Case Title: State v. Carter

Citation: 

Docket Number: 74/19

State: maryland

Court: Maryland Supreme Court

Date: 2021-01-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
State of Maryland v. Kennard Carter, No. 74, September Term, 2019. 
Opinion by Biran, J. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW – FOURTH AMENDMENT – SEIZURE – The Court of 
Appeals held that a Maryland Transit Authority (“MTA”) police officer seized Respondent 
within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when the officer announced a fare sweep 
aboard a Baltimore Light Rail train after it arrived at a station. A reasonable passenger 
would not have felt free to leave the train without first displaying proof of fare payment, 
or the lack thereof, to the officer. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW – FOURTH AMENDMENT – IMPLIED CONSENT – 
The Court of Appeals held that Light Rail passengers do not impliedly consent to be seized 
in a fare sweep. No signs or other notices inform riders that they may be subject to a seizure 
aboard the train. In addition, the Light Rail differs from military bases, airports, and other 
facilities where individuals who enter reasonably expect that they may be subject to search 
and seizure for security reasons. 
 
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW – FOURTH AMENDMENT – SPECIAL NEEDS 
DOCTRINE – The special needs doctrine is a recognized exception to the Fourth 
Amendment’s warrant requirement. Under that doctrine, a program of warrantless searches 
or seizures undertaken without reasonable suspicion may be constitutional if the primary 
purpose of the program is to further a governmental interest besides the detection of 
ordinary criminal wrongdoing. The Court of Appeals held that the record of the suppression 
hearing was insufficiently developed to determine the primary purpose of a fare sweep and, 
therefore, whether the special needs doctrine renders MTA’s program of fare sweeps 
constitutional.  
 
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW – FOURTH AMENDMENT – ATTENUATION – The 
Court of Appeals held that, assuming (without deciding that) Respondent’s seizure was not 
constitutional under the special needs doctrine, the discovery of an open warrant for 
Respondent’s arrest did not attenuate the taint of the illegal warrantless seizure. The 
discovery of a warrant does not attenuate the taint of an unconstitutional seizure conducted 
under an agency program, where one of the directives of the program requires officers to 
search for open warrants.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 
 
OF MARYLAND 
 
No. 74 
 
September Term, 2019 
 
 
STATE OF MARYLAND 
 
v. 
 
KENNARD CARTER 
 
 
Barbera, C.J. 
McDonald 
Watts 
Hotten 
Getty 
Booth 
Biran, 
 
 
JJ. 
 
 
Opinion by Biran, J. 
Watts, J., concurs. 
 
 
Filed: January 29, 2021
Circuit Court for Baltimore City 
Case No. 117303014 
Argued: September 15, 2020 
Pursuant to Maryland Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act  
(§§ 10-1601 et seq. of the State Government Article) this document 
is authentic.
Suzanne C. Johnson, Clerk  
Suzanne Johnson
2021-01-29 13:55-05:00
Several million passengers ride Baltimore Light Rail (“Light Rail”) trains each year. 
There is no turnstile to pass through before boarding a Light Rail train. Nor does anyone 
check passengers for proof of fare payment before they get on a train. Thus, it is possible 
for a person to board a Light Rail train without paying the required fare. However, 
Maryland Transit Administration (“MTA”) police officers routinely check whether 
passengers on Light Rail trains who are required to pay the fare have done so. One of the 
methods that MTA police officers have used to make this determination is a “fare sweep.” 
In a fare sweep, after a train has arrived at a station, MTA officers simultaneously board 
each car of the stationary train and announce that all passengers must show their tickets or 
passes. If a passenger does not produce proof of fare payment, the officer at that point 
directs the passenger to leave the train and to speak with another officer who is waiting on 
the platform. Once all non-paying passengers have stepped off the train, the train departs 
the station. On the platform, officers then obtain identification from the non-paying 
passengers, conduct warrant checks on those passengers, and issue a $50 citation to each 
passenger for the criminal offense of fare evasion. If a non-paying passenger is not the 
subject of an outstanding warrant, the passenger is then free to leave.  
On the evening of October 2, 2017, MTA police officers conducted a fare sweep 
aboard a Light Rail train after the train arrived at the Mount Royal station in Baltimore 
City. After an officer announced that she was checking all riders for tickets, Respondent 
Kennard Carter approached the officer and told her that he did not have a ticket. The officer 
then directed Carter to step off the train. After Carter did so, an officer on the platform 
obtained identifying information from Carter and ran a warrant check on him, which 
2 
revealed the existence of a warrant for Carter’s arrest. In the course of attempting to arrest 
Carter on that warrant, officers saw that Carter had a gun. Carter subsequently was indicted 
in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on firearms and other charges.  
Carter moved to suppress the gun and other evidence allegedly found by officers 
after Carter left the Light Rail train, arguing that the fare sweep constituted a seizure 
without reasonable suspicion to believe that he had evaded payment of the fare. The circuit 
court denied Carter’s suppression motion, finding that the officers did not seize Carter prior 
to his admission that he lacked a ticket. Alternatively, the circuit court ruled that, if officers 
unlawfully seized Carter, the discovery of the arrest warrant attenuated the taint of the 
Fourth Amendment violation. A jury subsequently found Carter guilty of several offenses.  
On appeal, Carter renewed his argument that the fare sweep constituted a 
warrantless seizure not based on reasonable suspicion. Both Carter and the State also 
addressed for the first time whether the fare sweep was constitutional under the “special 
needs” doctrine, one of the recognized exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant 
requirement. The answer to that question turned, as a threshold matter, on whether or not 
the primary purpose of an MTA fare sweep is to further the State’s generalized interest in 
criminal law enforcement – a point that the circuit court had not considered during the 
suppression hearing. The State also argued on appeal that Carter impliedly consented to a 
seizure necessary to determine whether he had paid his fare. Finally, the State renewed its 
argument that the discovery of the warrant for Carter’s arrest attenuated the taint of any 
Fourth Amendment violation.  
3 
The Court of Special Appeals held that: (1) the fare sweep effected a warrantless 
seizure of Carter; (2) Carter did not impliedly consent to the seizure; (3) the seizure was 
not constitutional under the special needs doctrine; and (4) the discovery of the warrant did 
not attenuate the taint of the unlawful seizure. Thus, the Court of Special Appeals 
concluded that the circuit court should have granted Carter’s suppression motion, and the 
court reversed Carter’s convictions.  
We largely agree with the Court of Special Appeals’ resolution of the parties’ 
contentions. However, we disagree with the intermediate appellate court that the record is 
sufficiently developed to assess whether or not the special needs doctrine renders Light 
Rail fare sweeps constitutional. Nevertheless, because it was the State’s burden to establish 
the constitutionality of Carter’s seizure at the suppression hearing in this case and the State 
failed to do so, we will affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals.   
I 
 
Background 
A. The Light Rail 
MTA operates the Light Rail, an above-ground modern streetcar-like train system 
transporting passengers in the city of Baltimore and surrounding counties.1 The Light Rail 
 
1 The Light Rail system was renamed the “Light RailLink” in 2017. It formerly was 
called the “Baltimore Light Rail.” In this opinion, we refer to the system as it is still 
commonly known in the Baltimore metropolitan area, which is simply the “Light Rail.” 
 
4 
services over seven million passenger trips annually.2 As the Light Rail neared completion 
in 1991, the Maryland Department of Transportation (“MDOT”) advocated that the 
General Assembly make the Light Rail a “barrier-free” mass transit system, explaining that 
barrier-free systems can cost 20-30 times less than systems that contain barriers to entry. 
See Md. Dept. of Transp., Office of the Sec’y, MDOT Written Testimony to Sen. Jud. Proc. 
Cmte. (Mar. 19, 1991), 1991 HB 716 Bill File, H.B. 716, 405th Sess. (Md. 1991). In a 
barrier-free rail system, passengers purchase their fares in advance of boarding the train, 
and do not pass through a ticket checkpoint or a barrier verifying payment prior to boarding. 
The General Assembly adopted MDOT’s recommendation that the Light Rail operate as a 
barrier-free system, and made it a misdemeanor for a passenger to fail to “pay the 
applicable fare” or fail to “[e]xhibit proof of payment.” See 1991 Md. Laws, ch. 222. A 
police officer or an authorized agent of MTA may issue a citation to a passenger who fails 
to show proof of payment of the applicable fare upon request. Md. Code, Transp. § 7-
704.1(d)(1) (2020 Repl. Vol.). Passengers may purchase Light Rail tickets or passes using 
ticket vending machines located at each station, as well as at MTA’s retail locations or on 
MTA’s website.  
 
 
2 See MTA Media Guide at 9 (2019), available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/mta-
website-staging/mta-website-staging/files/Brochures/Media_Guide_2019_WEB.pdf (last 
accessed on Nov. 24, 2020), archived at https://perma.cc/EH46-LTMZ. 
5 
B. Carter’s Prosecution 
1. The Fare Sweep and Carter’s Arrest 
On Monday, October 2, 2017 at approximately 8:05 p.m., Corporal Latoya Russell 
and Officer Zachary Tobin, along with other MTA police officers, were waiting on the 
platform of the Mount Royal Light Rail station in Baltimore City to conduct a fare sweep 
of the next Light Rail train to arrive at that station.3 Carter was a passenger on that train. 
The train pulled in shortly before 8:06 p.m. Within seconds of the train’s arrival, 
Corporal Russell and other officers boarded the two train cars. Officer Tobin and other 
officers remained on the platform. Once on the train, Corporal Russell announced the fare 
sweep, informing all passengers that she was checking tickets and advising them to have 
their tickets out. 
In response to Corporal Russell’s announcement, Carter approached Corporal 
Russell and told her that he did not have a ticket. At Corporal Russell’s direction, Carter 
stepped off the train and reported to officers on the platform at approximately 8:07:23 p.m. 
The train left the station at 8:07:30 p.m. Officer Tobin instructed Carter to sit on a bench 
on the platform and asked him for identification. Carter was unable to provide 
identification, but gave Officer Tobin his name, date of birth, and social security number. 
A check of that information revealed an open warrant for Carter’s arrest. 
 
