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If you missed it... Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a blistering dissent on Monday as the US supreme court ruled that evidence of a crime could be used even though police illegally stopped the defendant when obtaining it.

The court’s opinion came in a case in which a detective illegally stopped Edward Strieff as he walked out of a house in South Salt Lake, Utah. Police had received an anonymous tip that the house he walked out of contained “drug activity”, but did not have a particular reason to suspect Strieff. A name check revealed an outstanding “small traffic warrant” for Strieff, and police arrested and searched him on that basis. He was found to be carrying methamphetamine.

Justice Clarence Thomas said the officer’s actions did not represent “flagrant police misconduct”. The court voted 5-3 to reinstate Strieff’s drug-related convictions.

But in an extraordinarily forceful dissent, Sotomayor contended that evidence obtained from an illegal stop is tainted and undermines the fourth amendment, which protects people from “unreasonable searches and seizures”.

She wrote: “The court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer’s violation of your fourth amendment rights. Do not be soothed by the opinion’s technical language: this case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants – even if you are doing nothing wrong.

“If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant.”