Sandra Day O'Connor

“ Although the Fourth Amendment expressly requires that the latter course be a reasonable and proportional response to the circumstances of the offense, the majority gives officers unfettered discretion to choose that course without articulating a single reason why such action is appropriate.
Such unbounded discretion carries with it grave potential for abuse. The majority takes comfort in the lack of evidence of “an epidemic of unnecessary minor-offense arrests.” ”

“ The majority insists that a bright-line rule focused on probable cause is necessary to vindicate the State’s interest in easily administrable law enforcement rules. See ante, at 27—30. Probable cause itself, however, is not a model of precision. “The quantum of information which constitutes probable cause–evidence which would ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief’ that a [crime] has been committed–must be measured by the facts of the particular case.” Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 479 (1963) (citation omitted) . ”

“ Thus, when there is probable cause to believe that a person has violated a minor traffic law, there can be little question that the state interest in law enforcement will justify the relatively limited intrusion of a traffic stop. It is by no means certain, however, that where the offense is punishable only by fine, “probable cause to believe the law has been broken [will] ‘outbalanc [e] ’ private interest in avoiding” a full custodial arrest. ”

“ And when history is inconclusive, as the majority amply demonstrates it is in this case, see ante, at 4—24, we will “evaluate the search or seizure under traditional standards of reasonableness by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental interests.” ”

“ Both of Atwater’s children are now terrified at the sight of any police car. Id., at 393, 395. According to Atwater, the arrest “just never leaves us. It’s a conversation we have every other day, once a week, and it’s–it raises its head constantly in our lives.” Id., at 395.
Citing Atwater surely would have served the children’s interests well. It would have taught Atwater to ensure that her children were buckled up in the future. It also would have taught the children an important lesson in accepting responsibility and obeying the law. ”

“ If the State has decided that a fine, and not imprisonment, is the appropriate punishment for an offense, the State’s interest in taking a person suspected of committing that offense into custody is surely limited, at best. ”

“ Qualified immunity was created to shield government officials from civil liability for the performance of discretionary functions so long as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. ”

“ It is difficult to see how arresting Atwater served either of these goals any more effectively than the issuance of a citation. With respect to the goal of law enforcement generally, Atwater did not pose a great danger to the community. She had been driving very slowly–approximately 15 miles per hour–in broad daylight on a residential street that had no other traffic. Record 380. Nor was she a repeat offender; until that day, she had received one traffic citation in her life–a ticket, more than 10 years earlier, for failure to signal a lane change. ”

“ The majority’s assessment that “Atwater’s claim to live free of pointless indignity and confinement clearly outweighs anything the City can raise against it specific to her case,” ante, at 26, is quite correct. In my view, the Fourth Amendment inquiry ends there.
III The Court’s error, however, does not merely affect the disposition of this case. The per se rule that the Court creates has potentially serious consequences for the everyday lives of Americans. A broad range of conduct falls into the category of fine-only misdemeanors. ”