Ketanji Brown Jackson accuses the Supreme Court of overreach in the police case

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson accused the Supreme Court majority on Monday of overstepping its role as a “wordsmith” for a lower court in Washington, DC, when it rested with its colleagues in a Fourth Amendment case over whether a police officer had reasonable suspicion to stop a man.

Jackson, a Biden nominee, is the only justice to defend the DC appeals court, which found last year that the officer wrongfully stopped the man while he was in a car. The Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s decision 8-2, and upheld the arrest of the police. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama appointee and top liberal advocate on the high court, also broke with the majority but declined to join Jackson’s dissent, further isolating Jackson as an outsider even among liberal justices.

The Supreme Court’s decision emphasized that police have broad discretion to rely on the “totality of the circumstances” when making a stop, noting that sometimes seemingly trivial facts about a situation can be combined with suspicious behavior to justify a reasonable suspicion of a police stop or arrest.

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But Jackson objected to what he said was the high court’s intervention in the lower court’s normal determination of what facts are relevant and not.

“I do not understand why this Court is correcting this decision,” Jackson wrote.

The case stemmed from a 2023 dispatch call in Washington, DC, police at 2 a.m. reporting a suspicious vehicle. When the police arrived at the scene, two people ran from the car while the remaining passenger slowly backed out of the parking lot with the door still open. The DC attorney general’s office argued on behalf of the police that a “number” of facts amounted to reasonable suspicion to stop the occupant of the vehicle.

The Supreme Court’s unsigned per curiam opinion said the lower court improperly ignored the fact that two people fled the car before the third person was stopped by the police. Jackson said the D.C. appeals court made a “distraction” of the underlying facts to reach the conclusion that the suspension was unnecessary.

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Members of the Supreme Court pose for an official group photo at the Supreme Court building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Oct. 7, 2022, after the addition of Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

“In these circumstances, there are only seconds left to decide whether to intervene, the police officer was absolutely justified in detaining the driver,” said the police lawyers.

They added that “within a few minutes the driver, the police officer saw the broken window and got out, confirming that the car was stolen.”

Although Jackson is known to strongly support court intervention in broad constitutional battles involving presidential power, in this case, his dissent emphasized the need for judicial restraint.

The US Capitol Police is investigating the incident, according to officials. (Jim Watson/AFP)

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Jackson argued that the lower court properly considered the Fourth Amendment, which states that people have a right to “be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, from unreasonable search and seizure.” He said the case should not have taken the “extraordinary step of reversing the summary.”

“I’m not sure why the Court saw fit to intervene in this case, let alone do so summarily,” Jackson said. “If the intervention reflects a concern that the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (DCCA) misunderstood the Fourth Amendment’s totality of circumstances analysis, that concern appears to be unfounded.”