Court Opinion

ID: 9486546
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:51:51.59357+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:47.109816
License: Public Domain

JON O. NEWMAN, Chief Judge,
concurring:
The Court today rules that a police officer may make an arrest for a traffic violation as long as the officer has objectively reasonable probable cause to believe the violation has occurred, even though the officer may have decided to make the arrest because of a desire to search the vehicle of a suspected criminal. I concur in Judge Pierce’s careful opinion for the Court, upholding this result because I agree that it is required by current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, but I write separately to point out both the risk that such an approach entails and the limits of the doctrine.
What is at issue is a so-called “pretext” arrest: an officer has probable cause to make an arrest because the officer has observed a violation, albeit a minor one for which the officer probably would not have made an arrest had there not existed some motivation beyond the observed offense. In this case, the motivation is that the suspect is believed to- be associated with an organized crime family, and an arrest, which will normally justify a search, might yield evidence of a more serious crime, as occurred in this case when the arresting officer found a gun in Seopo’s car. The risk inherent in such a *786practice is that some police officers will use the pretext of traffic violations or other minor infractions to harass members of groups identified by factors that are totally impermissible as a basis for law enforcement activity — factors such as race or ethnic origin, or simply appearances that some police officers do not like, such as young men with long hair, heavy jewelry, and flashy clothing. ■
In upholding Scopo’s arrest, we should not be understood to be giving police officers carte blanche to skew their law enforcement activity against any group that displeases them. Though the Fourth Amendment permits a pretext arrest, if otherwise supported by probable cause, the Equal Protection Clause still imposes restraint on impermissi-bly class-based discriminations. “[I]f [the law] is applied and administered by public authority with an evil eye and an unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and illegal discriminations between persons in similar circumstances, material to their rights, the denial of equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Constitution.” Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 373-74, 6 S.Ct. 1064, 1072-73, 30 L.Ed. 220 (1886).1
The appellee makes a strong point in warning that permitting pretext arrests runs the risk that some discrimination may occur and may escape detection. I agree that such a risk is not fanciful, but I am satisfied that the Fourth Amendment does not prohibit a pretext arrest and that the Equal Protection Clause has sufficient vitality to curb most of the abuses that the appellee apprehends. Police officers who misuse the authority we approve today may expect to be defendants in civil suits seeking substantial damages for discriminatory enforcement of the law.

. See United. States v. Rusher, 966 F.2d 868, 889 (4th Cir.1992) (Luttig, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("[T]he due process clause ... and, where appropriate, the equal protection clause ... constitute adequate protection and remedy against such abuses of the public's trust.” (citations omitted)), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 351, 121 L.Ed.2d 266 (1992); Shaw v. California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, 788 F.2d 600, 610-11 (9th Cir. 1986) (former tavern owners can maintain action against police department and other municipal defendants for racially discriminatory enforcement of the law in violation of equal protection); see also Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 608, 105 S.Ct. 1524, 1530, 84 L.Ed.2d 547 (1985) (allowing defense of selective prosecution where defendant can demonstrate discriminatory effect and improperly-motivated prosecution).