NJ declines to limit Pena-Flores on the automobile exception

NJ refuses to overrule State v. Pena-Flores without a full statistical record. The one proffered by the state was too limited. State v. Shannon, 210 N.J. 225, 43 A.3d 1146 (2012)*:

In these companion cases, the State asks the Court to revisit its recent decision in State v. Pena-Flores, 198 N.J. 6, 965 A.2d 114 (2009), which addressed the proper standard for warrantless searches of motor vehicles. The State contends that the decision’s impact on police practices and New Jersey motorists provides special justification to overturn Pena-Flores. As support, the State relies in part on certain data taken only from New Jersey State Police motor vehicle stops. That data represents a fraction of statewide encounters with motorists and covers the limited period of time since Pena-Flores went into effect.

We do not find sufficient support in the current record to establish the “special justification” needed to depart from precedent. State v. Brown, 190 N.J. 144, 157, 919 A.2d 107 (2007) (quoting Dickerson v. United States, 530 U.S. 428, 443, 120 S. Ct. 2326, 2336, 147 L. Ed. 2d 405, 419 (2000)). We rely on the Attorney General, the Public Defender, the American Civil Liberties Union, appearing in this matter as amicus curiae, and other interested non-parties to amass and develop a more thorough, statistical record over time relating to motor vehicle stops by the State Police and local authorities.

To the extent that it is impractical to collect data from local law enforcement throughout the entire State, data from representative urban, suburban, and rural areas may suffice. That information should include, where possible, (a) the total number of motor vehicle stops, (b) the number of warrantless probable cause searches conducted, consent searches requested, consent searches conducted, and vehicles impounded — both before and after Pena-Flores — and (c) other relevant information.

The first paragraph of Pena-Flores:

At issue in these appeals, which we have consolidated for the purpose of this opinion, is the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. Today, we reaffirm our longstanding precedent that permits an automobile search without a warrant only in cases in which the police have both probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains evidence and exigent circumstances that would justify dispensing with the warrant requirement. The question of whether exigent circumstances exist is to be determined, as it has always been, on a case-by-case basis with the focus on police safety and preservation of evidence.

Don’t be concerned about the court relying on the ACLU–New Jersey has been sued repeatedly over the last two decades for racial profiling and other abuses, and most have been proved. See, e.g., State v. Carty, 170 N.J. 632, 790 A.2d 903 (2002), discussing the statistic proof of driving while black and intimidation once stopped.