Mistake of Law May Excuse Illegal Stop

• Heien, ___ US ___, 135 SC 530, ___ LE2 ___ (14) #13-604

A deputy sheriff in North Carolina followed a Ford Escort because he thought the driver looked nervous. When the Escort braked for a stop, the officer saw that one of the brake lights was out.

So the officer pulled the Escort over to write up a warning ticket. During the stop he thought the driver and Heien, who was in the back seat, looked suspicious. So he asked for consent to search the car, got it, and found cocaine in a duffel bag.

Heien contested the search, asserting that state law did not require two working brake lights. The trial court denied suppression, but the Court of Appeals reversed, citing the relevant statute that required “a stop lamp” on the rear. But the Supreme Court of North Carolina reversed the appellate court.

So the question before the United States Supreme Court was whether an officer’s reasonable mistake about the law can excuse a stop in violation of that law.

Yes it can, says the Court, with a couple of big conditions attached.

First of all, the law must really and truly be ambiguous. So ambiguous that a “reasonable” officer could be confused about its application.

This narrows the so-called “mistake-of-law exception.” It must be an objectively reasonable mistake. Note the language in Justice Kagan’s concurring opinion: the statute must pose a “really difficult” or “very hard question of statutory interpretation.”

In this case, the stop lamp law had never been interpreted by a North Carolina court. And there was another statute that could reasonably be interpreted as requiring rear lamps (plural).

So: When a mistake of law case comes along and it is decided the officer’s mistake was reasonable, it means ipso facto that the officer misinterpreted the law. The court decision will have laid out the correct interpretation, and therefore it will never again be objectively reasonable for an officer to make that same “mistake.”

Why not? Because the Supreme Court specifically rules out “sloppy” study:

Contrary to the suggestion of Heien and amici, our decision does not discourage officers from learning the law. The Fourth Amendment tolerates only reasonable mistakes, and those mistakes—whether of fact or of law—must be objectively reasonable. We do not examine the subjective understanding of the particular officer involved. Cf. Whren v. United States, 517 U. S. 806, 813 (1996) ….Thus, an officer can gain no Fourth Amendment advantage through a sloppy study of the laws he is duty-bound to enforce.

So there will be two issues at suppression hearing: is the law truly ambiguous? And what sort of student of law is the officer?

NOTE #1: There are a number of California cases that have suppressed evidence based upon an officer’s mistake of law. These all now have to be read in light of Heien. Some will still be valid. For example, in ARTHUR J., 193 CA3 781, 238 CR 523 (87), an officer detained a minor at 5:45 a.m. because he believed the curfew law applied between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Oops. The curfew law was until 5 a.m. There is nothing ambiguous about that statute. So ARTHUR J. is still good law, as is TERESINSKI, 30 C3 822, 180 CR 617, 640 P2 753 (82) (another curfew case where the statute was unambiguous).

NOTE #2: The San Diego Appellate Division, in CAMPUZANO, 231 CA4 Supp. 9 (14), held pre-Heien that a mistake of law, even with a poorly-designed city ordinance, did not save the detention of a guy on a bike. This might have gone the other way post-Heien, because the ordinance was hard to figure out. But here’s the thing. Now that the ordinance has been officially interpreted, officers cannot be excused for the mistake again. And thus does Fourth Amendment jurisprudence wind its way toward greater certainty, albeit slowly.

Immediate DNA Collection From Arrestees Violates 4th

• BUZA, 231 CA4 1446, 180 CR3 753 (14)

From the court’s opinion:

The sole issue in this case is the constitutionality of a provision of the DNA and Forensic Identification Data Base and Data Bank Act of 1998, as amended (Pen. Code, § 295 et seq.) (the DNA Act), which requires that a DNA sample be taken from all adults arrested for or charged with any felony offense “immediately following arrest, or during the booking . . . process or as soon as administratively practicable after arrest . . . .” (§§ 296.1, subd. (a)(1)(A); 296, subd. (a)(2)(C).) In a prior opinion, we held that the seizure of appellant’s DNA shortly after his arrest, at a time when he was entitled to the presumption of innocence and there had been no judicial determination of probable cause to believe he committed the offense for which he was arrested, violated his right under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. (People v. Buza, A125542, Aug. 4, 2011.) The case now returns to us with directions from the California Supreme Court to vacate our prior decision and reconsider the matter in light of Maryland v. King (2013) ___ U.S. ___ [133 S.Ct. 1958] (King).

We have done so, and again reverse the judgment of conviction under the DNA Act. As we will explain, because of significant differences between the California DNA Act and the Maryland law considered in King, we question whether King establishes the validity of the California Act’s application to arrestees under the Fourth Amendment. We base our decision, however, solely upon article I, section 13, of the California Constitution, which in our view undoubtedly prohibits the search and seizure at issue.

Police Told to Stay Outside, But They Don’t, And That’s Called Consent?

• Rodriguez, 231 CA4 288, 179 CR3 843 (14)

Police come to a home without a warrant. They are investigating possible child porn possession. They knock and ask to come in and the resident does not give consent. The cops say, Look, we can go get a warrant and come back and “kick your door in.” Defendant comes to the door. Doesn’t give consent. In fact, tells the cops to stay outside. But they don’t. They just enter. The facts in the case do not anywhere say they were given verbal consent.

Once inside, they started talking, and eventually the Defendant gave the officers consent to take his computer, which had child porn on it.

Clearly an illegal entry, right? No consent. No words to that effect. The only words were, Stay outside. The judge hearing the motion to suppress agreed. Motion granted. Case dismissed.

But then it was re-filed, and the motion renewed, only before another judge. (There is a big procedural issue here regarding the reassignment of the motion to a new judge).

The new judge denied the motion.

I’m still not sure why. The court found that the threat to “kick in the door” was not “coercive,” but I still didn’t see any consent given to enter. I only see that it was explicitly denied. Somehow, the police end up inside the residence and somehow consent was deemed given.

So this gets filed under HS, for Head Scratcher.