Sensible Ruling in a Drug Case

Perhaps the best way to view Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a drug bust that resulted from a traffic stop is as a victory for common sense.

The facts of the case: Two plainclothes District of Columbia police officers in an unmarked car were patrolling for drug activity in 1993. They saw a car stopped for an unusually long time at a stop sign. When the officers moved to ask the driver why he had stopped for so long, he committed two traffic infractions: He turned without signaling and began to speed.

When the officers finally stopped the car, they saw a passenger holding clear plastic bags that appeared to contain cocaine and saw several other plastic bags nearby. The driver and passenger were arrested on drug charges. Later, more drugs were found in the car.

The question before the court was whether the traffic stop was constitutional since, under Washington police regulations, plainclothes officers generally are barred from making routine traffic stops. Was the stop merely a pretense to look inside the car? As such, did it violate both department procedure and the 4th Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure?

The defense argued that failure by the court to recognize the officers’ motives would invite widespread use of traffic stops as a pretense for plain-sight searches of cars. The court, in a rare display of unanimity, disagreed. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, noted the department rule restricting traffic stops by plainclothes cops but said it was not remotely comparable to such extreme practices as the warrantless search of an individual’s home, for example.

“For the run-of-the-mill case” like this one, the court said, “ . . . there is no realistic alternative to the traditional common-law rule that probable cause justifies a search and seizure.” We agree. For the justices to have ruled otherwise would have been surprising and wrong.