No way around traffic stop procedures

Prosecution and Procedure

By David J. Robinson

David J. Robinson is a lawyer, adjunct professor, author and chief deputy director for the State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor.

Posted November 12, 2018 12:49 PM

A prosecutor’s appeal from a trial court’s order suppressing evidence derived from a traffic stop often involve three issues. The first issue is whether the police officer had reasonable articulable suspicion to initiate the stop to begin with. Where no such suspicion exists, the issue becomes whether the statute upon which the officer relied was sufficiently ambiguous to justify a reasonably mistaken understanding of the law under Heien v. North Carolina, 574 U.S. (2014) (holding that reasonable articulable suspicion may …

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