4 Times Sonia Sotomayor Showed the Value of Diverse Voices in the Judicial System
In a 5-to-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers can use evidence acquired during illegal stops if it turns out the person being searched had a warrant out for his or her arrest. The ruling – which essentially provides a workaround for police stops needing to be based on reasonable suspicion – is another blow to citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights. Utah v. Strieff arose after Officer Douglas Fackrell, who acted on a tip, monitored a South Salt Lake home for evidence of “narcotics activity.” When he saw Edward Strieff leave his home, he stopped him and then through a check, arrested him for a minor traffic violation, according to The New York Times. After searching him, Strieff found a baggie containing meth. The SCOTUS had to determine the admissibility of the evidence.
With Justice Clarence Thomas representing the majority, he wrote, “Officer Fackrell was at most negligent… there is no evidence that Officer Fackrell’s illegal stop reflected flagrantly unlawful police misconduct.” But you don’t need to be a legal scholar to see that this all sorts of fucked up, and that it puts a large target on the backs of minority communities. Luckily, our favorite justice, Sonia Sotomayor, stepped in and dropped truth bombs with her dissent.
In an 11-page dissenting opinion, she begins by spelling out the serious ramifications of the case. “Do not be soothed by the opinion’s technical language: This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants–even if you are doing nothing wrong,” she wrote. “If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant.”
As she struck down each point, she explained that nothing about the case is an isolated incident, and that in a place like Ferguson, Missouri, the 76 percent of residents with outstanding warrants against them don’t have any Fourth Amendment rights. Citing W.E.B Du Bis, James Baldwin, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Sotomayor explains how “suspicionless stops” disproportionately affect people of color.
“For generations, black and brown parents have given their children ‘the talk’ – instructing them never to run down the street; always keep your hands where they can be seen; do not even think of talking back to a stranger – all out of fear of how an officer with a gun will react to them,” she wrote. “By legitimizing the conduct that produces this double consciousness, this case tells everyone, white and black, guilty and innocent, that an officer can verify your legal status at any time. It says that your body is subject to invasion while courts excuse the violation of your rights. It implies that you are not a citizen of a democracy but the subject of a carceral state, just waiting to be cataloged.”
While the subject of this search is a white man, Justice Sotomayor has the foresight to see how harmful this ruling is for already marginalized communities. Once again, Sotomayor proves that being a Latina justice is an asset to the Supreme Court. Because of her scathing but very real dissent, we’re looking at four other times that she spoke the truth: