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This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before

publication in the New York Reports.

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No. 50 

The People &c.,

 Appellant,

 v.

Rebecca Guthrie,

 Respondent.

Bruce Rosekrans, for appellant.

Andrew D. Correia, for respondent.

STEIN, J.:

In this appeal, we are asked to decide whether there is

probable cause to make a traffic stop for a suspected violation

of law in accordance with article I, § 12 of the New York State

Constitution and the Fourth Amendment of the United States

Constitution if the justification for the stop is based upon a

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police officer's objectively reasonable, but mistaken, view of

the law. We conclude that where, as here, the officer's mistake

about the law is reasonable, the stop is constitutional.

I

At approximately 12:15 a.m. on September 27, 2009, a

police officer stopped defendant's vehicle after observing the

vehicle drive past a stop sign without stopping. The stop sign

was located at the edge of a supermarket parking lot in the

Village of Newark, Wayne County, and defendant was exiting the

lot onto a public street. Upon stopping defendant, the officer

smelled a strong odor of alcohol. After defendant failed field

sobriety tests and a breath analysis revealed that her blood

alcohol level was over the legal limit, the officer arrested

defendant and charged her with failing to stop at a stop sign in

violation of Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1172 (a) and driving while

intoxicated under Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1192 (2) and (3).

Asserting lack of probable cause for the initial stop,

defendant moved to suppress the evidence resulting therefrom. 

The Newark Village Court took judicial notice of the location of

the stop sign and that it was not registered in the Village Code

(see Newark Village Code § 140-46). The court granted the

suppression motion and dismissed the charges on the ground that

the stop was not justified because the stop sign was not properly

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registered, as required by Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1100 (b).1

County Court of Wayne County affirmed, concluding that because

the stop sign was not legally authorized, the traffic stop was

improper because the officer's good faith was insufficient to

"blink away any irregularities in the laws he [was] attempting to

enforce." A Judge of this Court granted the People leave to

appeal (22 NY3d 1156 [2014]), and we now reverse.

II

As this Court has previously explained, "any exercise

of police power under the Fourth Amendment of the United States

Constitution and our State constitutional corollary must be

reasonable -- a seizure by the police may not be arbitrary"

(People v Robinson, 97 NY2d 341, 353 [2001]; see Heien v North

Carolina, ___ US ___, ___, 135 S Ct 530, 536 [2014]). A traffic

stop is a seizure and is permissible under the Fourth Amendment

and article I, § 12 of the State Constitution when "a police

officer has probable cause to believe that the driver of an

automobile has committed a traffic violation" (Robinson, 97 NY2d

at 349; see Whren v United States, 517 US 806, 809-810 [1996]). 

Probable cause, in turn, "does not require proof sufficient to

warrant a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt but merely

1

 As relevant here, Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1100 (b)

provides that the rules of the road "relating to obedience to

stop signs . . . shall apply to a parking lot only when the

legislative body of any city, village or town has adopted a local

law, ordinance, rule or regulation ordering such signs."

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information sufficient to support a reasonable belief

that an offense has been or is being committed or that evidence

of a crime may be found in a certain place" (People v Bigelow, 66

NY2d 417, 423 [1985] [emphasis added]; see Ornelas v United

States, 517 US 690, 696 [1996]). Thus, "[a] police officer who

can articulate credible facts establishing reasonable cause to

believe that someone has violated a law has established a

reasonable basis to effectuate a [traffic] stop" (Robinson, 97

NY2d at 353-354).

Generally, a traffic stop is justified when an officer

observes a vehicle fail to stop at a stop sign (see Vehicle and

Traffic Law § 1172 [a]; People v Davis, 32 AD3d 445, 445 [2d Dept

2006], lv denied 7 NY3d 924 [2006]). However, the parties here

are in agreement that the stop sign at issue was not legally

valid because it was not properly registered as required by

Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1100 (b). Thus, the People concede

that defendant could not be prosecuted for a stop sign violation. 

Nevertheless, the People argue that the traffic stop was

constitutionally justified because the officer observed what he

reasonably believed to be a violation of the Vehicle and Traffic

Law. Defendant counters that the officer made a mistake of law

and that such a mistake, even if reasonable, can never provide

justification for a traffic stop.