3 The events that occurred on and near the platform at the Mount Royal Light Rail 
station on October 2, 2017, and the times at which they happened, are visible on a video 
recording made by a camera situated above the platform. 
6 
Based on the result of the warrant check, Officer Tobin began to place Carter in 
handcuffs. Carter resisted Officer Tobin’s attempt to handcuff him and tried to flee. Carter 
then struggled on the platform with Officer Tobin and other officers. During the struggle, 
Officer Tobin saw that Carter had a handgun in his waistband. Carter attempted to retrieve 
the gun, which fell onto the train track during the struggle. After Officer Tobin was able to 
subdue Carter, the officers recovered the gun from the tracks and then searched Carter 
incident to his arrest, allegedly discovering cocaine on Carter’s person. 
2. The Suppression Hearing and Trial 
Carter was indicted in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City on five counts: (1) 
possession of a firearm after having been convicted of a crime of violence; (2) possession 
of a firearm after having been convicted of a disqualifying crime; (3) wearing, carrying, 
and transporting a handgun on his person; (4) possession of cocaine; and (5) resisting arrest.  
After Carter moved to suppress the gun and drugs that the officers allegedly 
discovered in the course of arresting him, the circuit court held a suppression hearing. As 
part of its evidentiary presentation, the State played the video recording that showed the 
officers boarding the train to conduct the fare sweep, as well as the aftermath of the fare 
sweep. Corporal Russell and Officer Tobin also testified at the hearing. 
Both Corporal Russell and Officer Tobin explained that MTA officers routinely 
conduct fare sweeps such as the one that led to Carter’s arrest. According to Corporal 
7 
Russell, MTA officers perform such fare sweeps approximately six times per week, and 
they are a “standardized process.” Officer Tobin described the fare sweep as follows: 
[S]ome officers board the train. Some officers stay on the platform awaiting 
officers as they pull patrons off of the train that have not paid fare. 
 
…. 
 
[W]hen we board the train, we announce that we are conducting a fare 
inspection and we promptly ask everybody to show us their passes. Those 
who do not show passes are required to alight the train and seek an officer 
on the platform. 
 
On cross-examination, defense counsel asked Officer Tobin: “The purpose of you checking 
for fare cards is to see if people paid, correct?” Officer Tobin responded, “Correct.” 
Corporal Russell testified that, after announcing a fare sweep, “you check each 
patron for tickets.” She also explained that running a warrant check is a “part of the 
process” after a non-paying passenger leaves the train,4 as is issuing a $50 citation to the 
fare evader. In response to leading questions from defense counsel, Corporal Russell 
agreed that the purpose of the fare sweep was to “see if someone has committed a crime 
by riding the train without paying,” and that a fare sweep entails “an investigation to 
determine if someone broke the law as set by MTA.” Corporal Russell also agreed with 
defense counsel’s characterization that “the fare checking also works as an apparatus to be 
able to check people for warrants as well.” 
 
4 Officer Tobin also described warrant checks of non-paying passengers as 
“routine.” 
8 
 
After the officers testified, Carter’s attorney argued that Corporal Russell effected 
a Terry stop5 of Carter without reasonable suspicion to believe that he had evaded payment 
of the fare. Thus, defense counsel contended, Carter’s admission that he did not have a 
ticket was the fruit of an illegal stop, and the court should suppress all evidence that flowed 
from the Terry stop.  
The prosecutor argued that Corporal Russell did not restrain Carter’s “liberty of 
movement” when she announced the fare sweep and directed all passengers to show their 
tickets. Thus, according to the prosecutor, Corporal Russell did not seize Carter prior to his 
telling her that he lacked a ticket. Once Carter admitted that he had evaded the fare, the 
prosecutor contended, Corporal Russell had probable cause (or at least reasonable 
suspicion) to detain Carter. Alternatively, the prosecutor argued that, if Corporal Russell 
seized Carter without reasonable suspicion, the discovery of an open arrest warrant 
attenuated the taint from the illegal seizure. The State did not alternatively contend that, if 
the fare sweep constituted a seizure, it was permissible under the special needs doctrine.  
The circuit court denied Carter’s suppression motion. The court first ruled that 
Corporal Russell “engaged in a mere accosting by announcing a fare inspection, and 
therefore the inquiry did not require Fourth Amendment justification.” The court stated 
that “the fare inspection, albeit investigatory, was not concentrated on [Carter] personally, 
nor was [Carter] threatened or physically touched by the MTA police officers in any way” 
prior to his admission to Corporal Russell that he did not have a ticket. Once Carter made 
 
5 See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). 
9 
that admission, the circuit court reasoned, the officers had probable cause to believe that 
Carter had committed the offense of fare evasion, and therefore they were permitted to 
detain him to give him a citation as well as to conduct the routine warrant check that led to 
Carter’s arrest and the discovery of the evidence Carter sought to suppress.  
Alternatively, the court ruled that, if Corporal Russell seized Carter at the outset, 
the discovery of the arrest warrant attenuated the taint of the unlawful stop. The circuit 
court did not consider or decide whether the fare sweep was constitutional under the special 
needs doctrine.  
Carter’s jury trial began on March 22, 2018. At the close of the case, the circuit 
court entered judgments of acquittal as to Counts 2 and 4.6 The jury found Carter guilty on 
Counts 1, 3, and 5, which charged Carter with two firearms offenses and resisting arrest, 
respectively. The circuit court sentenced Carter to 10 years’ imprisonment on Count 1 
(possession of a firearm after having been convicted of a crime of violence), suspending 
all but a mandatory minimum five-year term without the possibility of parole. The court 
imposed concurrent three-year terms on the other two counts of conviction, along with 
three years of supervised probation.  
 
6 The State elected not to submit Count 2 – the lesser of the two firearm possession 
counts – to the jury, thus leading the trial court to enter an acquittal on that count. As for 
Count 4, which charged Carter with possession of cocaine, the State failed to establish a 
chain of custody with respect to the cocaine that the officers allegedly discovered while 
searching Carter incident to his arrest. 
10 
3. Appeal 
Carter appealed his conviction to the Court of Special Appeals. In a reported 
opinion, the intermediate appellate court concluded that the circuit court should have 
granted Carter’s suppression motion. Carter v. State, 243 Md. App. 212 (2019). First, 
contrary to the State’s argument, the court held that Corporal Russell seized Carter when 
she boarded the stationary train and announced the fare sweep, asking all passengers to 
have their tickets out for inspection. The court explained that, although the officers did not 
physically restrain Carter when they boarded the train, Corporal Russell’s show of 
authority, as well as the presence of multiple officers outside the train car, implied to a 
reasonable person that individuals were not free to leave prior to providing proof of fare 
payment. Id. at 231. 
 
The court then considered and rejected two alternative arguments that the State 
made to justify the warrantless, suspicionless seizure. First, the State argued that the fare 
sweep was constitutional under the special needs doctrine. In their briefs to the Court of 
Special Appeals, the parties discussed a leading Supreme Court case on the special needs 
doctrine, City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 41-42 (2000), which held that the 
warrantless highway checkpoints at issue in that case were unconstitutional because their 
primary purpose was to uncover evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing. The State 
distinguished MTA fare sweeps from the highway checkpoints at issue in Edmond and 
argued that, if the officers seized Carter, the seizure was permissible under the special needs 
doctrine. Carter disagreed, arguing that the primary purpose of MTA fare sweeps “is to 
11 
ferret out possible criminal wrongdoing,” thereby rendering the special needs exception 
inapplicable. 
 
The Court of Special Appeals agreed with Carter that the special needs doctrine did 
not save MTA’s warrantless, suspicionless fare sweep from invalidation under the Fourth 
Amendment. Carter, 243 Md. App. at 232-34 & n.4. Although the court recognized that 
the Supreme Court has upheld suspicionless searches and seizures where they have 
furthered “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement,” id. at 233 (quoting 
Edmond, 531 U.S. at 37), the intermediate appellate court accepted Carter’s contention that 
the primary purpose of a fare sweep is “to uncover evidence of ordinary criminal 
wrongdoing.” Id. at 233 n.4 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court based this factual 
finding on Corporal Russell’s testimony on cross-examination in which she agreed with 
defense counsel’s suggestion that fare sweeps are used as a vehicle to conduct outstanding 
warrant searches. See id.  
 
Next, the State argued that Carter impliedly consented to a seizure so that officers 
could check whether he had paid the fare to board the Light Rail train. Id. at 234-36. The 
Court of Special Appeals disagreed, distinguishing cases such as Farkas v. Williams, 823 
F.3d 1212 (9th Cir. 2016), in which the federal appellate court held that individuals 
impliedly consent to being searched upon entering a military base: 
As the Court reasoned in Farkas, individuals entering a “restricted-access” 
base, past gate-guarded entry points, signs stating that all visitors are subject 
to search, and military personnel patrols impliedly consent to being 
searched…. By contrast, Light Rail Trains do not have such barbed-wire 
fencing or armed guards at their entrance, nor do their security reflect 
national defense concerns. As such, it cannot be assumed that individuals 
12 
entering the trains have consented to searches like those individuals who 
enter military bases…. 
 
As the State expresses in its brief, reasonable patrons of the Light Rail 
understand that they may be required to show proof of payment upon request 
by MTA officials. However, reasonable patrons might not understand that by 
simply traveling on the Light Rail, they may be subject to suspicionless 
seizures resulting in warrant checks. 
 
Carter, 243 Md. App. at 235-36. 
 
