicholas Brady Heien lay across the rear seat. Sergeant Darisse explained to Vasquez that as long as his license and registration checked out, he would receive only a warning ticket for the broken brake light. A records check revealed no problems with the documents, and Darisse gave Vasquez the warning ticket. But Darisse had become suspicious during the course of the stop—Vasquez appeared nervous, Heien remained lying down the entire time, and the two gave inconsistent answers about their destination. Darisse asked Vasquez if he would be willing to answer some questions. Vasquez assented, and Darisse asked whether the men were transporting various types of contraband.Told no, Darisse asked whether he could search the Escort. Vasquez said he had no objection, but told Darisse he should ask Heien, because Heien owned the car. Heien gave his consent, and Darisse, aided by a fellow officer who had since arrived, began a thorough search of the vehicle. In the side compartment of a duffle bag, Darisse found a sandwich bag containing cocaine.

While the SCOTUS doesn't specifically say that he gave ALL the items back, the NC Supreme Court decision does; from page 3 of the NC Supreme Courts decision: After learning that his drivers' license and registration checked out, Sergeant Darisse returned Vasquez's documents and gave him a warning ticket for the brake light.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...82001339,d.aWw

When working interdiction giving ALL the documents back is important because it indicates to the citizen that the traffic stop is over. If a citizen engages the officer anymore after that its a totally voluntary encounter...not a seizure.

[MDS]

Does it really matter? Honestly?

Im concerned about the citizens who are going to end up with tens of thousands of dollars of legal debt, lose their jobs, destroy their families, ect all because LE are not held accountable to the same standard as the rest of us.

agreed.

While I get that this decision doesn't "uncover new 4th amendment territory" it does cast a message that seems to imply that ignorance of the law is "ok" for law enforcers as long as it is "reasonable." This could have profound slippery slopes.

I get your concern, but it just doesn't seem justified. I don't see the message that you say is cast. KeeFus' last posts explain why I don't see it, better than I could.

And big ups to KeeFus for his research in the last few posts!

[TGS]

I get your concern, but it just doesn't seem justified. I don't see the message that you say is cast. KeeFus' last posts explain why I don't see it, better than I could.

Which still seems rather tenuous, to me...because now we've just given a legal OK for LE to use whatever means to go about their business simply by saying, "Oh, I was mistaken about the law." That's giving an awful lot of discretion to a single human being, which if I'm not mistaken is entirely opposite to the theory upon which our country is predicated.

This decision will be abused. It relies on the good intentions of a human being, which our Bill of Rights was established to avoid.

We have these protections delineated by the US Bill of Rights for a reason.

[MDS]

Which still seems rather tenuous, to me...because now we've just given a legal OK for LE to use whatever means to go about their business simply by saying, "Oh, I was mistaken about the law."

That's not my reading. Thanks to KeeFus' research and posts, we know that the mistake about the law has to be objectively reasonable. Civilians get that kind of pass all the time, meaning that we often (usually? almost always?) get the benefit of the doubt when we're tried for breaking an ambiguously-written law.

This decision will be abused.

We hear that every time a pro-gun bill passes anywhere. Bad humans will abuse a toothpick, but that doesn't mean toothpicks are bad.

[TGS]

That's not my reading. Thanks to KeeFus' research and posts, we know that the mistake about the law has to be objectively reasonable. Civilians get that kind of pass all the time, meaning that we often (usually? almost always?) get the benefit of the doubt when we're tried for breaking an ambiguously-written law.

It says it has to be objectively reasonable. What's the enforcement mechanism for that? How can you prevent the government from exploiting such?

We hear that every time a pro-gun bill passes anywhere. Bad humans will abuse a toothpick, but that doesn't mean toothpicks are bad.

The entire point of our civil liberties is to restrict the abilities of men with poor intentions to assert their will over the citizenry. The point is not to put more power into the hands of men, which history has shown are apt to do bad things when the populace gives them the power to do such.

Why even have constitutional protections if that entire point is moot just because not all toothpicks are bad?