 Although defendant and the dissent correctly note that

the officer's good faith belief that she violated the Vehicle and

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Traffic Law was not sufficient to justify the traffic stop (see

Bigelow, 66 NY2d at 426-427), the relevant question before us is

not whether the officer acted in good faith, but whether his

belief that a traffic violation had occurred was objectively

reasonable (see People v Estrella, 10 NY3d 945, 946 [2008], cert

denied 555 US 1032 [2008]; see also Robinson, 97 NY2d at 349-350,

353-354).2 Recently, in Heien v North Carolina, the Supreme

Court of the United States clarified that the Fourth Amendment

tolerates objectively reasonable mistakes supporting such a

belief, whether they are mistakes of fact or mistakes of law (135

S Ct at 539). Heien involved a traffic stop of a vehicle that

had only one working brake light, which the officer mistakenly

believed to be a violation of North Carolina law (see id. at 534-

535). The Court noted that, in its more recent precedent, it had

"recognized that searches and seizures based on mistakes of fact

can be reasonable," and concluded that "[t]here is no reason,

under the text of the Fourth Amendment or our precedents," why

the same result should not be acceptable "when reached by way of

a similarly reasonable mistake of law" (id. at 536). Citing a

2 This distinction is significant in that a mistake of law

that is merely made in "good faith" will not validate a traffic

stop; rather, unless the mistake is objectively reasonable, any

evidence gained from the stop -- whether based on a mistake of

law or a mistake of fact -- must be suppressed. Thus, contrary

to the dissent's suggestion, our holding in this case does not

represent a limitation on the rule set forth in People v Bigelow

(66 NY2d 417 [1985]) that there is no good faith exception to the

exclusionary rule (see id. at 427).

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number of its 19th-century decisions "explaining the concept of

probable cause" (id. at 537), the Court stated that its "cases

dating back two centuries support treating legal and factual

errors alike in this context" (id. at 536-537). In light of "the

reality that an officer may suddenly confront a situation in the

field as to which the application of a statute is unclear --

however clear it may later become" (id. at 539 [internal

quotation marks omitted]) -- the Court concluded that the

officer's misreading of the statute at issue, which was

susceptible of multiple interpretations and had not been

definitively construed by the North Carolina appellate courts,

amounted to a reasonable mistake of law justifying the traffic

stop (see id. at 540). Thus, while the defendant could not be

prosecuted under North Carolina law for having only one brake

light, his cocaine-trafficking conviction -- which flowed from a

search incident to the traffic stop -- was upheld (see id.).

Similarly, in People v Estrella, this Court affirmed an

Appellate Division order upholding the denial of a motion to

suppress cocaine recovered after a traffic stop based upon car

windows that were over-tinted under Vehicle and Traffic Law § 375

(12-a) (b) but permissible in Georgia, the state in which the

vehicle was registered (10 NY3d at 946, affg 48 AD3d 1283, 1284-

1285 [2008]).3

 The Fourth Department concluded that suppression

3

 Vehicle and Traffic Law § 250 (1) provides an exemption

from its requirements for nonresident vehicle owners whose

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of the drugs found as a result of the traffic stop was not

warranted because, among other things, "it is unreasonable to

require that police officers be familiar with the equipment

requirement laws of every state, and presumably other countries,

in order to effectuate a proper stop for a violation of New York

State law" (Estrella, 48 AD3d at 1285). Two dissenting Justices

would have reversed on the ground that the officer who stopped

the vehicle made a mistake of law and, therefore, lacked probable

cause to believe that defendant had committed a traffic

infraction. The dissenters reasoned that a "mistake of law, as

opposed to a mistake of fact, cannot justify the stop of a

vehicle and the ensuing search and subsequent seizure of evidence

therefrom," and that "police officers must be charged with the

objective standard of knowing whether [a traffic] infraction

occurred" (id. at 1287).

On appeal, we affirmed, rejecting the rationale of the

dissenting Justices. Without drawing any distinction between

mistakes of fact and mistakes of law in the context of traffic

stops, we determined that "[t]he record supports the finding that

the officer who stopped the car reasonably believed the windows

to be over-tinted in violation of [the] Vehicle and Traffic Law"

(Estrella, 10 NY3d at 946 [emphasis added]). We concluded that

the officer was not chargeable with knowledge that the window

vehicles are in compliance with the registration and equipment

requirements of the nonresident's home state, so long as the

state grants "like exemptions" to New York residents.

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tinting was legal in Georgia (see id.).

III

So too here, we look to the reasonableness of the

officer's belief that defendant violated the Vehicle and Traffic

Law, without drawing any distinction between mistakes of fact and

mistakes of law. In Estrella, the arresting officer would have

been expected to know that Vehicle and Traffic Law § 250 (1)

provides an exemption from this state's registration and

equipment requirements for out-of-state vehicles that comply with

the requirements of the state in which they are registered. We

concluded, however, that because the officer was not chargeable

with knowledge of the legal registration and equipment

requirements of Georgia, the stop was justified based upon the

officer's reasonable belief that the defendant had violated the

Vehicle and Traffic Law (Estrella, 10 NY3d at 946). Similarly

here, we are not saying that it would have been objectively

reasonable for the arresting officer to have claimed ignorance of

the requirement in Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1100 (b) that a stop

sign in a parking lot be registered to be valid. We are saying

that the stop was nonetheless constitutionally justified because

the officer was not chargeable with knowing each and every stop

sign that was registered under the Newark Village Code.