Finally, the Court of Special Appeals held that the subsequent discovery of the open 
warrant for Carter’s arrest did not attenuate the taint of the unlawful seizure. Id. at 236-41. 
In reaching this conclusion, the court applied the three factors set forth in Brown v. Illinois, 
422 U.S. 590 (1975). The court observed that the first two factors – the “temporal 
proximity” between the unlawful seizure of Carter and the seizure of the evidence, and the 
“intervening circumstance” of the discovery of the open warrant – essentially canceled 
each other out. See Carter, 243 Md. App. at 238-39. As to the third and “especially 
significant” factor, the flagrancy of the police misconduct, the Court of Special Appeals 
again relied on Corporal Russell’s testimony that “the purpose of the fare inspection is to 
see if someone has committed a crime by riding the train without paying” and her 
“affirmation to being asked if fare inspections are ‘an apparatus to be able to check people 
for warrants.’” Id. at 240-41. The court opined that “MTA officers cannot systematically 
use fare inspections as a means of determining if Light Rail passengers have outstanding 
warrants. To allow such misconduct would be a grave injustice and greatly hinder the 
protections afforded by the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 242. 
13 
Having concluded that the officers unlawfully seized Carter and that the subsequent 
discovery of the open warrant for Carter’s arrest did not attenuate the taint of the 
constitutional violation, the Court of Special Appeals held that the circuit court should have 
granted Carter’s suppression motion. Id. Because the suppressed evidence “was a vital 
component of the State’s case against [Carter] and was necessary to subsequently convict 
[him],” the court reversed Carter’s convictions. Id.  
On January 30, 2020, the State filed a petition for a writ of certiorari. On March 11, 
2020, we granted the State’s petition, 467 Md. 691 (2020), and agreed to review the 
following questions (which we have paraphrased): 
I. 
Does MTA’s practice of conducting fare sweeps on the Light Rail 
comply with the Fourth Amendment? 
  
II. 
If the fare sweep that resulted in Carter’s seizure violated the Fourth 
Amendment, did the subsequent discovery of an open warrant for 
Carter’s arrest attenuate the violation, where any unconstitutionality 
of the MTA’s fare inspection practice was not previously 
established?7  
 
7 The State phrased the questions for which it sought review as: 
 
(1) Does [MTA’s] practice of fare inspection on the Light Rail comply with 
the Fourth Amendment? 
 
(2) If fare inspection does not comply with the Fourth Amendment, did the 
discovery of an open warrant for Carter’s arrest nevertheless attenuate 
the violation under Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct. 2056 (2016), where any 
unconstitutionality of the MTA’s fare inspection practice was not 
previously established? 
 
This case involves a fare “sweep,” which we understand to be one specific kind of fare 
“inspection” that MTA personnel have conducted. Accordingly, we have rephrased the 
questions presented to refer specifically to fare sweeps. 
14 
II 
Standard of Review  
Suppression rulings “present a mixed question of law and fact.” Thornton v. State, 
465 Md. 122, 139 (2019). When this Court reviews a circuit court’s denial of a motion to 
suppress, “ordinarily our review is limited to the evidence presented at the suppression 
hearing.” Jones v. State, 407 Md. 33, 44 (2008). We give deference to the trial court's 
factual findings, upholding them unless they are clearly erroneous. Id. at 45. We consider 
the evidence and all inferences that may be reasonably drawn from the evidence in a light 
most favorable to the prevailing party on the motion. Id. “The ultimate determination of 
whether there was a constitutional violation, however, is an independent determination that 
is made by the appellate court alone, applying the law to the facts found in each particular 
case.” Belote v. State, 411 Md. 104, 120 (2009) (citations omitted). We evaluate any 
questions of law de novo “without any special deference to the views of the Circuit Court 
or the Court of Special Appeals.” State v. Thomas, 465 Md. 288, 301 (2019). 
III 
 
Discussion 
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees “[t]he right of 
the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable 
searches and seizures[.]” U.S. Const. amend. IV. Warrantless searches and seizures are 
presumptively unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Thornton, 465 Md. at 141; 
Grant v. State, 449 Md. 1, 16-17 (2016). When police have obtained evidence through a 
warrantless search or seizure, the State bears the burden to demonstrate that the search or 
15 
seizure was reasonable, by establishing the applicability of one of the “few specifically 
established and well-delineated exceptions” to the warrant requirement. Id. at 16 (citing 
Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 356-57 (1967)). 
Evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment will ordinarily be 
inadmissible under the exclusionary rule. Thornton, 465 Md. at 140; Bailey v. State, 412 
Md. 349, 363 (2010). However, the “significant costs” of the exclusionary rule “have led 
[the Supreme Court] to deem it applicable only ... where its deterrence benefits outweigh 
its substantial social costs.” Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct. 2056, 2061 (2016) (cleaned up). 
Thus, the Supreme Court has recognized several exceptions to the exclusionary rule, 
including the attenuation doctrine. See id. The attenuation doctrine provides that, in some 
instances, an intervening event – such as the discovery of a warrant for a person’s arrest – 
will sufficiently attenuate the taint of an initially unlawful search or seizure to allow for 
the admission of evidence discovered subsequent to the intervening event. See id. 
A. Constitutionality of Fare Sweeps on Light Rail Trains 
 
1. The Announcement of the Fare Sweep Effected a Seizure of Carter. 
 
An encounter between an individual and a law enforcement officer implicates 
Fourth Amendment protections when the officer, by physical force or show of authority, 
restrains a person’s movement, such that a reasonable person would not feel free to walk 
away from the officer or disregard the officer’s questions. See United States v. Mendenhall, 
446 U.S. 544, 553-54 (1980). Whether an encounter is a seizure implicating the protections 
of the Fourth Amendment is a fact-specific inquiry based on the totality of the 
circumstances in a given case. See Swift v. State, 393 Md. 139, 150-53, 156 (2006). 
16 
In the Court of Special Appeals, the State defended the circuit court’s ruling that 
Corporal Russell did not seize Carter. In support of this position, the State argued that “[n]o 
record evidence indicated that a patron could not simply elect to leave a Light Rail train at 
the time a [fare sweep] is announced, provided that the patron does so before his or her 
individual fare is checked.” The Court of Special Appeals rejected the State’s argument, 
concluding that, “[a]though [Carter] was not restrained physically by the MTA officers 
when they entered the Light Rail Train, Corporal Russell’s show of authority, as well as 
the presence of multiple officers outside the train car, implied to a reasonable person that 
individuals were not free to leave prior to providing proof of a fare ticket.” Carter, 243 
Md. App. at 231. The intermediate appellate court also found significant that Corporal 
Russell did not inform the passengers as part of her announcement of the fare sweep that 
any passengers who wished to detrain at the Mount Royal station could do so without 
displaying a ticket or proof of payment. See id. For these reasons, the court held that Carter 
“was seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 232. 
 
The State now concedes that Corporal Russell seized Carter when she announced 
the fare sweep, representing to us that, during a fare sweep, “a passenger generally is not 
free to leave … without showing proof-of-payment.” We accept the State’s concession that 
Corporal Russell’s announcement of the fare sweep effected a seizure, as it is consistent 
with the record before the circuit court. Corporal Russell and other officers boarded both 
cars of the Light Rail train after it arrived at the Mount Royal station, while several other 
officers waited on the platform. This was a substantial display of law enforcement 
authority. Moreover, Officer Tobin testified that, in a fare sweep, when officers board a 
17 
train, they “announce that [they] are conducting a fare inspection and [they] promptly ask 
everybody to show us their passes. Those who do not show passes are required to alight 
the train and seek an officer on the platform.” Corporal Russell similarly described her 
announcement of the fare sweep as informing all the passengers on the train car that she 
was “checking tickets,” and “advis[ing] them to have their tickets out.” Corporal Russell 
also testified that, after announcing a fare sweep, “you check each patron for tickets.” In 
short, the record suggests that a reasonable passenger would have believed what the State 
tells us, in fact, was the case: the passenger was not free to leave the train without first 
displaying proof of fare payment or the lack thereof. 
For these reasons, we conclude that Corporal Russell seized Carter within the 
meaning of the Fourth Amendment when she announced the fare sweep. She did so without 
suspicion that Carter had committed any criminal offense, including fare evasion. Thus, 
unless the State can establish that the fare sweep falls under one of the recognized 
exceptions to the warrant requirement, Carter’s seizure violated the Fourth Amendment, 
and his subsequent admission that he lacked a ticket was the fruit of an unlawful detention. 
2. Implied Consent 
 
The State contends that two of the exceptions to the warrant requirement render 
Carter’s seizure constitutional. We first consider the State’s argument that Carter impliedly 
consented to the seizure by traveling on the barrier-free Light Rail system.  
Consent to a search or seizure is a recognized exception to the warrant requirement. 
See, e.g., Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218 (1973); Jones, 407 Md. at 51. The State 
“bears the burden of proving that ‘consent was in fact voluntarily given.’” State v. Wilson, 
18 
279 Md. 189, 201 (1977) (quoting Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 248-49); Jones, 407 Md. at 51. 
Most Fourth Amendment consent cases concern express grants of consent. See, e.g., State 
v. Green, 375 Md. 595, 620-24 (2003) (analyzing whether driver’s express consent to 
search his car expired before the start of the search); Wilson, 279 Md. at 202-03 
(considering whether officer obtained defendant’s express consent to search through 
coercion). However, in some circumstances, consent to a search or seizure can be implied 
from the surrounding circumstances. See, e.g., Farkas, 823 F.3d at 1216-17 (holding that 
civilian who entered naval base gave implied consent to a Fourth Amendment intrusion).8  
The State claims that Carter impliedly consented to the seizure Corporal Russell 
effected when she announced the fare sweep. The Court of Special Appeals rejected this 
contention, see Carter, 243 Md. App. at 234-36, as do we.  
The State bases its implied consent argument on the fact that the Light Rail is a 
barrier-free transit system that requires prepayment of the fare, and because signs on Light 
Rail platforms accordingly state: “Ticket or Pass Required Before Boarding Trains.” In 
addition, the State asserts that the requirement to show proof of payment during a Light 
Rail fare sweep is a minimal intrusion compared with other searches and seizures to which 
citizens have been found to impliedly consent in other contexts. For these reasons, the State 
 
