Court Opinion

ID: 9730271
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:06:53.062153+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:05.349847
License: Public Domain

White, J.,
dissenting.
The alleged failure to yield the right-of-way, resulting in a stop eight blocks later, is given as an articulable reason in the stopping of the appellant’s car. During the eight blocks the officer followed the appellant’s car, as stated by the majority, the driving was “uneventful.”
The interval between the perceived violation and the stop gives rise to the inescapable inference that the reason given was pretextual. Both the stop and the arrest were illegal. Therefore, any evidence arising from the unlawful conduct ought to have been suppressed, including the officer’s observations of this war-wounded veteran’s limited physical dexterity which formed the basis for the opinion of intoxication. See Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S. Ct. 1391, 59 L. Ed. 2d 660 (1979).