Verdict: A Potential Landmine in Waiting in Utah v. Strieff

Verdict: A Potential Landmine in Waiting in Utah v. Strieff by Sherry F. Colb:

On June 20, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Utah v. Strieff. The issue before the Court mainly concerned the role of the exclusionary rule in regulating unreasonable stops under the Fourth Amendment. The Court relied on the attenuation doctrine to admit evidence despite an illegal stop. Yet a small throwaway line in the opinion suggests that Strieff could come to spell the death of the exclusionary rule, if taken to its logical conclusion.

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Another problem with Strieff lies in a throwaway line in which the Court said that it would not in this case consider the possibility that the very existence of the outstanding warrant makes the initial stop lawful, despite the absence of reasonable suspicion. The relevant quote is this: “because we ultimately conclude that the warrant breaks the causal chain, we also have no need to decide whether the warrant’s existence alone would make the initial stop constitutional even if Officer Fackrell was unaware of its existence” (emphasis added).

What is the problem with this possibility? Well, it means that a stop of an individual, a “seizure” under the Fourth Amendment, may be judged not on the basis of whether police had a pre-existing justification for the stop but instead, on the basis of whether there turned out, after the fact, to be a good reason for the person to be stopped. Consider the implications of such an approach. …