8 Implied consent, as we use that term here, is distinguishable from a Fourth 
Amendment principle that some courts have also referred to as “implied consent,” but is 
more properly understood as “non-verbal” consent. See, e.g., Chase v. State, 120 Md. App. 
141, 150 (2000) (occupant of house gave non-verbal consent to officers’ requested entry 
by stepping out of the doorway and allowing the officers to enter the house). Unlike the 
implied consent that we discuss here, non-verbal consent is a person-specific, affirmative 
manifestation of agreement to an officer’s request to conduct a search or seizure. 
19 
contends that the reasonable expectation of any Light Rail passenger is that the passenger 
may be subject to fare inspection on any given trip. By deciding to ride the Light Rail while 
maintaining this reasonable expectation, the State argues, a passenger impliedly consents 
to a fare sweep. 
As Carter correctly observes, one of the important things that is missing in this case, 
but was present in the cases upon which the State relies, is express prior notice that a person 
may be subject to a search or seizure. For example, in Farkas, a civilian (Farkas) entered a 
naval base for an interview with an investigator. Farkas, 823 F.3d at 1214. The investigator 
directed Farkas to place his keys, wallet, and loose change in a lockbox during the 
interview. Id. Farkas subsequently filed a civil rights lawsuit in which he claimed, among 
other things, that the investigator seized him in violation of the Fourth Amendment when 
he restrained his freedom of movement by requiring him to hand over his wallet and keys. 
Id. at 1216. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment against 
Farkas, holding that “Farkas impliedly consented to this limited restraint on his freedom 
by voluntarily entering the passage-restricted base and agreeing to enter the interview 
room.” Id. The court explained: 
[T]he usual Fourth Amendment analysis does not apply because 
visitors give their implied consent to be searched and seized when entering a 
military base…. [T]he typical trappings of a military base (e.g., the barbed-
wire fence, the security guards at the gate, the sign warning of the possibility 
of search) combine to puncture any reasonable expectations of privacy for a 
civilian who voluntarily enters. 
 
The same trappings … were at play here. The Ventura County naval 
base is a restricted-access military base. Each point of entry is gate-guarded 
and dotted with warning signs alerting visitors that access is restricted, all 
persons and vehicles are subject to search, the base is patrolled by military 
20 
working dogs, and violators will be prosecuted. Farkas’s assertion that his 
consent did not extend to the storage of his personal items is belied by the 
objective circumstances. Farkas passed the warning signs, met the 
investigator in the parking lot, and agreed to place his belongings into a 
lockbox before voluntarily entering the interview room. By passing through 
an internal checkpoint, which the investigator was required to administer, 
Farkas reaffirmed by his conduct what had been established at the gate: that 
he impliedly consented to the possibility of a Fourth Amendment intrusion. 
 
Id. at 1216-17.  
 
Similarly, in Dept. of Transp., Motor Vehicle Admin. v. Armacost, 299 Md. 392 
(1984), this Court analyzed a search as to which citizens had notice. Armacost concerned, 
as relevant here, the Fourth Amendment implications of MVA’s Vehicle Emissions 
Inspection Program (“VEIP”). To measure a car’s emissions, the testing official was 
required to insert a probe into the tailpipe of the vehicle while it was idling for 
approximately two minutes. Id. at 406. Respondents in Armacost argued that the 
warrantless inspection of the interior of a vehicle’s tailpipe violated the Fourth 
Amendment. This Court disagreed. Among other reasons for this conclusion, the Court 
explained that the search of a vehicle tailpipe to test the level of emissions 
would likely be deemed consensual. No Maryland resident is forced to have 
his vehicle inspected; the penalty for noncompliance is a loss of the right to 
drive that vehicle. The VEIP does not affect a citizen’s right to drive any 
other vehicle or to seek alternative means of transportation. It is well 
accepted … that consent to minimal intrusions may be required by the state 
as a prerequisite to use of regulated means of travel. 
  
Id. at 407-08. The point underpinning this analysis was that, because a reasonable owner 
of a motor vehicle knows that the VEIP requires the insertion of a piece of equipment inside 
a car’s tailpipe, the owner can make an informed decision about whether to bring the car 
in for inspection, thereby subjecting the vehicle to such a search. 
21 
 
Here, there is no signage that explicitly warns passengers they may be subject to a 
seizure.9 It is difficult to understand how someone can impliedly consent to a search or 
seizure without having notice that the search or seizure may occur. Moreover, the Light 
Rail contains none of the other security trappings of a military base or an airport10 that, 
along with signage informing visitors of the possibility of search or seizure, “combine to 
puncture any reasonable expectation of privacy” for someone who voluntarily enters the 
secure portion of such a facility. Farkas, 823 F.3d at 1216. 
The State asserts that a reasonable passenger understands a barrier-free transit 
system requires onboard fare inspection to ensure a sufficient rate of fare payment, and 
therefore, impliedly gives consent to fare inspection when the passenger boards the train. 
Carter agrees that a reasonable Light Rail passenger likely does understand that some form 
of fare inspection may occur aboard a train. However, it does not follow that a reasonable 
passenger understands that the passenger will be seized on a stationary train by police 
officers for as long as it takes to check whether all passengers have paid their fare. Although 
the fare sweep in this case – which occurred on a weeknight shortly after 8:00 p.m. – took 
 
9 In an Appendix to its Reply Brief, the State included photographs of several signs 
and notices that, the State tells us, are located in or near Light Rail train cars. Several of 
these signs state that passengers must show a valid ticket or pass to a fare inspector upon 
request. These photographs are not part of the record of the suppression hearing. Even if 
we were to consider the additional signs depicted in these photographs, they would not 
change our analysis. None of the additional signs gives notice that passengers may be 
subject to seizure by police officers in a fare sweep. 
 
10 See, e.g., United States v. Edwards, 498 F.2d 496 (2d Cir. 1974) (upholding the 
constitutionality of requiring airline passengers to submit to preflight searches of their 
persons and baggage). 
22 
only approximately 90 seconds to complete, a fare sweep during peak travel hours 
presumably could take longer to conduct. Moreover, there is a significant difference 
between a team of armed officers seizing an entire train of passengers while the train is 
stopped at a station, and an individual MTA officer or civilian fare inspector asking 
passengers to show proof of fare payment while a train is traveling between stations. The 
Court of Special Appeals did not believe that the latter scenario would constitute a seizure. 
See Carter, 243 Md. App. at 232-33 (explaining that “[i]n this hypothetical scenario, it is 
the nature of train travel itself and not the MTA officer that restrain[s a passenger’s] 
freedom of movement,” and contrasting it to the fare sweep that occurred in this case: 
“Once the train arrived at the station … and the train ceased travel, it was solely the MTA 
officers who prevented [Carter] from leaving.”).  
We need not decide in this case whether a fare inspection aboard a moving Light 
Rail train conducted by an individual MTA police officer or civilian fare inspector,11 or by 
a team of police officers and inspectors,12 constitutes a seizure for purposes of the Fourth 
 
11 The State informs us that MTA civilian fare inspectors also conduct individual 
fare inspections on Light Rail trains. However, unlike MTA police officers, civilian fare 
inspectors lack authority to issue citations or make arrests. 
 
12 Following the Court of Special Appeals’ issuance of its opinion in Carter’s case, 
MTA issued a “Training Bulletin” regarding “Enforcement Sweeps on the Light Rail.” In 
this bulletin, dated December 3, 2019, MTA announced that, effective immediately, “all 
stationary fare enforcement sweeps on the light rail system are suspended until further 
notice.” (Emphasis in original.) The bulletin explained that “[f]are enforcement sweeps 
will only commence while light rail trains are mobile between stations,” and that “[l]ight 
rail trains will not be held for the purpose of a fare inspection sweep at any station.” The 
bulletin also stated that civilian fare inspectors “will be the primary examiner[s] of all 
payment fares of patrons during sweeps,” and that the civilian fare inspectors “will report 
all fare violators to an MTA Police officer for proper enforcement actions.” 
23 
Amendment. Nor need we decide, assuming a fare inspection aboard a moving Light Rail 
train is a seizure, whether a reasonable passenger impliedly consents to such a seizure. We 
conclude only that a reasonable Light Rail passenger does not impliedly consent to the type 
of fare sweep at issue in this case.13 
3. The Special Needs Doctrine 
 
Next, we consider the State’s argument that the MTA fare sweep is constitutional 
under the “special needs” exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. Under 
the special needs doctrine, courts may uphold the constitutionality of a program of seizures 
without individualized suspicion, where the program is designed to serve “special 
governmental needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.” Michigan Dept. of 
State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444, 449 (1990) (citation omitted). For example, in Sitz, the 
Supreme Court held that the Michigan State Police’s use of warrantless sobriety 
checkpoints along state roads was constitutional, where the program was designed to 
“prevent[] accidents caused by drunk drivers.” Id. at 449 (internal quotation marks and 
citation omitted); see also Little v. State, 300 Md. 485, 506 (1984) (sobriety checkpoint 
seizure held to be constitutional, despite lack of warrant, in light of the “State’s compelling 
interest in detecting and deterring drunk driving”). Similarly, in United States v. Martinez-
Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 557, 560-62 (1976), the Supreme Court upheld suspicionless seizures 
 
