Scotuscast

On June 20, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Utah v. Strieff. A police officer detained Edward Strieff after seeing him leave a residence that the officer believed, based on an anonymous tip and his own surveillance, was a base for drug dealing. A relay of Strieff’s identification to a police dispatcher revealed an outstanding warrant for a traffic violation. The officer then arrested Strieff and searched him, discovering methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. Strieff ultimately persuaded the Utah Supreme Court to order that evidence suppressed as the fruit of an unlawful stop. -- By a vote of 5-3, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Utah Supreme Court. Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the Court, which held that the evidence the officer seized as part of the search incident to arrest was admissible because the officer’s discovery of the arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the evidence seized incident to arrest. Justice Thomas’s majority opinion was j