We note that defendant and the dissent rely upon a

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string of Appellate Division cases holding that, "[w]here the

officer's belief is based on an erroneous interpretation of law,

the stop is illegal at the outset and any further actions by the

police as a direct result of the [traffic] stop are illegal"

(Matter of Byer v Jackson, 241 AD2d 943, 944-945 [4th Dept 1997];

see People v Rose, 67 AD3d 1447, 1449 [4th Dept 2009]; People v

Smith, 67 AD3d 1392, 1392 [4th Dept 2009]; see also People v

Allen, 90 AD3d 1082, 1084 [3d Dept 2011]; People v MacKenzie, 61

AD3d 703, 703 [2d Dept 2009], lv denied 13 NY3d 798 [2009];

People v Jean-Pierre, 47 AD3d 445, 445 [1st Dept 2008], lv denied

10 NY3d 865 [2008]). The dissent maintains that, given these

Appellate Division cases, Estrella could not have been intended

to "eliminate[]" the mistake of law/mistake of fact distinction

(Dissent Op at 12). That distinction, however, was never as

well-established as the dissent would have it. Despite the

evident consensus among the Appellate Division Departments that a

mistake of law cannot justify a traffic stop, this Court has

never distinguished between mistakes of law and mistakes of fact

in considering the reasonableness of a traffic stop and the

decision in Estrella is consistent with that fact. 

Our decision in People v Gonzalez is not to the

contrary. The holding in that case -- that a "mistaken belief as

to the law, no matter how reasonable, is not sufficient" to

establish a constitutionally valid search and seizure (People v

Gonzalez, 88 NY2d 289, 295 [1996] [internal quotation marks and

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citations omitted]) -- was limited to the context of the apparent

authority doctrine. We held that "the apparent authority of a

third party to consent to a search of a suspect's personal

effects must rest upon the police officer's reasonably held

factual interpretation of the circumstances; it cannot be based

on a mistaken view of the law" (id.). Our conclusion was based

almost entirely upon the then "consistent reading of [Illinois v

Rodriguez (497 US 177, 179 [1990])] by the [f]ederal courts"

applying the apparent authority doctrine (Gonzalez, 88 NY2d at

295); we did not hold that our State Constitution provides

greater protection than the Federal Constitution in the apparent

authority context, or indicate in any way that article I, § 12 of

the State Constitution does not tolerate reasonable mistakes of

law.

We, therefore, reject defendant's argument and the

contention of the dissent that the distinction between mistakes

of fact and mistakes of law set forth in Gonzalez should be

expanded to the context of determining whether probable cause

exists for a traffic stop. Such an expansion would constitute a

departure from Heien and, in our view, "[n]one of the reasons for

extending [the] protections of our Constitution beyond those

given by the Federal Constitution exist here" (Robinson, 97 NY2d

at 351). This Court has adopted separate state constitutional

standards "when doing so best promotes predictability and

precision in judicial review of search and seizure cases and the

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protection of the individual rights of our citizens" (People v

P.J. Video, 68 NY2d 296, 304 [1986], cert denied 479 US 1091

[1987] [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]; see

People v Weaver, 12 NY3d 433, 445 [2009]). We have also

deviated, based on our state constitutional standards, from

Supreme Court decisions that undermine our ability to "provide

and maintain 'bright line' rules to guide the decisions of law

enforcement and judicial personnel who must understand and

implement our decisions in their day-to-day operations in the

field" (P.J. Video, 68 NY2d at 305). More fundamentally, while

we have declined to adopt an "ironclad [methodology] to be

rigidly applied" in determining whether separate standards are

warranted, we have recognized "that we act []properly in

discharging our responsibility to support the State Constitution

when we examine whether we should follow . . . as a matter of

State law" any recent decision of the Supreme Court that marks a

"change[ in] course and dilut[ion of] constitutional principles"

or protections previously enjoyed by the citizens of this State

(People v Scott, 79 NY2d 474, 504 [1992] [Kaye, J. concurring]).

In Heien, the Supreme Court did not change course;

rather, the Court relied on its "cases dating back two centuries

[that] support treating legal and factual errors alike in this

context" (135 S Ct at 536-537). Nor does Heien represent a

dilution of our "State . . . common law defining the scope of the

individual right in question" (P.J. Video, 68 NY2d at 303) or "an

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enormous unsupervised intrusion by the police . . . upon personal

privacy" (Weaver, 12 NY3d at 445). As explained above, this

Court has never held that a reasonable mistake of law cannot

provide justification for a traffic stop and, even in the context

of cases involving the apparent authority of a third party to

consent to a search, our conclusion that a mistake of law could

not establish a constitutionally valid search or seizure was

based upon federal law, not state constitutional or common law

(see Gonzalez, 88 NY2d at 295-296). What we have held is that an

officer's objectively "reasonabl[e] belie[f]" that he or she has

witnessed a violation of the Vehicle and Traffic Law justifies a

traffic stop, even when the officer made a mistake of law

(Estrella, 10 NY3d at 946).4

Moreover, the purportedly "bright line rule" adopted by

the Appellate Division Departments that mistakes of law can never

provide the basis for a traffic stop has not promoted precision

and predictability. To the contrary, the rule has proven

difficult to apply as evidenced by the discussion in (People v

Abdul-Akim, 27 Misc 3d 1220[A], 2010 NY Slip Op 50814[U], *9 [Sup

Ct, Kings County 2010]), in which the trial court discussed cases

4

 The dissent implicitly concedes that the mistake in

People v Estrella (10 NY3d 945 [2008], cert denied 555 US 1032

[2008]) was one of law -- stating that Estrella is "more properly

understood to limit the laws for which an officer is responsible"

(Dissent Op at 13), i.e., by positing that mistakes as to the law

of other states are reasonable, the dissent essentially argues

that Estrella should be understood as limiting which mistakes of

law this Court is willing to recognize as objectively reasonable.

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either ignoring or attempting to employ the distinction and

observed, "it [is] not always . . . easy to classify a particular

mistake as one of law or fact."5 While the dissent posits that

we should apply a rule that a stop based upon a mistake of law is

constitutionally invalid "because [then] there would be no need

to determine the objective reasonableness of the officer's

mistake of the law" (Dissent Op at 7), this Court has already

demonstrated that we have no trouble making that determination

when called upon to do so (see Estrella, 10 NY3d at 946).

Contrary to the dissent's concerns that our refusal to expand the

mistake of fact/mistake of law distinction to the context of

traffic stops provides a disincentive for police officers to know

the law (Dissent Op at 7-8), a rule that even objectively

reasonable mistakes of law cannot provide a basis for a traffic

stop would do little to protect the rights of the accused or

5 Indeed, in the case before us, the mistake of the officer

as to whether the stop sign was justified under the Vehicle and

Traffic Law could be characterized as a mistake of fact or of law

-- even if the officer knew of the legal requirement that stop

signs in a parking lot must be formally registered to be valid,

but was mistaken about whether this particular stop sign was on

the list of registered signs. That said, while we do not know

what the officer actually believed because the parties'

stipulation did not contain that information, we are ultimately

concerned, not with the officer's subjective belief, but with

whether there is an "objective safeguard[] circumscribing the

exercise of police discretion" (People v Robinson, 97 NY2d 341,

351 [2001] [internal quotation marks and citation omitted]).

Here, the requirement that a mistake be objectively reasonable

provides that safeguard (see Heien v North Carolina, ___ US ___,

___, 135 S Ct 530, 539-540 [2014]).

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encourage officers to better learn the law (see generally

Robinson, 97 NY2d at 351). As the Supreme Court explained, the

requirement that the mistake be objectively reasonable prevents

officers from "gain[ing any] Fourth Amendment advantage through a

sloppy study of the laws [they are] duty-bound to enforce"

(Heien, 135 S Ct at 539-540). 

Finally, there is no unfairness in forgiving a police

officer's objectively reasonable mistake of law while refusing to

allow an individual to "escape criminal liability based on a

mistaken understanding of the law" (Heien, 135 S Ct at 540). 

Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court have held that "the

government can[] impose criminal liability based on a mistaken

understanding of the law;" rather, "just because mistakes of law

cannot justify either the imposition or the avoidance of criminal

liability, it does not follow that they cannot justify an

investigatory stop" (id.).

IV

Applying Heien and our decision in Estrella here, we

conclude that the traffic stop was justified under both the

Fourth Amendment and article I, § 12 based on the officer's

reasonable belief that defendant failed to stop at a valid stop

sign. It is undisputed that the stop sign was of regulation

color, height and dimension; its only defect was that it was not

properly registered. Under Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1110 (c),

there is a presumption that "official traffic-control devices

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[that] are placed in position approximately conforming to the

requirements of this chapter . . . have been so placed by the

official act or direction of lawful authority, unless the

contrary shall be established by competent evidence." Although

the stop sign here was ultimately established to be unregistered,

the presumption is indicative of the Legislature's intent that

traffic control devices appearing to be proper be assumed valid,

absent proof to the contrary. In our view, "[t]he officer was

not chargeable with knowledge that the" stop sign at issue was

not registered under Newark Village Code § 140-46, which lists

130 registered stop signs in the Village (Estrella, 10 NY3d at

946). Nor was he required to verify that the stop sign was valid

before making the traffic stop -- rather, the stop was based on

probable cause because the officer reasonably believed that he

had observed defendant violate the Vehicle and Traffic Law. 