13 The State’s argument comparing the level of intrusion of a fare sweep to the level 
of intrusion in other cases where courts have found implied consent, is fallacious. It does 
not follow, for example, that because passengers who have notice of the possibility of a 
bag search at an airport are deemed impliedly to consent to such a search, see State v. 
Hanson, 34 P.3d 1, 5 (Haw. 2001), a Light Rail passenger without notice of a fare sweep 
impliedly consents to that comparatively less intrusive police action. 
24 
that occurred at a Border Patrol checkpoint near the U.S.-Mexico border, noting that a 
requirement of reasonable suspicion “would largely eliminate any deterrent to the conduct 
of well-disguised smuggling operations.” In upholding these types of suspicionless 
searches and seizures, courts have found significant the presence of safeguards which 
“assure that the individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy is not subject to the 
discretion of the official in the field.” Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 655 (1979) 
(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Thus, such suspicionless seizures “must be 
carried out pursuant to a plan embodying explicit, neutral limitations on the conduct of 
individual officers.” Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47, 51 (1979).  
An assessment of the applicability of the special needs doctrine to a program of 
warrantless searches or seizures requires a two-step analysis. See United States v. Fraire, 
575 F.3d 929, 932 (9th Cir. 2009). First, in order for the special needs exception to apply, 
the “primary purpose” served by the program must be an objective other than the 
governmental body’s “general interest in crime control.” City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 
531 U.S. at 42. If the primary purpose of the program is to advance the general interest in 
crime control – in other words, to “uncover evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing,” 
id. – then the program is presumptively unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. 
Illinois v. Lidster, 540 U.S. 419, 426 (2004). However, the fact that prosecutions may result 
from the implementation of a governmental program of searches or seizures does not 
necessarily mean that the “primary purpose” of the program is to further the State’s general 
interest in crime control. As noted above, sobriety checkpoints have been upheld under the 
special needs doctrine, even though such checkpoints result in the prosecution of 
25 
individuals who are discovered to have driven while impaired. See, e.g., Sitz, 496 U.S. at 
449; Little, 300 Md. at 506. If the State establishes that the program is not “a general crime 
control device,” Fraire, 575 F.3d at 932, then the analysis proceeds to the second step. 
That second step requires the court to evaluate the program’s “reasonableness, [and] 
hence, its constitutionality, on the basis of the individual circumstances.” Lidster, 540 U.S. 
at 426. This requires balancing three factors: (1) the “gravity of the public concerns served 
by the seizure,” (2) the “degree to which the seizure advances the public interest,” and (3) 
the “severity of the interference with individual liberty.” Id. at 427 (quoting Brown v. 
Texas, 443 U.S. at 51).  
At the suppression hearing in this case, the parties disputed whether Corporal 
Russell seized Carter prior to his admission that he lacked a ticket. The State did not raise 
the special needs doctrine as an alternative argument if the circuit court were to determine 
that Corporal Russell seized Carter. In any event, the circuit court concluded that Corporal 
Russell had not seized Carter and did not undertake any factual or legal analysis concerning 
the applicability of the special needs doctrine to MTA’s fare sweep program. In particular, 
the circuit court did not make a factual finding as to the primary purpose of a fare sweep. 
However, in the Court of Special Appeals, the State relied, for the first time, on the special 
needs doctrine as an alternate ground for affirmance of the denial of Carter’s suppression 
motion. 
Contrasting this case with the traffic safety and border cases in which courts have 
upheld suspicionless governmental seizure programs under the special needs doctrine, the 
Court of Special Appeals held that the special needs doctrine does not render MTA fare 
26 
sweeps constitutional. Carter, 243 Md. App. at 232-34 & n.4. To reach this conclusion, the 
Court of Specials Appeals made a finding concerning the primary purpose of this kind of 
fare inspection: 
 
In this case … there is no assertion by the State that the fare inspection 
was being conducted to police the border or ensure roadway safety. In fact, 
officers testified that fare inspections are used as a vehicle to conduct 
outstanding warrant searches. As the primary purpose was to “uncover 
evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing,” we find that the program 
contravenes the Fourth Amendment.  
 
Id. at 233 n.4. Having found the fare sweep presumptively unconstitutional under Edmond, 
the intermediate appellate court did not apply the three Brown v. Texas factors. See id.  
 
The State argues that the Court of Special Appeals erred in determining that the 
primary purpose of a fare sweep is to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing. 
Rather, according to the State, the primary purpose of a fare sweep is not to further a 
general crime-control interest, but rather to deter fare evasion on the Light Rail, thereby 
promoting fare payment. As support for this contention, the State asks us to consider the 
nature of a barrier-free transit system such as the Light Rail, asserting that such a system 
depends on fare inspections to sustain itself.  
We have no reason to doubt that some form of fare inspection is essential for the 
successful operation of a barrier-free transit system. However, it does not necessarily 
follow that the primary purpose of a fare sweep – as opposed to fare inspections that do not 
involve the simultaneous seizure of all passengers on the train and lead to warrant checks 
on all non-paying passengers – is to promote fare payment. One can imagine different 
governmental motivations for different types of fare inspections on the Light Rail. Thus, 
27 
we are not persuaded that the primary purpose of a fare sweep on the Light Rail is to 
promote fare payment, simply based on the nature of a barrier-free transit system. 
The State next points to a Standard Operating Procedure (“SOP”) that MTA has 
publicly issued regarding fare enforcement. See MTA SOP 4.58.37, Fare Enforcement 
Procedure, available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/mta-website-staging/mta-website-
staging/files/Police/Fare%20Enforcement%20Procedure.pdf (last accessed on Jan. 12, 
2021), archived at https://perma.cc/GXR6-JVH7 (the “Fare Inspection SOP”). In 
particular, the State directs our attention to a provision of the Fare Inspection SOP which 
says that “[t]he primary responsibility of the officers performing fare enforcement duties 
will be to deter fare evasion by the riding public.” Id. at 4.58.37.5. However, the State 
represented in its reply brief that this Fare Inspection SOP does not apply to a fare sweep, 
but rather to a different type of fare inspection in which an individual MTA police officer 
boards a Light Rail train and checks passengers’ proof-of-payment while the train is in 
transit. The State informs us that fare sweeps are governed by other SOPs that MTA has 
not made public.14 Nevertheless, the State invites us to conclude from the statement in the 
Fare Inspection SOP concerning the primary responsibility of “officers performing fare 
enforcement duties,” that the primary purpose of a fare sweep is “to deter fare evasion by 
the riding public.” 
We decline the State’s invitation. We have no way to determine whether the phrase 
“fare enforcement duties” in section 4.58.37.5 of the Fare Inspection SOP applies both to 
 
14 The State did not provide us with the SOPs governing fare sweeps, which the 
State says are not in a form that is amenable to judicial notice.  
28 
the individual fare inspections that are the subject of that document, and to fare sweeps that 
have their own governing documents we have not reviewed.  
In addition, we discern material differences between an individual inspection 
covered by the Fare Inspection SOP and a fare sweep. First, as noted above, individual 
officers conduct fare inspections on Light Rail trains while the trains are in transit, whereas 
teams of officers, until the Court of Special Appeals issued its opinion, conducted fare 
sweeps while trains are stationary.  
Second, in a fare sweep, if a passenger fails to show proof of payment, the officer 
has no discretion about what to do next. In that instance, the officer tells the passenger to 
step off the train and see another officer on the platform, at which time an officer will issue 
a citation for fare evasion to the passenger and run a warrant check. In contrast, when an 
individual MTA police officer conducts a fare inspection, if a passenger fails to provide 
proof of payment upon request, the Fare Inspection SOP directs the officer to ask why the 
passenger does not have proof of payment. Id. at 4.58.37.14.2. After the officer makes that 
inquiry, “[i]f a reasonable explanation is given for not having proof of payment, e.g., the 
ticket vending machine was not functioning; [the] customer should be directed to alight the 
train at the next available stop to purchase a ticket. The officer will stand by and verify that 
a ticket has been purchased.” Id. at 4.58.37.14.3. If the passenger does not provide a 
reasonable explanation for lacking proof of payment, the officer can choose between 
issuing a citation or a written warning to the passenger. See id. at 4.58.37.13 & 
4.58.37.14.4. In some circumstances, the officer may arrest a non-paying passenger for a 
fare offense. For example, if the customer refuses to pay the required fare or if the customer 
29 
refuses or fails to display identification upon request, the officer may arrest the passenger. 
Id. at 4.58.37.15, 4.58.37.15.1 & 4.58.37.15.2. However, the Fare Inspection SOP directs 
that an officer should issue a citation, give a written warning, or make an arrest only “after 
all other means have been exhausted to resolve the violation.” Id. at 4.58.37.13.15 
These differences between a fare sweep conducted by multiple officers and a fare 
inspection conducted by an individual officer suggest the possibility (but in no way 
conclusively demonstrate) that a different primary purpose underlies these methods of fare 
enforcement.16 
For his part, Carter contends that the record of the suppression hearing shows that 
the primary purpose of a fare sweep is to detect ordinary criminal wrongdoing. In support 
of this assertion, Carter relies on the officers’ agreement with defense counsel’s leading 
questions suggesting that the purpose of checking for proof of payment in a fare sweep is 
 
15 The Fare Inspection SOP directs an individual officer to run a warrant check on a 
non-paying passenger in some circumstances, although it is not clear what those 
circumstances are. The relevant provision directs an MTA officer to request a warrant 
check “[i]n either situation described in (c) or (d) above,” id. at 4.58.37.14.5, but the Fare 
Inspection SOP does not include any provision delineated as “(c)” or “(d),” and it is not 
otherwise clear to us what the phrase “either situation” references. 
 
