Scary story out of the Supreme Court of the United States today. The court refused certiaori to a case out of Virginia concerning a stop of an alleged drunk driver based on an anonymous telephone tip. The case is Virginia v. Harris and involves a case where a person called in to report a drunk driver, but did not leave a name or number. Officers found the car in question and followed it, but did not observe any traffic violations to justify a stop. The officer decided to stop the car anyway and subsequently arrested the driver for OVI. The Virginia Supreme Court threw out the conviction based on the officer's violation of Harris' Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justice Scalia, disagrees with his colleagues and seems to favor carving out an exception to the Constitution for OVI cases. This is a dangerous precedent to establish, as it inexorably leads to exceptions for other crimes. If your neighbor's dog poops in your yard, just make an anonymous call that he has a meth lab in his basement and watch the SWAT team kick down his door!

Not only would that break down the very foundation of the Fourth Amendment, the bar is already ridiculously low for implementing a traffic stop. I often talk about the near impossibility of driving from point A to point B without violating some traffic ordinance. For example R.C. 4513.19 governing the focus and aim of headlights or failing to use a turn signal when turning or changing lanes (4511.39). There are hundreds of these regulations and "creative" officers use them to justify stops on a regular basis. In Ohio, anonymous tips must be corroborated by the officer's own observations as in Bowling Green v. Tomor, Wood App. No. WD-02-012, 2002-Ohio-6366. However, Ohio courts have held that if the tipster is identified, that indicates a higher degree of reliability, and can justify an investigative stop without corroboration Maumee v. Weisner, (1999), 87 Ohio St.3d 295, 720 N.E.2d 507.

It is discouraging that conservative jurists favor the evisceration of the already weakened protections afforded citizens by the Constitution. A constructionist interpretation in a historical context has to err on the side of protecting citizens from unwarranted intrusions by the police. Otherwise, liberty is further eroded and freedom is diminished. Thankfully, the Virginia Supreme Court got it right, and the majority of SCOTUS passed on hearing this case and potentially degrading the Fourth Amendment further.

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