WEBVTT - Justices Skeptical of Traffic Stop Argument 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:07.040 Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:09.680 day we bring you insight an analysis into the most 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:12.200 important legal news of the day. You can find more 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:16.160 episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.880 and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. A case about 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.560 a traffic stop led to some interesting arguments and several 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.920 skeptical Supreme Court justices. A Kansas man claims that police 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.360 violated the Fourth Amendment when an officer pulled him over 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.480 after running the license plate on his truck and discovering 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.120 its registered owner had his driver's license revoked without doing 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.000 anything more. Joining me is Jordan Reuben, Bloomberg Law Legal Editor. 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:46.800 Why did the court take this case? As with pretty 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:48.960 much any case that the court takes, they take it 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.519 to resolve an issue that's unresolved around the country. And 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.160 so here the question is whether it's reasonable for police 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.200 to pull over a car just based on the fact 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.000 that the cars interstered owner has their license revoked without 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:07.480 any more information. And so whether it's because some justices 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.200 wanted to take the case to say that it is reasonable, 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.440 or it isn't. At any rate, it's an issue that 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:14.960 it seems that the court at least felt it was 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.480 reasonable to want to clear up in this case, the 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:24.040 registered owner's license was revoked and the officer stopped him 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:28.240 driving his truck. What was the claim by the defense? 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.480 So even though it was actually the registered owner of 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.720 the car, Charles Glover, who was in fact driving the car, 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.440 Glover raised the argument and a suppression motion that there 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.360 wasn't a good enough reason for the officer to think 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.760 that it was Glover before he pulled him over. That's 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.040 because all the officer did before pulling Glover's truck over 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:51.840 was just run the license plate, at which point it 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.240 showed that the registered owner, Glover, had his license revoked. 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:57.600 But the officer didn't do anything more than that. He 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:01.280 didn't try to confirm that it was Lover's identity first, 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:04.240 or observe the traffic violation or anything like that. It 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:08.040 was just the simple fact of Glover having his license revoked. 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.519 And Glover argues that that's simply not enough to amount 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.680 to reasonable suspicion under the Fourth Amendment. So what should 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.680 the officer have done. He's not supposed to stop the 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.639 truck unless what what else was he supposed to do? Right? 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.080 So that's the million dollar question that came up at 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.920 the argument that Glover's lawyer didn't necessarily have a specific 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.399 answer to other than to say there needs to be 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.040 something done. Obviously, one thing that was brought up was 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.000 trying to visually check to see if it appears to 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:43.120 be the same person, Say, if the registered owner appears 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.120 to be a sixth year old man, if it looks 0:02:45.160 --> 0:02:47.880 like the driver is someone like that, then that would 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.000 be an example of one other fact that, according to 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:55.000 the dissenses argument, would amount probably too reasonable suspicion. The 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:56.960 bottom line was, they said, it at least has to 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.920 be something more than just the fact of the register 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.440 owner having their license revoked. Do we know what the 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.480 officer did do? So it's a very good question, and 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.680 it raises sort of a weird aspect of this case, 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.799 which is that at the stage of the suppression motion, 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.200 the officer didn't testify to hearing. All we had were 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.960 stipulated facts, meaning both parties, the prosecution and the defense, 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.120 they agreed to a certain set of facts without testing 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.600 them in the crucible of cross examination, and essentially what 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.000 it boiled down to was simply the fact of the 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.200 officer saying the car was driving, I ran the plate, 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:37.160 it came back as a registered owner having license revoked, 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.840 and that's it. So is it possible that the officer 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:43.600 did something else. Maybe, but really we're bound by this 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.760 stipulation and the Supreme Court is bound by it too, 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.240 And there was actually some frustration with that at the argument, 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.040 and some of the justices saying, you know, it's sort 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.360 of difficult for us to rule on this without having 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.640 enough information. Now we're still waiting to see which way 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:00.880 that's going to cut. Obviously, one way to look at 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.360 that is that it could cut potentially in favor of 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.720 the defense, in the sense that they could send it 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.000 back to the court to say, this is a situation 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.360 where we just need more you know, we want officers 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:15.200 to testify it hearings, to at least say, consistent with 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.719 my experience or something like that, this is the type 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.960 of thing where the registered owner usually is the driver, 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.000 for example. On the other hand, some of the other 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:29.359 justices and perhaps a majority of the court seemed perhaps 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.760 more likely to say, just based on common sense, it 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.359 was a reasonable thing for the officer to do. The 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:37.960 two words common sense came up a lot during the argument. 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.360 But different members of the court and the different parties 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.320 have different views of what exactly is common sense in 0:04:43.320 --> 0:04:49.680 this situation. Chief Justice John Roberts seemed particularly exasperated. You said, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.440 do you think it's totally random who the driver is? 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:55.080 In other words, it's registered to Fred Jones, but it 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.559 could be anybody in the world. Yeah. So Chief Justice 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.960 Roberts usually keeps a pretty even keel. He got sort 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.320 of almost agitated during the argument and back and forth 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:09.600 with Glover's attorney Sarah Harrington. Roberts seemed to really buy 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.360 into the state's common sense argument, and so he was 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:15.560 getting frustrated in terms of trying to search for an 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:19.160 answer of what more exactly was the officers supposed to do, 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:22.520 including the question of what sort of probability can we 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.360 attach to whether the registered owner is in fact the driver? 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:31.960 And Roberts, as well as Justice Alito and some other justices, 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.479 they were sort of frustrated at the defense essentially not 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.440 buying into the state's common sense argument. From their view, 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.560 so now let's talk about the standard. The standard is 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:47.039 reasonable suspicion, and that's a pretty low standard, it is, 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:48.960 And so that came up during the argument as well. 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:52.120 Of course, it's a point that the state pressed more 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.080 vigorously than the defense did. Obviously, the defense doesn't want 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.880 to highlight that it's a low standard. But the defense said, 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.680 even under this low standard, this is and enough in 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.400 their view. And so obviously it's a point that the 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.760 state wants to emphasize and saying the fact that reasonable 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.480 suspicion is such a low standard, combined with this sort 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:13.080 of common sense argument that it's at least reasonable for 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.800 an officer to pull over a car that is being 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.280 driven where the registered owner's license is revoked, at least 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:24.120 to investigate more. In the words of Canvas lawyer's argument, 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:26.360 it would have been bad police work for the cop 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:29.080 not to pull the car over again, sort of going 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:34.000 towards this common sense type of argument. So Jordan's Justice 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.679 Samuel Alito said about the decision they're going to issue 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.960 that they could either issue a trivial decision or a 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:48.000 revolutionary decision. Explain what he meant by that, sure, and 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.560 this is Justice Alito, who is probably the least likely 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.400 on the court to side with the criminal defense in 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.120 a criminal case. And what he was saying was this, 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.640 He said, it could be a trivial decision in the 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.800 sense that they could hold okay, all an officer had 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.880 to do was additionally testify based on my training and experience, 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.040 and Injustice Lados where its blah blah blah, essentially showing 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:12.960 that he doesn't really think it's that's a good a deal. 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.440 On the other hand, it could be a revolutionary decision 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.680 if they wind up having to say that certain probabilities 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:21.960 and statistics are involved, or something as sort of mundane 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.280 in Justice Leado's view anyway, as this sort of routine 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.320 traffic stops. So when he called it a revolutionary from 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.120 his view, that did not seem to be a laudatory 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:34.360 way to put the defense's arguments. It's times like this 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.640 that I wish we had the audio of the of 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:41.480 the Supreme Court arguments earlier than when they do. Let 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:44.320 us hear it for sure, and that uh, and that'll 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:46.200 be posted Friday at the end of every week. And 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:47.920 there's also a good part of the audio I would 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:51.520 say to check out for Justice Gorsage is impression or 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:53.920 so it seems, of a New York City police officers. 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:55.720 That was another fun moment of it here he got 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:59.440 called on that he did and then uh Glover's lawyer, 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.080 Sarah Harrington told them this case was actually taking place 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.880 in Kansas, not New York, and gorgeous, said touche, playhearted 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:12.720 moment in the argument, finally, is it public safety on 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.840 one side versus privacy on the other, Well, what Glover 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.480 would probably say is that public safety doesn't have to 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.280 be sacrificed in order to buy by the Fourth Amendment. 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.320 What the state is saying. They point to the fact 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.640 that having unlicensed drivers on the road is a very 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.199 dangerous thing, and that, in their views, sometimes making these 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.640 traffic stops are really the only opportunity that law enforcement 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:39.680 have in order to prevent fatalities. And so they even 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:42.240 though this is sort of a routine, maybe seems like 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.200 not such a big deal, you're just pulling a car over, 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:47.520 from the government's view, it actually is something a lot 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.480 more serious than that. And at the same time, from 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.320 the defense point of view, it's a lot more serious 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:55.439 than the government is giving a credit for in its 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.040 own right, And by that that's going to sort of 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.319 the argument that if it isn't the person driving whose 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.920 license is revoked, then they're being subjected to a seizure 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.000 that they otherwise wouldn't be subjected to if an officer 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.640 had attempted to confirm their identity first. So there are 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.680 those two arguments. On both sides. There certainly are competing interests, 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:16.560 and we're just going to have to see what the 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.960 court does with all that. Thanks Jordan's that's Jordan Reuben, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.240 Bloomberg Law Legal Editor. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.360 Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:32.120 on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:37.120 I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg Ye.