16 Amicus curiae Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys’ Association notes that 
MTA won a national award in 2017 for a program MTA called “Light Rail Fare Evasion 
Prevention Program: Reducing Crime and Fare Evasion.” In a press release publicizing this 
award, MTA highlighted its 13 percent increase in fare sweeps from 2015 to 2016 (780 
fare sweeps in 2015 to 885 fare sweeps in 2016). MDOT MTA Wins National Award for 
Rail Safety and Security: Agency Recognized for Crime Reduction, Light Rail Fare Evasion 
Prevention, June 13, 2017, available at https://www.mta.maryland.gov/articles/158 (last 
accessed on Nov. 22, 2020), archived at https://perma.cc/4GS9-WXN7. The press release 
quoted MTA’s Chief of Police as saying, “[o]ur message remains clear – that we will not 
tolerate criminal activity on our transit system…. The Light Rail Fare Evasion Prevention 
Program is successfully meeting its goal of fighting crime and enforcing the law.” 
30 
“to see if people paid,” to “see if someone has committed a crime by riding the train without 
paying,” and to “investigat[e] to determine if someone broke the law as set by MTA.” 
Carter also points to Corporal Russell’s agreement with defense counsel’s characterization 
that “the fare checking also works as an apparatus to be able to check people for warrants 
as well.” Further, Carter relies on the circuit court’s statement that the “fare inspection, 
albeit investigatory, was not concentrated on [Carter] personally.” (Emphasis added.) 
Carter claims that this is a factual finding by the circuit court that the purpose of a fare 
sweep is the “detection of criminal activity.” The State responds that Carter’s argument 
and the Court of Special Appeals’ holding on this issue are flawed because “Carter and the 
intermediate appellate court did not rely on any statement of MTA policy or on testimony 
from any policymaker” in determining the primary purpose of a fare sweep.  
Unlike the Court of Special Appeals, we are not persuaded that MTA’s “primary 
purpose” in directing officers to conduct fare sweeps on Light Rail trains is apparent from 
the record of the suppression hearing. There was no foundational testimony showing that 
the officers know, as a matter of MTA policy, what the purpose of a fare sweep is, much 
less the “primary purpose” of this type of fare inspection. Nor did the officers identify any 
particular purpose of a fare sweep as MTA’s primary purpose, or testify that there are no 
other purposes of a fare sweep beyond those defense counsel asked about.17  
 
17 In her concurring opinion, Judge Watts interprets our discussion of the evidence 
presented at the suppression hearing as providing litigation advice to the State and 
criticizing Carter’s trial counsel. Respectfully, we do neither of these things. We express 
no view as to how the State (or a defendant) should litigate a special needs case in the 
future, or as to which arguments we may or may not find persuasive, should another case 
testing the constitutionality of an MTA fare sweep come before us. Our discussion of the 
31 
Contrary to Carter’s contention, the circuit court’s description of the fare sweep as 
“investigatory” is not a factual finding that the primary purpose of the fare sweep is general 
crime control. A sobriety checkpoint is also “investigatory” in the sense that officers 
investigate whether drivers are impaired, and the State prosecutes drivers who are found to 
be impaired after such investigation. Thus, as Sitz and other checkpoint cases demonstrate, 
the means of a government program may be “investigatory,” but the primary purpose of 
the program nevertheless may be to address a special need beyond the general need for law 
enforcement. Indeed, if the police-citizen interactions that occur as part of such government 
programs were not “investigatory,” there would be no need to consider whether those 
programs are constitutional under the special needs exception to the warrant requirement. 
Of course, after hearing evidence at a suppression hearing, a court may find that the primary 
purpose of a program of “investigatory” government seizures is general crime control. The 
determination of a such a program’s primary purpose, and ultimately, whether the program 
passes constitutional muster under the special needs doctrine, depends on the nature and 
circumstances of the program in question.  
In sum, we conclude that the record is insufficient to determine the primary purpose 
of a fare sweep. Because we do not know the primary purpose of a fare sweep, we also do 
not know whether it is necessary to undertake the three-part balancing analysis set forth in 
 
officers’ testimony as it relates to the special needs issue is necessary to address Carter’s 
appellate argument that the primary purpose of a fare sweep is clear from the record of the 
suppression hearing. We have explained here why the primary purpose of a fare sweep is 
not apparent from the testimony of the officers at the suppression hearing, but that is not a 
criticism of Carter’s trial counsel, who had no burden to raise the special needs doctrine at 
the hearing – and indeed did not raise the issue in the circuit court. 
32 
Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. at 51, let alone what the result of that analysis would be. In short, 
we cannot say one way or the other whether the special needs exception applies to the fare 
sweep at issue in this case. For this reason, we are unable to adopt the holding of the Court 
of Special Appeals that the special needs doctrine does not render Carter’s seizure 
constitutional. Nevertheless, it was the State’s burden to establish the applicability of the 
special needs exception at the suppression hearing in this case in order to argue that the 
seizure of Carter was constitutional on that basis. The State failed to do so. Thus, we will 
affirm the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals unless the State prevails in its 
attenuation argument, which we consider next. 
B. Assuming an MTA Fare Sweep Is Not Constitutional Under the Special Needs 
Doctrine, the State’s Attenuation Argument Fails.  
 
The State argues that, even if Corporal Russell seized Carter unlawfully, we 
nevertheless should affirm the denial of Carter’s suppression motion because the discovery 
of the warrant for Carter’s arrest attenuated the taint of the unlawful seizure. In this section 
of our opinion, we assume that a fare sweep does not pass Fourth Amendment muster under 
the special needs doctrine,18 and we reject the State’s attenuation argument. 
Under the exclusionary rule, a Fourth Amendment violation that results in the 
discovery of evidence typically warrants suppression of that evidence. See Mapp v. Ohio, 
 
18 The State made its attenuation argument to us apparently under the assumption 
that we would only reach the attenuation issue if we held that the special needs exception 
does not apply to MTA’s program of fare sweeps aboard stationary Light Rail trains. As 
explained in the previous section of this opinion, we are not deciding in this case whether 
the special needs doctrine renders MTA fare sweeps constitutional as a general matter. We 
hold only that the State failed to prove at Carter’s suppression hearing that this particular 
seizure was constitutional. However, because the State bases its attenuation argument in 
33 
367 U.S. 643, 655 (1961). But, as the Supreme Court has explained, “the significant costs” 
of the exclusionary rule have led the Court “to deem it applicable only where its deterrence 
benefits outweigh its substantial social costs.” Utah v. Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2061 (cleaned 
up). Thus, the Court has recognized several exceptions to the exclusionary rule, one of 
which is the attenuation doctrine. This exception provides that “[e]vidence is admissible 
when the connection between unconstitutional police conduct and the evidence is remote 
or has been interrupted by some intervening circumstance, so that the interest protected by 
the constitutional guarantee that has been violated would not be served by suppression of 
the evidence obtained.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).  
In Brown v. Illinois, the Supreme Court set forth three factors that courts should 
consider when determining the applicability of the attenuation doctrine in a particular case: 
(1) the temporal proximity between the unlawful conduct and the discovery of the 
evidence; (2) the presence of intervening circumstances; and (3) the purpose and flagrancy 
of the official misconduct. Brown, 422 U.S. at 603-04; Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2062. Although 
the third factor is particularly significant, see Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2062, “no single factor 
is dispositive.” Cox v. State, 421 Md. 630, 653 (2011) (internal quotation marks and 
citations omitted).   
We agree with the Court of Special Appeals that, in this case, the first two factors 
essentially cancel each other out. See Carter, 243 Md. App. at 238-39. The discovery of 
 
large part on the fact that no court has ever declared MTA’s fare sweep program 
unconstitutional, we find it expedient to assume, for purposes of this section of the opinion 
only, that the special needs exception does not apply to an MTA fare sweep aboard a 
stationary Light Rail train.   
34 
the gun came within minutes of the fare sweep, which favors suppression. However, the 
discovery of the open warrant was an intervening circumstance, which cuts against 
exclusion of the gun. Thus, the applicability of the attenuation doctrine to this case turns 
on the third factor: the purpose and flagrancy of the assumed police misconduct.  
The State contends that the fare sweep – if illegal – is not purposefully or flagrantly 
illegal, such that the exclusionary rule should apply to the evidence the officers discovered 
incident to arresting Carter on the open warrant. The State makes three points in support 
of this position. First, the State notes that a fare sweep only leads to warrant checks for 
those passengers who are unable to provide proof of payment. In other words, as the State 
puts it, if a fare sweep “is constitutionally infirm, then the infirmity lies only in the initial 
announcement of a fare inspection to all passengers – not the detention of an individual 
passenger whom officers have probable cause to cite for fare evasion, nor to conducting a 
warrant check on such a fare evader while the citation is prepared.” The State cites no 
authority for the proposition that an illegal warrantless seizure of a group of people should 
not be deemed flagrant misconduct if it leads to further detention of only those as to whom 
reasonable suspicion or probable cause develops. Surely, the State would not argue that the 
taint from a warrantless, suspicionless “dragnet” seizure of 20 people on a city block, so 
that a drug-sniffing dog could be led by each person, would be attenuated by the fact that 
the dog only alerted on one of those individuals, who was then detained further and 
searched, leading to the discovery of drugs on his person. But for the deliberate, illegal 
seizure at the outset, police would not have developed reasonable suspicion or probable 
35 
cause to further detain that one person. In this regard, we see no meaningful distinction 
between this hypothetical seizure and a fare sweep.   
Second, the State compares this case to Strieff, in which the Supreme Court held 
that the discovery of an open warrant attenuated the taint from an illegal seizure that 
resulted from an officer’s negligence.19 According to the State, the case for attenuation is 
even stronger here, where the seizure is the product of a policy that has not previously been 
held unconstitutional. A contrary result, the State suggests, “would have the perverse result 
that an officer’s ‘negligent’ failure to comply with well-established Fourth Amendment 
requirements could be saved by the discovery of a warrant, as in Strieff, … but that officers’ 
scrupulous adherence to a policy found unconstitutional as an issue of first impression, 
after decades of practice, would not.” 
 
