Last week, the majority of the somewhat hobbled U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that continued a long march toward gutting Fourth Amendment protections for people residing in the United States. In Utah v. Strieff, five justices, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, held that even when the police unlawfully stop a person, any evidence resulting from that stop can still be used to prosecute that person, so long as it turns out the person was found to have an open warrant when stopped.
Approximately 7.8 million people in the United States have an open warrant—mostly for minor offenses such as traffic violations or unpaid fines. In Ferguson, Missouri, 16,000 of the 21,000 residents have open warrants. These well-known statistics effectively encourage the police to “take a chance” that a stop made without reasonable suspicion will still be worthwhile because of the strong likelihood—at least in some neighborhoods and with respect to some ethnic groups—the police will find an open warrant, justifying an arrest and search of the person who was illegally stopped.
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