Police Must UNDERSTAND LAWS, They Are Entrusted to Enforce and Obey. No Registration Sticker Needed

What Officer Hill reasonably suspected, namely that Lopez–Soto had not affixed a registration sticker to his rear window, simply was not a violation of Baja California law. This cannot justify the stop under the Fourth Amendment. Nor is it possible to justify the stop objectively, as did the court in Sanders, with the facts available to Officer Hill when he made the stop: in his mistaken belief that Baja California law required the registration sticker to be visible from behind, Officer Hill did not check the windshield for the sticker. The information that he did gather—that there was no sticker on the rear or left windows—did not make it any less likely that Lopez–Soto was operating his car in conformity with the law.

We have no doubt that Officer Hill held his mistaken view of the law in good faith, but there is no good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule for police who do not act in accordance with governing law. See United States v. Gantt, 194 F.3d 987, 1006 (9th Cir.1999). To create an exception here would defeat the purpose of the exclusionary rule, for it would remove the incentive for police to make certain that they properly understand the law that they are entrusted to enforce and obey.

Read the full case here: United States v. Lopez-Soto, 205 F.3d 1101, 1106 (9th Cir. 2000), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/205/1101/559308/