Although the stop sign was not registered and, therefore,

defendant did not violate Vehicle and Traffic Law § 1172(a), the

evidence recovered as a result of the traffic stop need not be

suppressed.

Accordingly, the order of County Court should be

reversed, defendant's motion to suppress denied, and the case

remitted to Village Court for further proceedings in accordance

with this opinion. 

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People v Rebecca Guthrie

No. 50 

RIVERA, J.(dissenting):

The courts of this state have consistently held that a

police officer's mistake of law cannot provide the requisite

probable cause for a valid search and seizure. It is also wellestablished that evidence obtained as a result of a seizure

lacking probable cause must be suppressed. Given this legal

landscape, I disagree with the majority's conclusion that under

our state constitution an officer's erroneous belief that a

driver violated the law may provide probable cause for a

vehicular stop, and, regardless of the driver's innocence, a

court may admit evidence obtained as a consequence of the

officer's mistake. Therefore, I dissent.

I.

A vehicular stop is valid under New York State's

constitution when "a police officer has probable cause to believe

that the driver of an automobile has committed a traffic

violation" (Robinson, 97 NY2d 341, 349 [2001]; see NY Const, Art

I, § 12). As the majority correctly states, the legal validity

of the stop depends on whether the officer's belief that the

defendant violated the Vehicle and Traffic Law is objectively

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reasonable (Maj Op at 5). However, what is objectively

reasonable depends on what the officer knew at the time of the

stop (see People v William ""II'', 98 NY2d 93, 98 [2002]; People

v Banks, 85 NY2d 558, 562 [1995]; People v Cantor, 36 NY2d 106,

112 [1975]).

In order to make a determination as to the lawfulness

of a driver's actions under the VTL, it is axiomatic that an

officer must know the mandates and prescriptions set forth in

that law (People v Robinson, 97 NY2d at 351 ["the [VTL] provides

an objective grid upon which to measure probable cause" for

making a traffic stop]). While an officer must know the rules of

the road in order to properly enforce the law, it is also the

reality of police work that an officer acts based on facts which

cannot be known in advance, and which unfold in the moments

leading up to the stop. Thus, while an officer's appreciation of

the facts depends on what develops in the field, an officer's

knowledge of the law's requirements is set without reference to

those facts. Although an officer must determine if the facts as

observed constitute a violation of the law, the law remains as

written. 

Given the legal mandates of the VTL and the dynamics of

police work in this area, where an officer acts on a mistaken

perception of the circumstances leading to a vehicular stop,

courts must determine whether such mistake is excusable, and

whether the error may supply the requisite probable cause to

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justify police action. As a general matter, courts in New York

have distinguished between mistakes of fact and law, and applied

that distinction to traffic stops (see People v Rose, 67 AD3d

1447, 1449 [4th Dept 2010] [stop of defendant's vehicle could not

be justified by officer's mistaken belief that defendant violated

the VTL by flashing high beams]; McDonell v New York State Dept.

of Motor Vehicles, 77 AD3d 1379, 1380 [4th Dept 2010] [State

Trooper's mistaken belief that fishtailing violated VTL § 1162,

which prohibits unsafely moving a stopped, standing, or parked

vehicle unless doing so can be done with reasonable safety, could

not justify stop of defendant's vehicle]; People v MacKenzie, 61

AD3d 703, 703 [2d Dept 2009], lv denied 13 NY3d 798 [2009]

[police officer's observation that defendant was driving without

headlights on, fifteen minutes after sunset, could not provide

the officer with probable cause to make a traffic stop where

statute provided that headlights are not generally required until

thirty minutes after sunset]; People v Jean-Pierre, 47 AD3d 445,

445 [1st Dept 2008], lv denied 10 NY3d 865 [2008] [stating in

dictum that "'A mistake of fact, but not a mistake of law, may be

used to justify a search and seizure'"]; People v Smith, 1 AD3d

965, 965-66 [4th Dept 2003] [officer's stop of defendant's

vehicle was unlawful because it was premised on the mistaken

belief that the vehicle required front license plates]; Byer v

Jackson, 241 AD2d 943, 944-945 [4th Dept 1997] [officer's stop of

defendant was illegal because it was predicated on the erroneous

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belief that defendant's failure to use a turn signal when turning

out of a parking lot violated the VTL]; see also People v Allen,

90 AD3d 1082, 1084 [3d Dept 2011] [stating in dicta that

"reasonable suspicion cannot be based on a mistake of law"];

People v Baez, 131 Misc 2d 689 [Sup Ct 1986] [stop invalid where

police officer mistakenly believed that it was illegal for

defendant to have affixed defendant's license plate by wiring and

not bolts]).