[RoyGBiv]

Civilians get that kind of pass all the time, meaning that we often (usually? almost always?) get the benefit of the doubt when we're tried for breaking an ambiguously-written law.

Yes. As it should be.
Innocent until proven guilty, and all that.

"The Law" (both written and those that enforce it) does not get that benefit. If a law is bad, it can be rewritten/fixed.

This has been a helpful discussion for me. Reinforcing.
From the facts presented, IMO Heien is guilty. He consented to the search. End of story.

What have I learned? NEVER give consent to search.
Be pleasant, certainly. But never give consent. If a LEO has RAS or PC, they'll manage a lawful search without needing my consent. End of story.

[MDS]

It says it has to be objectively reasonable. What's the enforcement mechanism for that? How can you prevent the government from exploiting such?

Well, the "objectively reasonable" standard is pretty ubiquitous in our laws. Before we object to its use here, we need to carefully assess what such an objection would imply. What other laws and legal mechanisms do we feel are good and proper, but also rest on the "objectively reasonable" standard? I ask this question in good faith - I am, as you may have inferred from some of my previous posts, a fairly dyed-in-the-wool Libertarian - because I think complaining about 4A and intrusive government is legitimate, and I believe that ideally government would keep its nose out of the citizens' business.

But outside of a much larger debate about the role of government, in the context of our government as it actually functions, I don't see a big threat to Constitutional protections stemming from this decision.

Why even have constitutional protections if that entire point is moot just because not all toothpicks are bad?

We can go back and forth on this. (Why bother writing any laws or adjudicating any cases, if that entire exercise is dangerous because all laws and legal mechanisms can be abused?) But that's precisely my point: just because some people are bad and something can be abused doesn't mean we don't put people in positions of trust or pass laws that those people might abuse. We try to put some reasonable constraints in place, enforce them as best we can, and evolve them with some basis in rationality when gray areas inevitably pop up.

[MDS]

"The Law" (both written and those that enforce it) does not get that benefit. If a law is bad, it can be rewritten/fixed.

OK. So a civilian rolling with a single broken tail light gets a pass because the law was ambiguous. But the cop making a RAS stop must somehow divine the "true meaning" of that law, or his RAS stop is illegal?

[RoyGBiv]

OK. So a civilian rolling with a single broken tail light gets a pass because the law was ambiguous. But the cop making a RAS stop must somehow divine the "true meaning" of that law, or his RAS stop is illegal?

Not what I said.

If I was ticketed for only having one taillight, I could fight the ticket in court. Fix the language of the law. End of story. If the LEO stopped me for the one taillight and asked for consent to search, which I declined, he'd better have more than the taillight and me acting hinky to justify an RAS search. In this case, if I gave permission for the search after the ticked was issued and my license given back, well, that wasn't very smart of me, was it? Nor was it a bad search.

IMO

[TGS]

OK. So a civilian rolling with a single broken tail light gets a pass because the law was ambiguous. But the cop making a RAS stop must somehow divine the "true meaning" of that law, or his RAS stop is illegal?

I guess the obvious answer is that the law shouldn't even be enforced.

NJ is very, very vague in a lot of its firearms laws; the answer from the state court is that you can't enforce it. Ex: The HK91 and similar rifles are illegal in NJ, banned by name. Thing is, "similar rifles" is extremely vague, and so the court ruled that pretty much anything that isn't stamped HK91 is legal. So the PTR91 is legal, but the HK91 isn't. The AR15 is illegal, but the BCM4 isn't. The AK47 is illegal, but the WASR isn't. Now if someone would finally make an N1 Carbine, instead of stamping it the M1 Carbine

I guess that's my answer. Why should cops enforce laws that are vague and unclear? In short, it's dangerous for citizens and bad business for police. So no, I don't think cops should divine the true meaning of the law.

We can go back and forth on this. (Why bother writing any laws or adjudicating any cases, if that entire exercise is dangerous because all laws and legal mechanisms can be abused?)

Because we have protections in place.

This decision dissolves protections.