YOU do not.
“So Roberts just said that ignorance of the law is an excuse. “
He was not given a ticket for his brake lights.
He was charged with cocaine possession after he consented to a search of his car.
There's the problem. The answer is always "Only with a warrant." Even if you have nothing to hide and the police have threatened to make your day miserable my forcing you to wait for hours you have a responsibility to freedom to make it difficult and force them to get the warrant. If everyone did, the courts would be so overloaded they wouldn't be able to get them.
What happened to the old “fruit of the poisoned tree?”
Once again, SCOTUS sides with police vs. people.
PFL
Not so in 4th amendment jurisprudence. The government decides what constitutes "reasonable," and it voices its application of the word via the courts.
Ignorance of the law is nearly always a viable excuse when the government is the offender. The old legal maxim, "the King can do no wrong" never faded.
Not surprising at all. It's common in states with lots of farm equipment on the road. The older units -from when most of this code was written- only had one or none at all.
I'd say they had a clue and searched a little more diligently than he thought they would.
The court is correct.
Let's put it in another frame. The cop opened the trunk and found a dead body. Now what do the cops do?? Close the trunk and say "Have a good day sir".
SOTOMAYOR dissents
Not exactly. He said, for the king's men[ police] ignorance of the law is an excuse. That does not apply to the slaves. If you don't believe it, test it. The slave will be informed very quickly and in no uncertain terms, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
This is one of those things that I find iffy. The part I am particularly troubled by is how a broken light turned into a search of the vehicle and that is the key. It isn’t illegal for a police officer to stop a person to let them know that their tail light is out even if they can’t write a ticket. It could’ve been a trunk not closed etc.
I can understand this ruling if the Officer observed something about the driver during his courtesy stop which led to the search of the vehicle. I certainly wouldn’t want evidence being thrown out in a kidnapping case in a similar situation. Also if the justices had ruled the other way it could have unintended consequences that would affect the ability of officers to setup police check points, handle fugitive searches etc. Maybe officers should be more restricted and should have to get a warrant in these type of situations but if that is the case then the way policing has been done would have to be changed considerably because this kind of thing is very common and has been done this way for years.
What is concerning is; does this portend that the intent of Obamacare is less important than the flawed wording of the law? I wonder how Sotomayor would see that one?
However, this ruling is no real change from the good faith search rule. In fact there is nothing in the opinion to indicate that the consent search itself was being challenged. The challenge was over whether an officer should have initiated the stop in the first place. It’s pretty clear that even though the officer may have been mistaken in the archaic language of NC traffic law, it would have been prudent to stop the car to inform the driver of a malfunctioning tail light. This is a real non issue except for the overtones.
I think the important part of it was “consensual search”. It really doesn’t matter why the cop started talking to you if you consent to a search you have waived your 4th amendment rights.
ignorance of the law - by cops - is an excuse. not by peons like you or me.
fujr. this guy has been the worst thing to be foisted on this country in a long time given what he’s done.
Never give consent to a warrant less search.
“A consensual search...”
Well there’s your problem.
The only moral here is don’t consent to a search, and call your lawyer. His lawyer would have voided the stop and his client would have driven off, cocaine intact.
Even if they’d have arrested him for some reason other than the tail light, they’d have needed a warrant to search the car, and they didn’t have PC.
I can’t believe this made it to the Supreme Court. It sure looks like they are saying, “We can make it up as we go along.”
One set of rules for big government and union thugs, another for citizens.