A number of states have subsequently adopted Heien‘s holding. Importantly, however, a number of states have either followed or acknowledged Justice Kagan’s narrow interpretation of an objectively reasonable mistake of law. In State v. Scriven, the New Jersey Supreme Court did not reach the question of whether to adopt Heien. The officer’s mistake of law […]

In Heien, the United States Supreme Court considered a police officer’s reasonable but erroneous interpretation of a motor vehicle statute. Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion noted that “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness.’” After explaining that “[t]o be reasonable is not to be perfect,” and that the Fourth Amendment allows for reasonable […]

The New Jersey Supreme Court held that the Appellate Division erred in concluding that the holding in Heien is applicable here. The motor vehicle statutes pertinent here are not ambiguous. The officer’s stop of defendant’s motor vehicle was not an objectively reasonable mistake of law that gave rise to constitutional reasonable suspicion; the stop was […]

The trial court granted defendant’s motion to suppress evidence resulting from the motor vehicle stop, but the court denied his motion to dismiss the indictment. On the motor vehicle stop, the trial court agreed with defendant that Officer Carletta’s understanding of the maintenance-of-lamps statute had been “incorrect” and that defendant had not violated the statute […]

On January 11, 2018, Justice LaVecchia wrote for a unanimous New Jersey Supreme Court in the Morris County case of State v. Ryan Sutherland. The principle issue was the constitutionality of a motor vehicle stop based on the belief that the vehicle was in violation of N.J.S.A. 39:3-61(a) and -66 because one of the vehicle’s […]