Editorial: Connecticut Supreme Court ruling steps on 4th amendment rights

A recent state Supreme Court decision will drastically limit the protections guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment for Connecticut’s residents.

In State vs. Jeremy Kelly, the Supreme Court found Hartford Police officers did not unlawfully detain a city resident when they stopped him on the street near his home while he was walking with a man the officers suspected was wanted for a probation violation.

Kelly did not stop when officers asked him to and eventually ran from police, discarding cocaine. He was found guilty of drug offenses and sentenced to serve more than three years in prison. His attorneys appealed, arguing the drug evidence should be thrown out because it was not seized lawfully.

It turned out that the man Kelly was with the night he was arrested wasn’t even the one wanted for a probation violation, he just happened to be Hispanic and police said he looked like the suspect. Police said they had credible evidence to suspect the man they were looking for was armed. The state argued before the Supreme Court that officer safety required the officers to detain both the suspect and his companion.

That is not acceptable.

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. Police had no reason to suspect Kelly did anything wrong the night they stopped him. Seemingly, that makes the stop unreasonable. But that’s not what the Supreme Court justices found. Instead, they gave almost absolute authority to police to decide when a person is a threat and must be detained.

Officers should have the right to protect themselves in the field, and need some discretion to do that, but that must be limited, and not come at the expense of unwarranted government intrusion.

In dissent, Justice Dennis Eveleigh argues that the definition of “companion” is too vague.

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State Supreme Court ruling steps on 4th amendment rights





“If a suspect with an outstanding warrant is talking to his neighbor’s family near the property line, can the police now detain the entire family as part of the encounter with the suspect? If the suspect is waiting at a bus stop with six other strangers, can they all be detained?” Eveleigh asks. “If the same suspect is observed leaving a house and stopped in the front yard, can the police now seize everyone in the house to ensure that no one will shoot them while they question the suspect? What if the suspect is detained in a neighborhood known to have a high incident of crime, can the police now seize everyone in the entire neighborhood to ensure their safety while they detain the suspect?”

Eveleigh argues there needs to be more than “guilt by association,” for police to detain someone, and we agree.

We’ve seen from Ferguson, Missouri to East Haven what can happen when a police force is given too much unchecked authority.

While this ruling limits the constitutional rights of all of us, it will have a disproportionate impact on minorities.

Under the Fourth Amendment, police must have suspicion that someone has committed a crime to stop and detain a person. This ruling will allow Connecticut police to approach a group of people, suspecting only one of being involved in criminal activity, and detain them all.

Is that scenario more likely to play out in a suburban area to a group of white teens, or to a group of black or Hispanic teens in a city?

Police departments should make it an emphasis to train officers not to use this ruling as an excuse to detain anyone they want. Officers should not be fearful of every person they approach. They should not suspect every person of being a criminal. Instead of detaining Kelly alongside his friend, police had plenty of opportunity to send him on his way to return to his house. That would have kept the situation from escalating.

Community policing and trust has been shown to be the much more effective way of keeping the peace, as seen on the streets of Ferguson after armor-clad officers pulled away from the city.

We also urge legislators to look at this ruling to determine whether there is any action they can take to clarify the decision to ensure that all Connecticut residents have the right to walk down the street or hang out with friends without the fear of being stopped by police for no reason.