Maine's highest court issued an important decision today on the Fourth Amendment rights of motorists.  I co-wrote an amicus curiae brief to the Law Court, along with Walt McKee of the Maine Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.  The case, State of Maine v. Ronald LaPlante (2011 ME 85), involved a stop of a motorist so that the police could ask the driver for information about a third party, who was suspected of committing a civil speeding offense.  The Law Court said that was not a good enough reason to justify a motor-vehicle stop, in light of the motorist’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from “unreasonable” seizures.


In addition to co-writing our amicus brief, I presented oral arguments in the case on June 15 on behalf of Mr. LaPlante.  It is generally difficult to tell what the Court is thinking about a case from their attitude and questions at oral argument, but it was clear to me at least that the Court was very engaged with the potential consequences of both affirmance and reversal. 

Here, the consequences of upholding the motion court's decision to admit evidence obtained in the absence of any reasonable and articulable suspicion would have been quite severe.  Such a ruling would provide justification for the police to stop any of us at virtually any time we were driving.  After all, there are nearly always people speeding on every road, and the police might always have an interest in investigating that speeding.

But the Law Court noted that it is important to balance the police interest in catching speeders with the right of members of the public to be left alone.  Most of the time, if a driver is not doing anything wrong or dangerous, the police are not allowed to make a stop.

The Fourth Amendment states, “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”  The drafters of the Fourth Amendment didn't know anything about cars and motorcycles, but they did understand that there needed to be a check on the authority of the police power to search and seize.

Today's decision is clearly an important one, but it does not end the work of protecting the Fourth Amendment.  Courts have recognized so many exceptions to the Fourth Amendment in various contexts that it is hard to know how much vitality it has left.  Our challenges, then, are twofold: making sure things don't get any worse, and beginning the process of restoring a mechanism for the protection of personal privacy.