On New Year's Eve, 2005, Richmond police received an anonymous tip about an erratic driver. The tip described the driver, his green Nissan Altima and the direction he was driving in. Police soon found Joseph Harris driving slowly, but not erratically. The officer pulled him over, discovered that Harris reeked of alcohol, gave him a sobriety test and then arrested him for driving while intoxicated.
Late last year, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a Virginia court's decision to overturn Harris's drunken driver. The Virginia Supreme Court had overturned the conviction because the police officer hadn't personally confirmed that Harris's driving posed a danger. By arresting Harris without independently verifying that a driving violation had occurred, the officer had violated constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
Though the highest federal court doesn't explain its reasons for not reviewing a case, observers said it was clear the court was declining to allow police and courts to rely more heavily on anonymous tips.
Anonymous tips have traditionally been viewed skeptically by the legal system. The tips can too easily be filed by people against those they would like to see in trouble with the law.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote a strongly worded dissent in which he stated that his colleagues were granting Virginia drivers "one free swerve" before they can be pulled over by law enforcement. That swerve, he wrote, could have potentially disastrous consequences for law-abiding Virginians.
Roberts noted that "close to 13,000 people die in alcohol-related car crashes - roughly one every 40 minutes." He said the immediate danger posed to the public by a drunken driver created a need for an exception to protections against unreasonable search and seizure.
"The imminence of the danger posed by drunk drivers exceeds that at issue in other types of cases," he wrote, adding that the Supreme Court has upheld drunken-driving laws "that might be constitutionally problematic in other, less exigent circumstances."
His arguments failed to persuade a required majority of his fellow justices, however. To learn more about the Supreme Court's decision and the impact it may have in Virginia, please speak to a criminal law attorney in your area.
