Police power and fine-only offenses    
   
Atwater v. Lago Vista    
   
       U.S. Supreme Court Case #: 99-1408
       Argument date: Dec. 4, 2000
       Decision date: Tuesday, April 24, 2001
       
       CASE:
       Gail Atwater v. City of Lago Vista, Texas
       
       ISSUE:
       Can the police arrest people and put them in jail for violating laws that are punishable only by a fine but not by a jail sentence?
       
       DECISION:
       The high court, in a 5-4 decision, said the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which bans unreasonable arrests and searches, does not limit police discretion to make arrests for routine traffic violations.
       Writing for the court majority, Justice David Souter said, “The question is whether the Fourth Amendment forbids a warrantless arrest for a minor criminal offense, such as a misdemeanor seat-belt violation punishable only by a fine. We hold that it does not.”
       Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, dissented, saying, “The court neglects the Fourth Amendment’s express command in the name of administrative ease” and it “cloaks the pointless indignity” that the woman in the case suffered “with the mantle of reasonableness.”
       
       
Supreme Court 2000: Privacy, power

       
       BACKGROUND:
       One of the more interesting cases in the Supreme Court’s current term raises an issue of the limits of police power when a citizen violates a law that carries no jail term, only a fine. The justices are asked to decide whether the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment, which bans unreasonable searches and seizures, allows police to make custodial arrests for fine-only offenses.
       When a policeman stopped Gail Atwater in the Texas city of Lago Vista, near Austin, in 1997, she knew she was in trouble. She had briefly allowed her two young children, ages 3 and 5, to ride without their seat belts on. And in Texas, that can bring a fine.
       But she was shocked when the policeman hauled her away in handcuffs.
       “He just got very close and very loud, yelling, ‘You’re going to jail,’” she recalled.
       Instead of writing her a traffic ticket, the officer arrested Atwater, put her in his squad car, and took her to the police station. Her picture was taken, her possessions were taken away, and she was put in a jail cell for about an hour before she was brought before a magistrate. After posting a $310 bond, she was released. She later pleaded no contest to the offense and paid the maximum penalty — a $50 fine.
       Atwater then sued the city and the police, claiming that her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures was violated. The trial judge threw the case out, ruling that her rights were not violated. And by a ruling of 11-6, a federal appeals court agreed, holding that an officer may arrest anyone when probable cause exists to believe that a suspect is committing an offense. Arrests are unreasonable, the court ruled, only when they are unusually harmful to a person’s privacy or physical health.
       She now appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.
       
       ARGUMENT:
       FOR GAIL ATWATER
       Robert DeCarli, Austin
       The reasonableness of an arrest is evaluated by balancing the degree of intrusion to the individual against the degree to which that intrusion is necessary to carry out a legitimate governmental purpose.
       Applying that test shows that Mrs. Atwater’s arrest violated the Constitution. Handcuffing her in front of her children and hauling her off to jail furthered no legitimate law enforcement objective that would not also have been accomplished by writing her a traffic ticket on the spot.
       The appeals court was wrong to issue a broad ruling blessing all custodial arrests whenever there’s probable cause to believe an offense has occurred. Drivers should not be arrested for traffic violations unless custody is necessary to enforce the law or the driver would pose a danger to others on the road.
       
       FOR LAGO VISTA
       R. James George Jr., Austin
       This arrest was reasonable because the officer had ample probable cause to believe an offense had been committed: He personally saw it. Noting unusually harmful to Mrs. Atwater was involved, and the circumstances of her arrest were typical. The entire process was not overly intrusive.
       Her brief detention advanced legitimate law enforcement objectives and ensured her appearance at trial. Taking an offender before a magistrate to set bond that will help guarantee a court appearance is a long-accepted and logically sound law enforcement practice.
       The Fourth Amendment does incorporate a rule that limits arrests only to instances that constitute a breach of the peace. States have for decades declined to pass laws incorporating such a rule.