19 In Strieff, a narcotics detective stopped Strieff after he left a residence the officer 
was investigating in connection with alleged drug distribution. 136 S. Ct. at 2059-60. 
Strieff provided identification to the officer, who then learned that there was an open 
warrant for Strieff’s arrest. The officer arrested Strieff on the warrant and searched him 
incident to arrest, discovering methamphetamine. Id. at 2060. The prosecution conceded 
that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to detain Strieff at the outset, but argued that 
the subsequent discovery of the warrant for Strieff’s arrest attenuated the taint of the 
unlawful seizure. The Supreme Court agreed with the prosecution, reasoning that the 
Fourth Amendment violation was not purposeful or flagrant. To the contrary, the officer 
“was at most negligent” in that he “made two good-faith mistakes. First, he had not 
observed what time Strieff entered the suspected drug house, so he did not know how long 
Strieff had been there. [The officer] thus lacked a sufficient basis to conclude that Strieff 
was a short-term visitor who may have been consummating a drug transaction. Second, 
because he lacked confirmation that Strieff was a short-term visitor, [the officer] should 
have asked Strieff whether he would speak with him, instead of demanding that Strieff do 
so…. But these errors in judgment hardly rise to a purposeful or flagrant violation of 
Strieff's Fourth Amendment rights.” Id. at 2063.  
36 
The State’s attempt to shift focus from a policy that requires officers to conduct 
what, for purposes of argument, we are assuming to be illegal seizures, to the officers’ 
“scrupulous adherence” to that policy, is unavailing. What matters here is the program of 
regular, frequent, warrantless, and suspicionless seizures that we assume, for purposes of 
this analysis, are unlawful. This is the type of “systemic or recurrent police misconduct,” 
Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2063, that warrants suppression of evidence, even where an intervening 
circumstance has provided an otherwise legitimate basis for the search that yielded the 
evidence in question. This is especially the case here, where MTA requires officers to run 
warrant checks on all individuals who are found to have evaded fare payment in the course 
of a sweep. We reject the State’s circular reliance on the discovery of a warrant to attenuate 
the taint of an illegal agency program that requires officers to search for open warrants as 
part of the program. 
Nor does it matter that a government program of illegal seizures has not previously 
been held unconstitutional. The State generally does not get a free pass when a court rules 
against it in the course of breaking new ground in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.20 We 
see no justification for a different approach in this case. 
 
20 An exception occurs when officers rely in good faith on a warrant that turns out 
not to have been supported by probable cause. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 
(1984). The Leon good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule obviously is inapplicable 
to the warrantless scenario presented here. The State, however, points to Davis v. United 
States, 564 U.S. 229 (2011), in which the Supreme Court relied on Leon in holding that the 
exclusionary rule does not apply where officers conduct a warrantless search in 
conformance with a then-binding court decision that is subsequently overruled. But Davis 
is not analogous to this case. If, in a prior reported opinion involving a different defendant, 
the Court of Special Appeals had held that the MTA fare sweep program was constitutional, 
37 
Finally, the State argues that there is no “deterrence benefit to be gained from 
ascribing ‘flagrant misconduct’ to the MTA as an agency at the policy-setting level.” The 
State assures us that, if we were to rule that MTA fare sweeps are unconstitutional, MTA 
would “learn what is required of it under Fourth Amendment precedent” and would 
“conform its conduct and policies accordingly… It will not need the ‘deterrent’ effect of 
the exclusionary rule to do so.” However, the State cites no authority for the proposition 
that we should analyze the exclusionary rule differently here, where we are concerned with 
a program of agency-sanctioned seizures, than we do in a Fourth Amendment case of first 
impression involving an officer’s exercise of judgment in the moment. Moreover, we see 
value in applying the exclusionary rule here (again, assuming the special needs doctrine 
does not apply to a fare sweep). Our holding reinforces for MTA and all other state and 
local agencies that they should proceed with caution when implementing a program of 
warrantless, suspicionless seizures. As the Supreme Court noted in Strieff, if that case 
involved a “dragnet” seizure of multiple individuals without reasonable suspicion, and not 
just an individual officer’s mistaken belief that he had reasonable suspicion to stop Strieff, 
“the application of the Brown factors could be different.” Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2064. We 
believe the application of the Brown v. Illinois factors is different in this case involving a 
“dragnet” seizure of all passengers aboard a Light Rail train and the requirement to run 
 
and MTA carried out the fare sweep at issue here in reliance on that hypothetical prior 
decision, then this case would be analogous to Davis. 
38 
warrant checks on all passengers who are found to have evaded fare payment as a result of 
the seizure.21 
IV 
Conclusion 
Corporal Russell effected a seizure of Carter without reasonable suspicion when she 
announced the fare sweep on the Light Rail train in which Carter was a passenger. Carter 
did not impliedly consent to such a seizure by riding the Light Rail. Assuming the seizure 
was not constitutional under the special needs doctrine, the discovery of the warrant for 
Carter’s arrest did not attenuate the taint of the unlawful seizure. We affirm the Court of 
Special Appeals on the foregoing points.  
The record before us is insufficiently developed to conclude whether or not Light 
Rail fare sweeps are constitutional under the special needs doctrine. Because it was the 
State’s burden to establish the constitutionality of Carter’s seizure, and the State failed at 
the suppression hearing to meet that burden, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Special 
Appeals.  
JUDGMENT 
OF 
THE 
COURT 
OF 
SPECIAL APPEALS AFFIRMED. COSTS 
TO BE PAID BY THE MAYOR AND CITY 
COUNCIL OF BALTIMORE.  
 
21 We do not rule out the possibility that, in a case involving a program of 
governmental seizures, the attenuation doctrine may apply where the primary purpose of 
the program is not to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing, but where the 
special needs exception ultimately does not apply to the program based on the application 
of the Brown v. Texas factors.  
 
 
 
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS 
 
OF MARYLAND 
 
No. 74 
 
September Term, 2019 
______________________________________ 
 
STATE OF MARYLAND 
 
v. 
 
KENNARD CARTER 
______________________________________ 
 
Barbera, C.J. 
McDonald 
Watts 
Hotten 
Getty 
Booth 
Biran, 
 
JJ. 
______________________________________ 
 
Concurring Opinion by Watts, J. 
______________________________________ 
 
Filed: January 29, 2021 
 
Circuit Court for Baltimore City 
Case No. 117303014  
Argued: September 15, 2020 
 
Respectfully, I concur.  I agree with the Majority that officers of the Maryland 
Transit Administration Police (“the MTA Police”) seized Kennard Carter, Respondent, that 
the implied consent doctrine and the attenuation doctrine do not apply here, and that the 
State did not satisfy its burden to prove the applicability of the special needs doctrine.  See 
Maj. Slip Op. at 38.  I cannot, however, join the Majority’s decision because it, in dicta, 
gives unnecessary and incorrect advice about how to evaluate testimony regarding the 
application of the special needs doctrine going forward.  Maj. Slip Op. at 29-30.  Because 
the Majority concludes that the State failed to meet its burden to establish that the special 
needs doctrine applies, see Maj. Slip Op. at 38, the Majority’s commentary on how it 
believes the State potentially could have done so, see Maj. Slip Op. at 29-30, is not 
necessary to the Majority’s analysis, is dicta, and does not constitute a holding or binding 
precedent.  In engaging in such dicta, the Majority essentially offers the State advice 
regarding how to prove, in a future case, that there is a special need for fare inspection 
sweeps.  See Maj. Slip Op. at 29-30.  
In addition, my concern is that, in discussing the State’s failure to meet its burden 
in this case, the majority opinion raises the inference that Carter somehow erred in cross-
examining law enforcement officers in an attempt to show that the primary purpose of a 
fare inspection sweep is to advance the general interest in crime control rather than an 
identifiable special need.  See Maj. Slip Op. at 29-30.  Of equal concern, the majority 
opinion appears to advise that “foundational testimony” is required before law enforcement 
officers may be permitted to testify about the primary purpose of the fare inspection sweep, 
or that, if law enforcement officers are permitted to testify concerning the primary purpose 
- 2 - 
of the program, such testimony should not be credited without some type of a 
“foundational” showing.  Maj. Slip Op. at 30.  The majority opinion also unnecessarily, 
and one-sidedly, advises that, to the extent Carter alleged that the primary purpose of a fare 
inspection sweep is “investigatory[,]” the primary purpose of a sweep could nonetheless 
be to pursue a special need beyond the general interest in crime control.  Maj. Slip Op. at 
31.1  
 
1Although the Majority denies providing advice to the State and being critical of 
Carter’s counsel, see Maj. Slip Op. at 30 n.17, the denial is inaccurate.  Respectfully, a fair 
reading of the majority opinion is that, just as the concurring opinion says, it unnecessarily 
provides advice to the State and is critical of Carter’s counsel.  If it had wished to do so, 
the Majority could have concluded its discussion of the special needs doctrine by 
determining that, “[u]nlike the Court of Special Appeals, we are not persuaded that MTA’s 
‘primary purpose’ in directing officers to conduct fare sweeps on Light Rail trains is 
apparent from the record of the suppression hearing.”  Maj. Slip Op. at 30.  The Majority 
did not need to go into any detail about the purported need for “foundational testimony[,]” 
Maj. Slip Op. at 30, Carter’s counsel’s leading questions, see Maj. Slip Op. at 29-30, or the 
notion that an investigatory government program could nonetheless serve a special need, 
see Maj. Slip Op. at 31.  Gratuitously, however, the Majority discusses all of these points. 
The reality is that this Court is not required to negate Carter’s argument that the 
primary purpose of an MTA fare inspection sweep is plain from the record.  In other words, 
to conclude that the MTA fare inspection sweep was not shown to be constitutional under 
the special needs doctrine, this Court does not have to adopt Carter’s contention that the 
record shows that the primary purpose was the general interest in crime control.  Instead, 
all that is needed is for this Court to determine that the State did not meet its burden to 
prove that the special needs doctrine applies.  It is unnecessary to refute Carter’s assertions 
as to the special needs doctrine, as he has no burden of proof.  And, there is no refuting that 
the Majority does not make a similar critique of the State’s arguments concerning a fare 
inspection sweep, i.e., that a sweep furthers the deterrence and the payment of fares.  There 
is no denying that the State will likely cite the dicta in the majority opinion in any future 
attempt to demonstrate that the primary purpose of a fare inspection sweep is not a general 
interest in crime control, namely, that a foundation is required for police officer testimony 
and that a fare inspection sweep, while an investigatory program, may still pursue a special 
need.  In a positive development, though, in responding to the concurrence, the Majority 
now acknowledges that Carter had no burden of proof, and expressly disavows criticizing 
his counsel.  See Maj. Slip Op. at 30-31 n.17. 
 
