Court: Cops overstep in stopping drivers for high beams

TRENTON, N.J. — Police officers cannot pull over motorists merely for driving with their high beams on, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled, saying such traffic stops violate the right to privacy.

The court’s 6-0 decision Wednesday bolsters privacy rights for anyone driving in New Jersey, advocates said. But in a separate case last year, the court made it easier for police who pull over vehicles to search them without a warrant.

“What it does is it holds police to their obligations to not stop people for things police officers think should be illegal … but only things that are clearly illegal,” said Alexander Shalom, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. The ACLU was not involved in the case.

While investigating an abandoned vehicle in Newark, N.J., an Essex County police officer noticed another car driving by — high beams turned on — around 3:30 a.m. ET in November 2013.

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Police stopped the car and found that one of the passengers, Al-Sharif Scriven, was carrying an unlicensed handgun, hollow-nose bullets and a large-capacity magazine. Scriven was charged with various crimes and would have been sentenced to prison if convicted.

But at every level state courts ruled that the traffic stop unconstitutional and dismissed the evidence against Scriven because New Jersey law mandates that drivers lower their high beams only when they see an oncoming vehicle.

A police officer is not an oncoming vehicle, Associate Justice Barry Albin wrote for the New Jersey Supreme Court.

The police officer’s car, parked on a side street, counted as an oncoming vehicle, Essex County prosecutors and the state Attorney General’s Office argued. The court disagreed.

Since the driver of the vehicle did not break any traffic laws, police had no reasonable basis to conduct a stop, justices said.

“Drivers are required to dim their high beams only when approaching an oncoming vehicle,” Albin wrote. “Neither a car parked on a perpendicular street nor an on-foot police officer count as an oncoming vehicle.”

If the justices had ruled against Scriven, police would have gained broad new powers to pull over motorists at night, said Allison Perrone, the public defender who represented Scriven.

“While the facts of this case were somewhat narrow, if it had gone the other way and the court ruled that driving with high beams on at 3:30 a.m. is suspicious activity, that would have had a huge impact,” she said.

Prosecutors also argued that the traffic stop was valid under the “community-caretaking doctrine,” which allows police to conduct searches without a warrant in some urgent situations. Driving with high beams poses a safety hazard to others, Essex County and state prosecutors argued.

"The statute does not state that high beams may be used only on rural or unlit suburban roads at night, but not on a seemingly well-lit deserted city street at 3:30 a.m.," Albin wrote.

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As a result of the state high court’s ruling, the handgun and other items that police officers seized cannot be used against Scriven in court.

“This brief motor vehicle stop was necessary to ensure officer and public safety, and we are disappointed the court chose not to see it that way,” said Frank Ducoat, an assistant Essex County prosecutor.

Driving erratically continues to be a valid reason to pull over vehicles, the court said. In previous cases, Albin wrote that police have been justified in pulling over a vehicle traveling on the shoulder of a road with its left-turn signal blinking at 4 a.m., a car “operating at slow speed and weaving within its lane of travel at 12:20 a.m.,” and a vehicle traveling at “a snail’s pace” around 2 a.m. in a residential area.

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The New Jersey Supreme Court has a record of finding strong privacy rights in the state constitution.

However, last year the justices watered down a tough standard that New Jersey had used for years to govern warrantless searches of vehicles. Previously, the court required police officers to prove both probable cause that a crime had been committed and urgent circumstances that prevented them from asking a judge for a search warrant.

In a case called State v. William Witt, the justices said urgent circumstances were no longer required.

“If you are legally pulled over, they made it much easier for police to search your car,” Shalom said of the justices.

Witt, who was pulled over because he did not dim his high beams for oncoming vehicles, also was charged with possessing unlicensed weapons.

Follow Salvador Rizzo on Twitter: @rizzoTK