Virginia v. Moore

553 U.S. 164 (2008)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Officers stopped a car driven by Moore (D). They had heard over the police radio that a person known as “Chubs” was driving with a suspended license, and one of the officers knew Moore by that nickname. They arrested him for the misdemeanor of driving on a suspended license. They searched D and found that he was carrying 16 grams of crack cocaine and $516 in cash. Under state law, the officers should have issued a summons instead of arresting him. D was charged with possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute it in violation of Virginia law. D filed a pretrial motion to suppress the evidence, but Virginia law does not, as a general matter, require suppression of evidence obtained in violation of state law. D argued that suppression was required by the Fourth Amendment. The court denied the motion, and after a bench trial found D guilty of the drug charge and sentenced him to a 5-year prison term, with one year and six months of the sentence suspended. The conviction was reversed on Fourth Amendment grounds but reinstated by the intermediate court sitting en banc. That was reversed again by the Virginia Supreme Court: since the arresting officers should have issued a citation under state law, and the Fourth Amendment does not permit search incident to citation, the arrest search violated the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.