Justices Back Arrest for Not Using Seat Belt

Police may arrest and handcuff motorists for even minor offenses and take them to jail, the Supreme Court said Tuesday, without violating the Constitution’s ban on “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

The 5-4 ruling upholds the arrest and jailing of a Texas mother who was taken into custody because she and her two children were not wearing their seat belts.

Even though the offense called for only a $50 fine, a police officer in Lago Vista handcuffed her and took her to the station house while a neighbor took care of the children.

After paying her fine, the woman, Gail Atwater, decided to sue. The American Civil Liberties Union took up her case to uphold the principle that the Constitution puts limits on police power.

Instead, the high court’s ruling in the case of Atwater vs. City of Lago Vista, 99-1408, endorsed the principle that police officers have broad power to stop and arrest anyone they see committing a crime.

The decision is consistent with a Supreme Court that has been especially wary of restraining the police on the roadways.

In recent years, the court has said that police are free to stop motorists for the most minor of traffic offenses. Once stopped, the motorists and their vehicles can be searched.

Critics have said the court has allowed police to turn traffic stops into drug searches. They also say that this unrestrained police power has led to abuses, including the epidemic of “racial profiling” stops.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, speaking for the four dissenters, said Tuesday’s ruling could make the problem of racial profiling worse.

But the justices in the majority said they were unwilling to rein in the traditional authority of the police to arrest those who commit crimes in their presence.

All 50 states have laws that authorize such arrests. These laws do not make exceptions for minor crimes, although officers are not likely to arrest a jaywalker or a motorist who has an expired license plate, for example.

In California, police officers rarely make arrests strictly on the basis of an infraction--but loosely worded laws and policies allow them to do so.

Ken O’Brien, executive director of California’s Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, said only a handful of people are arrested for traffic citations each year, because officers are taught to tell them that signing a citation is only a promise to appear in court, not an admission of guilt.

“It happens, but very infrequently,” said O’Brien, a former San Diego police officer. “I know of nothing controversial about the method and process under which we cite people.”

Officers of the Los Angeles Police Department and the California Highway Patrol are supposed to issue a ticket for infractions such as a traffic violation, including failure to wear a seat belt as required by law. They are not to make an arrest if the person is carrying identification and signs a written promise to appear in court or pay the fine.

But if the driver becomes belligerent or poses a threat of any kind, the officer can handcuff the person as a security precaution and can even make an arrest, said LAPD spokesman Sgt. John Pasquariello.

Pasquariello also said that if offenders refuse to sign a citation, they can be arrested on the spot and handcuffed because they have, in effect, refused to appear in court to answer for the infraction.

Policies in place at the CHP give highway patrol officers a similar amount of leeway, said CHP spokesman Robert Kohler. He said the Supreme Court decision won’t necessitate a change in any policy or procedure.

“If an individual is stopped for an infraction, like a seat belt safety violation, we will not be arresting them for that violation itself,” said Kohler.

In the case from Texas, Justice David H. Souter was in the unaccustomed role of speaking for the court’s conservative bloc. He said the history and tradition of the 4th Amendment shows it was intended to shield the privacy of homes. Police cannot enter a home without a search warrant, the court has said.

However, those who are out on the streets can be stopped and arrested if they are seen committing a crime, Souter said.

Souter’s opinion meandered through the legal history of England during the Middle Ages. Sheriffs were authorized to arrest “nightwalkers” as well as “rogues, vagabonds, beggars and other idle and disorderly persons,” he pointed out.

From this history, Souter drew the lesson that the 4th Amendment was not intended to limit the power of police to arrest those who break the law.

Nonetheless, he criticized the Lago Vista police officer who arrested Atwater.

Officer Brad Turek “was [at best] exercising extremely poor judgment” by arresting the mother and taking her to jail, Souter said. She was driving about 15 mph in a residential area when Officer Turek stopped her.

No one would think Atwater was dangerous, and there was no reason to think she would flee rather than pay her fine, Souter said.

All that confirms that this arrest was unwise and unwarranted, Souter said. However, the Texas mother “asks us to mint a new rule of constitutional law” that would forbid arrests of people for minor offenses, Souter said.

He and his colleagues refused the invitation.

Often, police do not know instantly whether a person arrested with drugs is a minor offender or a drug dealer, he said. Similarly, officers need the authority to arrest people who are drunk or violent, he said, even if their criminal offenses appear minor.

“We are sure . . . the country is not confronting anything like an epidemic of unnecessary minor offense arrests,” Souter concluded, and “that fact caps the reasons for rejecting Atwater’s request for the development of a new and distinct body of constitutional law.”

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas joined Souter’s opinion.

Dissenting, O’Connor said the court’s opinion ignores the 4th Amendment’s rule that searches and seizures must be reasonable.

Giving police “unbounded discretion carries with it grave potential for abuse,” she said. “A relatively minor traffic infraction may often serve as an excuse for stopping and harassing an individual.”

“The court neglects the 4th Amendment’s express command in the name of administrative ease” and ignores “the pointless indignity that Gail Atwater suffered.” Her dissent was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

The ACLU’s legal director, Steven R. Shapiro, called the ruling “disappointing and disturbing. It is inherently unreasonable for the police to put you in jail for an offense that would not send [you] to jail after you were convicted. That makes no sense.”

Elizabeth Schroeder of the ACLU in Los Angeles said the Supreme Court decision will set a bad precedent in that it gives police too much power. “Officers not only will stop people based on race, which we know they do already, but now on pretextual reasons, and make arrests,” Schroeder said. “A taillight is out, so they can use that as a pretext for a stop and an arrest.”

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Savage reported from Washington and Meyer from Los Angeles.

Full text of the Supreme Court ruling on Atwater vs. City of Lago Vista is available on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/atwater