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Supreme Court: State troopers can stop drivers for littering (UPDATE)

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//November 25, 2015//

Supreme Court: State troopers can stop drivers for littering (UPDATE)

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//November 25, 2015//

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has reinstated drunken driving charges against an Amery man, instructing the circuit court that had previously handled the case to consider traffic-stop evidence that had been improperly suppressed.

State trooper Michael Larsen stopped Daniel Iverson on North Rose Street in the city of La Crosse at about 1 a.m. on Sept. 18, 2013. Larsen saw Iverson’s silver Jeep, which was in front of him, drift within its lane toward the center line and stop at yellow traffic lights.

After he saw a cigarette butt thrown out of the Jeep’s passenger window, Larsen stopped the vehicle and spoke to Iverson, who was the driver. Larsen cited Iverson for drunken driving and driving with a prohibited blood-alcohol concentration.

Iverson pleaded not guilty to the violations and filed a motion to suppress all evidence following the traffic stop and dismiss the case. The La Crosse County Circuit Court granted the motion, reasoning that Larsen had really stopped Iverson to see if he was drunk and the accusations of littering were just an excuse. The court said that had the cigarette butt been thrown out of the driver’s side, it would have denied the motion.

The state appealed, and the appeals court affirmed the circuit court, but on different grounds. The court found that because littering was neither a crime nor a traffic violation, Larsen was not authorized to stop Iverson.

However, the Supreme Court disagreed Wednesday, with Justices Shirley Abrahamson and Ann Walsh Bradley concurring. Justice Rebecca Bradley did not participate.

The court held that the motion to dismiss evidence from the traffic stop should have been denied because state statute authorizes state troopers to make traffic stops for forfeitures such as littering.

“Under the court of appeals’ interpretation, an officer would be required to sit idly by even if an individual threw an entire bag of garbage out of a vehicle’s window, simply because littering is a non-traffic civil forfeiture offense,” wrote Justice Annette Ziegler for the courts’ majority in Wednesday’s decision.

Also, the court found the traffic stop constitutional because Larsen had probable cause to believe that the littering statute had been violated, and that the littering statute, though not contained in the traffic statutes, applies to the state’s highways. Troopers therefore, the courts found, have the power to enforce it.

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