AZ: When statute unambiguous, officer’s mistake of law a little hard to argue

The officer’s stop of defendant based on a mistake of law about the taillight being a backup light was not reasonable. The statute was unambiguous, and Heien provides no support. State v. Stoll, 2016 Ariz. App. LEXIS 89 (May 23, 2016):

P20 We agree with the Seventh Circuit’s reasoning that “Heien does not support the proposition that a police officer acts in an objectively reasonable manner by misinterpreting an unambiguous statute.” United States v. Stanbridge, 813 F.3d 1032, 1037 (7th Cir. 2016); compare United States v. Alvarado-Zarza, 782 F.3d 246, 249-50 (5th Cir. 2015) (mistake of law not objectively reasonable where statute is “unambiguous” and “facially gives no support” to officer’s interpretation), with Heien, ___ U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 540 (mistake of law objectively reasonable where ambiguous statutory language, not yet interpreted by courts, fairly allowed two different readings). Nor does the testimony of the patrol commander at the hearing on the motion for reconsideration regarding officer training affect our analysis. As Justice Kagan noted in Heien, “an officer’s reliance on ‘an incorrect memo or training program from the police department’ makes no difference” for purposes of our strictly objective inquiry. ___ U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 541 (Kagan, J., concurring), quoting State v. Heien, 366 N.C. 271, 737 S.E.2d 351, 360 (N.C. 2012) (Hudson, J., dissenting); accord id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 539-40 (majority opinion). Put another way, the fact that the department had trained its officers in a way that permitted a misreading of § 28-931 does not make that misreading objectively reasonable. See Stanbridge, 813 F.3d at 1037; see also Heien, ___ U.S. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 539-40 (“[A]n officer can gain no Fourth Amendment advantage through a sloppy study of the laws he is duty-bound to enforce.”). Accordingly, we conclude the trial court erred in finding the officer’s interpretation of the statute objectively reasonable under Heien.