- 3 - 
In a clear reference to Carter’s attempt to cross-examine law enforcement officer 
witnesses in an effort to show that the primary purpose of a fare inspection sweep is 
consistent with the general interest in crime control, the majority opinion states: 
[W]e are not persuaded that MTA’s “primary purpose” in directing officers 
to conduct fare sweeps on Light Rail trains is apparent from the record of the 
suppression hearing.  There was no foundational testimony showing that the 
officers know, as a matter of MTA policy, what the purpose of a fare sweep 
is, much less the “primary purpose” of this type of fare inspection.  Nor did 
the officers identify any particular purpose of a fare sweep as MTA’s primary 
purpose, or testify that there are no other purposes of a fare sweep beyond 
those defense counsel asked about.  
 
Maj. Slip Op. at 30 (footnote omitted).  
First, neither Carter nor any similarly situated defendant has the burden of 
persuasion or any burden to call witnesses to establish the primary purpose of a program 
that the State claims is constitutional under the special needs doctrine, let alone to make a 
foundational showing for the testimony of witnesses whom they seek to cross-examine in 
an attempt to demonstrate the primary purpose of a State program that resulted in a seizure.  
The Majority states that, in support of Carter’s contention that the record shows that the 
primary purpose of a fare inspection sweep is the detecting of ordinary criminal 
wrongdoing, 
Carter relies on the officers’ agreement with defense counsel’s leading 
questions suggesting that the purpose of checking for proof of payment in a 
fare sweep is “to see if people paid,” to “see if someone has committed a 
crime by riding the train without paying,” and to “investigat[e] to determine 
if someone broke the law as set by MTA.”  Carter also points to Corporal 
Russell’s agreement with defense counsel’s characterization that “the fare 
checking also works as an apparatus to be able to check people for warrants 
as well.” 
 
Maj. Slip Op. at 29-30 (alteration in original).  To the extent that the Majority writes that 
- 4 - 
law enforcement officers responded to Carter’s counsel’s leading questions and that the 
officers’ testimony lacked any foundation, it must be pointed out that Carter had no 
obligation to prove anything, and that finding fault with his counsel for asking leading 
questions on cross-examination, or implying that Carter failed to supply a “foundational” 
basis for the law enforcement officer’s testimony, Maj. Slip Op. at 30, is just plain wrong.  
What is more perplexing is that the Majority chose to do this.  The analysis of the 
applicability of the special needs doctrine in this case is straightforward—the State had the 
burden to prove the applicability of the special needs doctrine as an exception to the 
requirement for reasonable suspicion or probable cause to seize Carter, and the State failed 
to do so.  That is the beginning and the end of the story. 
That Carter was represented by trial counsel who chose to cross-examine law 
enforcement officers to preempt or counter an anticipated argument by the State that 
Carter’s seizure was constitutional under the special needs doctrine does not, as the 
majority opinion implies, transfer the burden of proof to Carter.  The critical part of the 
analysis concerning the special needs doctrine is that, in the circuit court, the State never 
raised an issue as to the special needs doctrine or the primary purpose of the fare inspection 
sweep.  See Maj. Slip Op. at 25.  Of course, a defendant would be motivated to attempt to 
cross-examine law enforcement officers to demonstrate that, insofar as the special needs 
doctrine is concerned, the purpose of the program at issue is the pursuit of the general 
interest in crime control, but the defendant is not required to do so. 
This is not a situation in which an appellate court is unable to tell the primary 
purpose because, somehow, Carter failed to present witnesses with an adequate foundation, 
- 5 - 
or his counsel asked improper leading questions; this is a situation in which the State failed 
to meet its burden.  Carter had no burden to call any witnesses with respect to the 
applicability of the special needs doctrine, let alone call witnesses and make a foundational 
showing as to the testimony of the witnesses.  At the suppression hearing, unless a valid 
objection had been lodged—and it was not—Carter was free to cross-examine the State’s 
witnesses, who were law enforcement officers, and those witnesses were free to testify, 
regarding the purpose of their participation in fare inspection sweeps without any 
foundational showing. 
The majority opinion also advises that, although Carter alleges that the police action 
at issue was investigatory, the primary purpose of the program may still be found to satisfy 
a special need.  See Maj. Slip Op. at 31.  This is information that will undoubtedly be 
helpful to the State to prove, in a future case, that there is a special need for fare inspection 
sweeps.  Specifically, the majority opinion states: 
Contrary to Carter’s contention, the circuit court’s description of the 
fare sweep as “investigatory” is not a factual finding that the primary purpose 
of the fare sweep is general crime control.  A sobriety checkpoint is also 
“investigatory” in the sense that officers investigate whether drivers are 
impaired, and the State prosecutes drivers who are found to be impaired after 
such investigation.  Thus, as Sitz and other checkpoint cases demonstrate, the 
means of a government program may be “investigatory,” but the primary 
purpose of the program nevertheless may be to address a special need beyond 
the general need for law enforcement. 
 
Maj. Slip Op. at 31.  As to the other side of the analysis, the majority opinion simply goes 
on to state: “Of course, after hearing evidence at a suppression hearing, a court may find 
that the primary purpose of a program of ‘investigatory’ government seizures is general 
crime control.”  Maj. Slip Op. at 31.  With this single sentence, the Majority gives short 
- 6 - 
shrift to the circumstance that an investigatory program could in actuality be one that 
pursues a general interest in crime control.  Moreover, the Majority does not in any way 
describe the circumstance that, although the State may contend that an investigatory 
program has a primary purpose that exceeds the general interest in crime control under 
Michigan Dep’t of State Police v. Sitz, 496 U.S. 444 (1990), the program may still be found 
to indeed further an interest in crime control.  
As to the State’s contention, the Majority states:  
[A]ccording to the State, the primary purpose of a fare sweep is not to further 
a general crime-control interest, but rather to deter fare evasion on the Light 
Rail, thereby promoting fare payment.  As support for this contention, the 
State asks us to consider the nature of a barrier-free transit system such as 
the Light Rail, asserting that such a system depends on fare inspections to 
sustain itself.   
 
Maj. Slip Op. at 26.    Unlike with the points raised by Carter, the Majority does not go to 
the length of pointing out that the position taken the State may be incorrect.  In the interest 
of providing balance lacking in the majority opinion, I provide the following thoughts 
about the State’s argument concerning deterrence.  Although the State argues otherwise, 
deterring the crime of fare evasion may be found to advance the ordinary interest in crime 
control.  By statute, fare evasion is a crime that carries a fine, and, under certain 
circumstances, a non-paying passenger may be arrested, and in practice with MTA fare 
inspections sweeps non-paying passengers on the Light Rail were routinely seized and 
subjected to the issuance of citations and warrant checks.  It is clear that alleging deterrence 
to promote fare payment as the primary purpose of a fare inspection sweep would not 
necessarily bring a fare inspection sweep within the special needs exception.   
- 7 - 
In addition, from my perspective, although promoting fare payment in general may 
be a benefit of deterring fare evasion, it may be collateral to the primary purpose of the fare 
inspection sweep, which, as identified by the State, is deterring fare evasion.  In Sitz, 496 
U.S. at 447-48, the Supreme Court upheld a sobriety checkpoint, where the arrest of drunk 
drivers was involved, on the ground that the primary purpose of the checkpoint was to 
promote highway safety.  In Sitz, the law enforcement activity of arresting a person for 
drunk driving was directly related to the primary purpose or goal of promoting highway 
safety.  The difference here is that citing or arresting a person for fare evasion during a fare 
inspection sweep does nothing to immediately or directly promote fare payment by the 
general public.  Any benefit in the area of promoting payment of fares and more broadly, 
as the State alleges,  providing “a barrier-free transit system” may be speculative and occur 
only on the assumption that members of the public somehow become aware of the 
existence of fare inspection sweeps and thereby in the future pay a fare that they otherwise 
would not have paid as a result.  In other words, any benefit in terms of promoting fare 
payment and the existence of a barrier-free transportation system may be uncertain and 
clearly attenuated from the act of conducting a fare inspection sweep; accordingly, despite 
whatever the State may say, and the majority opinion may leave unsaid, deterring fare 
evasion may not be distinct from pursuing a general interest in crime control. 
In closing, the Majority unnecessarily gives advice to the State, criticizes Carter’s 
counsel, and implies that Carter failed to lay a foundation for the State’s witnesses’ 
testimony that the purpose of a fare inspection sweep is to determine whether members of 
the public have committed a crime.  See Maj. Slip Op. at 30.  To the extent that the majority 
- 8 - 
opinion implies that Carter had the burden to lay such a foundation, or that any law 
enforcement officer needs such a foundation to testify, such an implication is merely dicta 
and indeed in this case is wrong.  For these reasons, I do not join the majority opinion but 
rather I concur.