In these cases the courts have concluded that the

officer's reasonable mistake of fact, measured by the

circumstances faced by the officer at the time of the stop, may

support a finding of probable cause. Meaning that a stop will be

treated as lawful, so long as the officer objectively, reasonably

believes that the facts justify the stop, even though the actual

facts fail to establish the driver's violation of the VTL. The

courts have not been so forgiving of a mistake of law, and have

concluded that such mistake can never justify a stop. (See

Allen, 90 AD3d at 1082; Rose, 67 AD3d at 1449; McDonell, 77 AD3d

at 1380; MacKenzie, 61 AD3d at 703; Jean-Pierre, 47 AD3d at 445;

Smith, 1 AD3d at 965-66; Byer, 241 AD2d at 944-945; Baez, 131

Misc2d at 689).

The distinction is wholly logical and serves the

state's interests in protecting individual rights and ensuring

uniform application of the law. Society relies on police

officers to enforce laws based on what the laws say, not on an

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officer's mistaken belief. Excusing an officer's mistake of law

removes an incentive to learning the law. While the realities of

police work rightly justify tolerance of an officer's mistake of

fact, there is no similar basis to accept or excuse an officer's

error regarding what the law permits and forbids.

II.

This Court is now presented directly with the question

whether, as a state constitutional matter, an officer's mistake

of law may provide a basis for probable cause to justify a

vehicular stop. The majority concludes that our State

Constitution provides no greater protection in this area than the

Federal Constitution, as articulated in Heien v North Carolina

(135 S Ct 530, 534 [2014]), which held that a mistake of law may

provide reasonable suspicion to justify a seizure under the

Fourth Amendment. However, Heien is not dispositive of our state

constitutional analysis.

In the area of search and seizure law, this Court has

not hesitated in diverging from the federal approach where a

narrow construction of constitutional guarantees would ill-serve

our state interests (see Stewart F. Hancock, Jr., New York State

Constitutional Law-Today Unquestionably Accepted and Applied As A

Vital and Essential Part of New York Jurisprudence, 77 Alb L Rev

1331, 1346 [2014] [according to former New York Court of Appeals

Judge Hancock, Jr., "state constitutionalism ... is routinely

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applied to resolv(e) issues of fundamental rights in New York. 

State constitutional law -- and especially its reestablished

legitimacy and unhesitating use by judges at all levels of the

New York judiciary -- have helped make the New York judicial

system the leading and, in my opinion, the best in the nation"]). 

For example, we have interpreted our State Constitution more

expansively than the Federal Constitution in a way that "best

promotes 'predictability and precision in judicial review of

search and seizure cases and the protection of the individual

rights of our citizens'" (People v P.J. Video, 68 NY2d 296, 304

[1986]; see also People v Scott, 79 NY2d 474, 478 [declining to

adopt Supreme Court's holding that areas outside a home's

curtilage enjoy no Fourth Amendment protection]; People v Harris,

77 NY2d 434, 438 [1991] [State Constitution requires suppression

of statements obtained after Payton violation in absence of

attenuation, even where statements would not have been suppressed

under Federal Constitution]; People v Bigelow, 66 NY2d 417, 426-

427 [1988] [rejecting good-faith exception to the warrant

requirement]; Hancock, Jr., 77 Alb L Rev at 1332 ["when a New

York court concludes that an individual has rights that are not

protected under the [F]ederal Constitution, but should be under

the New York Constitution, the court will afford that person the

greater protection as a matter of state constitutional law. It is

simply a matter of fairness and common sense"]; NY Const, Art I,

§ 12). The Court has also sought to adopt "'bright line' rules

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in this area to guide the decisions of law enforcement and

judicial personnel who must understand and implement our

decisions in their day-to-day operations" (P.J. Video, 68 NY2d at

305). Even where the United State Supreme Court has not spoken,

this Court has read our State Constitution to prevent "enormous

unsupervised intrusion by the police ... upon personal privacy,"

notwithstanding a possible future federal determination to the

contrary (People v Weaver, 12 NY3d 433, 445 [2009]). 

 In light of our prior broad interpretation of our

state constitution, the uniformity of New York case law that has

rejected consideration of a mistake of law as part of the

probable cause analysis, and because a "violation of a statute []

triggers the officer's authority to make the stop and limits the

officer's discretion" (Robinson, 97 NY2d at 355), I would find

that a stop based on a police officer's mistake of law violates

our State's Constitution under article I, § 12. The rule has the

benefit of promoting precision and predictability in judicial

review because there would be no need to determine the objective

reasonableness of the officer's mistake of the law. All that

would need to be considered is what the law says. Thus,

providing a bright line rule easily followed by the courts and

law enforcement, and ensuring the protection of individual

rights.

