A traffic stop is a traffic stop and nothing more, Supreme Court rules

Tomorrow is the big day at the U.S. Supreme Court, with a 2 1/2-hour argument scheduled to debate whether the 14th Amendment requires states to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But the Supreme Court recently issued decisions or heard arguments in three other cases that have far-reaching effects on criminal justice.

Stay focused. A Supreme Court decision last week limited the authority of police to extend the purpose of a traffic stop. In 2012, a Nebraska officer pulled over Dennys Rodriguez for driving on the shoulder of the highway. The officer checked his license and wrote out a warning. He then asked permission to have his K-9 sniff the car. When Rodriguez refused, the officer detained him can called for backup. The dog walked around the car and perked up his nose at the scent of methamphetamine. Instead of a routine ticket, Rodriguez also found himself indicted on drug charges.

He said his detention after receiving the ticket was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment, and the justices agreed.

Ignorance is innocence? Stephen McFadden had an online store that sold bath salts, which hesaid were for aromatherapy. But he sold them at $400 per packet, quite a markup for such an item.

“There’s no bath salts in the world that cost what those packets cost,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said during oral arguments in the case.

Some people misuse bath salts and ingest them to mimic the effects of cocaine or methamphetamine. While bath salts are not illegal, it is a crime to make or sell something “substantially similar” in chemical structure to a controlled substance.

Authorities convicted McFadden of selling something similar to meth, though he claimed ignorance of the similarity. His lawyer, Kevin Russell, argued the government should have to prove he knew bath salts were similar to meth. McFadden checked the government’s list of illegal drugs, Russell said, didn’t see bath salts, and assumed they were OK.

Justice Antonin Scalia seemed to agree. He said the law only applied if culprits specifically knew the substance was illegal, not if they just had a vague idea it could be bad. “The statute doesn’t say knowingly be a bad guy. It says knowingly manufacture, distribute, or dispense a controlled substance,” Scalia said.

Three strikes. Samuel Johnson’s conviction on multiple counts of firearm possession would normally have carried a sentence of 10 years or less. But he got a 15-year-sentence because of the Armed Career Criminal Act, which says if a person has three prior violent felonies, the fourth conviction carries a longer sentence.

One of Johnson’s earlier convictions was for possession of a short-barreled shotgun, something his lawyer argued was not a violent felony.

The government’s lawyer, Michael Dreeben, argued felons with guns often go on to do bad things, so it’s only sensible that a pattern of criminal behavior along with a gun charge should count as a violent felony. But that troubled Justice Elena Kagan, who thought some crimes are obviously risky, like fleeing police in a car that could run over someone, and other activities are not.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Johnson, it could shorten the prison sentences for hundreds of people. This is the fifth time in eight years the court has considered this law, so there is incentive to resolve it once and for all.

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