Court Opinion

ID: 9630784
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:20:32.306554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:43.616544
License: Public Domain

DURHAM, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. The majority holds that “Harmon’s arrest for driving on suspension was not unreasonable in light of the governmental interest of removing unlicensed drivers from the road for public safety reasons,” while simultaneously concluding that “[njothing in the record indicates that *1209Russo’s arrest of Harmon was motivated by the governmental interest of assuring her appearance at trial.” Part of the rationale for the second conclusion — that Harmon was eventually left at her home and not incarcerated — is, it seems to me, equally applicable to the first. In other words, there is nothing in the record to suggest that Harmon’s arrest was motivated by the governmental interest in getting her off the road for public safety reasons. She was only a few blocks from her home; her car was parked off the roadway, and she was not driving it or threatening to drive it when arrested. This arrest appears to have been motivated solely by the desire of the arresting officer to intimidate Harmon into consenting to a search of her home and, more significantly, to have been unreasonable under these circumstances.
STEWART, Associate C. J., concurs in Justice DURHAM’S dissenting opinion.