Such a defined rule would incentivize police to know

the law; for why would an officer risk a mistake that would

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result in a judicial determination that the stop was unlawful at

its inception?1 Moreover, if civilians are required to know the

law, I see no reason for expecting less from those charged with

enforcing it. There is a "fundamental unfairness of holding

citizens to 'the traditional rule that ignorance of the law is no

excuse,' while allowing those 'entrusted to enforce' the law to

be ignorant of it" (United States v Chanthasouxat, 342 F3d 1271,

1280 [11th Cir 2003], citing Bryan v United States, 524 US 184,

196 [1998]). Certainly the police have labored under this

approach without significant damage to public security and safety

(see Heien, 135 S Ct at 544 [Sotomayor, J., dissenting] [noting

there was "no indication that excluding an officer's mistake of

law from the reasonableness inquiry has created a problem for law

enforcement in the overwhelming number of Circuits which have

adopted that approach"]). Since police are entrusted with

authority to safeguard all members of our society, we should not

adopt a rule that rewards an error concerning the legitimacy of

the officer's exercise of such power.

1 The majority posits that excluding mistakes of law from

the probable cause analysis "will do little to protect the rights

of the accused or encourage officers to better learn the law"

(Maj Op at 14). This argument relies on the majority's

underlying flawed premise that objectively reasonable mistakes of

law involve only complex matters which officers simply should not

be expected to learn. Of course those are exactly the types of

mistakes that we should incentivize officers to avoid by

excluding evidence obtained as a result of such error. Moreover,

if a law is simply too difficult for an officer to understand or

learn, why should we expect those without legal training to fare

any better?

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I also find no basis for the majority's conclusion that

the rule against mistakes of law fails to promote precision and

predictability simply on the majority's assumption that "it [is]

not always easy to classify a particular mistake as one of law or

fact" (Maj Op at 11, citing People v Abdul-Akim, 27 Misc 3d

1220[A], 2010 NY Slip Op 50814[U], *9 [Sup Ct, Kings County

2010]). Nothing suggests that courts have had difficulty, as a

general matter, in categorizing an officer's mistake as one that

turns on a misunderstanding of the law, or on incorrect facts. 

Courts are regularly called upon to determine legal matters and

there is no reason to think that courts will be any less able to

do so in an area that had been well-settled until today.

 While the majority asserts, by way of example, that the

mistake at issue in this appeal could be of fact or law, (Maj Op

at 11 n 3), this case actually illustrates why there is no

problem, of a constitutional dimension, in distinguishing between

the two. First, both lower courts easily concluded that

defendant's case involves a question of law, undermining any

suggestion that this was a particularly challenging decision. 

Second, if there is any lack of clarity here it is not due to the

inherent difficulty of distinguishing a mistake of law from fact,

but to the parties' stipulation, which in this case failed to

address what the officer believed. In other words, if we do not

know whether he knew the legal requirements of the VTL that is

only because we lack information readily available from the

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officer, not because there is a problem with the rule.

If the decision today were limited to the validity of

the stop alone, it might not be so troubling, but that is not the

case. The majority concludes that the evidence obtained as a

direct consequence of the stop is admissible against the

defendant (Maj Op at 13). In so doing the majority has limited

the reach of this Court's prior holding in People v Bigelow,

which rejected, on state constitutional grounds, a good faith

exception to the exclusionary rule which the United States

Supreme Court had previously adopted (Bigelow, 66 NY2d at

426-427, citing United States v Leon, 468 US 897 [1984]). The

Bigelow Court reasoned that "if the People are permitted to use

the seized evidence, the exclusionary rule's purpose is

completely frustrated, a premium is placed on the illegal police

action and a positive incentive is provided to others to engage

in similar lawless acts in the future" (id. at 427). This

analysis applies with equal force to an officer's mistake of law,

and provides an additional reason to reject such mistake as a

viable consideration in determining the existence of probable

cause in support of the admission of unlawfully obtained evidence

(see United States v Lopez-Soto, 205 F3d 1101, 1106 [excusing an

officer's reasonable mistake of the law would "defeat the purpose

of the exclusionary rule, for it would remove the incentive for

police to make certain that they properly understand the law that

they are entrusted to enforce and obey"] [internal citation

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omitted]).2

III. 

The majority relies on People v Estrella (10 NY3d 945

[2008], cert denied 555 US 1032 [2008]) for its argument that we

have previously rejected the distinction between mistakes of law

and fact, seemingly suggesting it does not break new ground in

defendant's case. In my opinion, the majority attaches an overly

generous significance to Estrella, and ignores the main

distinction between that case and this appeal.

In Estrella, police stopped a vehicle with Georgia

license plates believing that its windows were excessively tinted

in violation of VTL § 375 (12-a) (b) (4) (People v Estrella, 48

AD3d 1283, 1285 [4th Dept 2008]). As it turned out the police

were incorrect because the tinting was subject to VTL § 250 (1). 

