Police officers cannot pull over motorists merely for driving with their high beams on, the New Jersey Supreme Court said Wednesday, ruling 6-0 that such traffic stops violate the right to privacy.
Advocates said the court’s decision bolsters privacy rights for anyone driving in New Jersey. But they pointed out that the court, in a separate case last year, made it easier for police to search vehicles they pull over on the roadside without a warrant.
While investigating an abandoned vehicle in Newark, an Essex County police officer noticed another car driving by — high beams turned on — around 3:30 one morning in November 2013.
Police stopped the car and found that one of the passengers, Al-Sharif Scriven, was carrying an unlicensed handgun, hollow-nose bullets and a large-capacity magazine. Scriven was charged with various crimes and would have been sentenced to prison if convicted.
But state courts at every level ruled the traffic stop unconstitutional and dismissed the evidence against Scriven because New Jersey law mandates that drivers lower their high beams only when they see an “oncoming vehicle.”
A police officer is not an oncoming vehicle, Associate Justice Barry Albin wrote for the Supreme Court.
Essex County prosecutors and the state Attorney General’s Office argued that the police officer’s car, which was parked on a side street, counted as an “oncoming vehicle.” The court disagreed. And since the driver of the vehicle did not break any traffic laws, police had no reasonable basis to conduct a stop, the court said.
“Drivers are required to dim their high beams only when approaching an oncoming vehicle,” Albin wrote. “Neither a car parked on a perpendicular street nor an on-foot police officer count as an oncoming vehicle.”
Allison Perrone, the public defender who represented Scriven, said that if the justices had ruled against him, police would have gained broad new powers to pull over motorists at night.