That section excludes from New York's registration and equipment

requirements certain nonresident owners of out-of-state vehicles

2

 The majority contends that the admission of evidence

resulting from a mistake of law does not limit Bigelow because if

the mistake fails the objectively reasonable test, the evidence

will be suppressed (Maj Op at 5 n 2). However, that reading of

Bigelow ignores the overarching concern that underlies the

decision, namely that we should adopt rules that deter police

misconduct. Moreover, the majority ignores the intersection of

good faith and objectively reasonable mistakes of law. Under

Bigelow, evidence obtained by an officer who acts mistakenly, but

in good faith, is inadmissible, regardless of the objectively

reasonable character of the officer's mistake. In contrast,

under the majority's approach, evidence is admissible if the

officer acts in good faith and the mistake is deemed objectively

reasonable. 

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that are in compliance with corresponding requirements of the

state in which the owner resides (id.). The Appellate Division

concluded that the officer had probable cause to stop the driver,

and Supreme Court properly denied the defendant's request to

suppress the evidence seized from the vehicle as a result of the

stop (id.).

This Court affirmed in a cursory, five sentence

memorandum opinion. The majority here contends that the Court in

Estrella based its decision on the officer's reasonable belief,

without distinguishing between mistakes of law and fact (Maj Op

at 7). The majority reaches this conclusion based on the

Estrella Court's statement that "[t]he officer was not chargeable

with knowledge that the tinting was legal in Georgia, where the

car was registered" (Estrella, 10 NY3d at 946). Such a sweeping

interpretation of Estrella, however, cannot be read into this one

sentence. 

Certainly, no Appellate Division interpreted this

Court's memorandum decision in Estrella to have eliminated the

well established distinction between mistake of law and fact. 

Post - Estrella, all the Appellate Departments, including the

Fourth Department, continued to apply this distinction (see e.g.

Rose, 67 AD3d at 1447; McDonell, 77 AD3d at 1380; MacKenzie, 61

AD3d at 703). 

Moreover, because at the time this Court affirmed the

Fourth Department in Estrella, the lower courts consistently

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applied the mistake of law/mistake of fact distinction, if this

Court had intended to upset the approach in this State, it most

certainly would have done so in an opinion that fully articulated

the grounding for its decision (see People v Jones, 24 NY3d 623

[2014] [noting that the Court was departing with its previous

case law and explaining the grounds for that departure]; People v

Damiano, 87 NY2d 477, 489 [1996] [long-settled rules open to

reexamination where "some evidence that the police concerns

underlying them are outdated or if they have proved unworkable"];

People v Bing, 76 NY2d 331, 338 [1990] [recognizing Court's

obligation to justify a significant departure from its prior case

law]). Instead, the Court issued an opinion devoid of citations

to any law, in support of what most certainly would have been

considered a deviation from New York's longstanding approach.

In my opinion, Estrella is more properly understood to

limit the laws for which an officer is responsible -- "chargeable

with knowledge" in the words of the Estrella Court -- to those of

the State of New York. That is a suitable place to draw the line

regarding the legal knowledge expected of an officer.3

Otherwise, it would place undue demands on a police officer to

3 The majority incorrectly characterizes my argument about

Estrella as concerning "which mistakes of law" are objectively

reasonable (Maj Op 12 n 4). Unlike the majority, I believe

Estrella focused on the more general and rational point that New

York officers should be expected to know New York law. Whether a

mistake concerning a foreign jurisdiction's law is objectively

reasonable is besides the point. 

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have to be familiar with the laws of every other jurisdiction,

when those laws relate to the minutia of technical requirements

imposed on an automobile. Automobile window tinting in Estrella

is but one example. 

The same cannot be said for a New York officer's

understanding of New York law. We expect an officer to know the

law of this state with precision because that law is the source

of the officer's authority. We should not excuse an error about

the basic foundation of an officer's power, or discourage better

comprehension of it. Moreover, if, as the majority concludes, we

cannot depend on an officer charged with enforcement powers to

know the law, we place in question the integrity of our criminal

justice system. That strikes me as an unacceptable outcome of

the majority's approach.

IV.

Here, defendant did not violate the VTL. Therefore, I

dissent because under the State constitution, the officer had no

probable cause to stop her vehicle, and the courts below properly

suppressed evidence obtained pursuant to the stop.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Order reversed, defendant's motion to suppress denied and case

remitted to Village Court, Village of Newark, for further

proceedings in accordance with the opinion herein. Opinion by

Judge Stein. Chief Judge Lippman and Judges Read, Pigott, AbdusSalaam and Fahey concur. Judge Rivera dissents in an opinion.

Decided April 7, 2015

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