Justice Jackson Rips Colleagues Over Decision In Routine Police Stop Case

Jackson contended that the high court was improperly intervening in a lower court’s routine evaluation of relevant and irrelevant facts. “I cannot fathom why that kind of factbound determination warranted correction by this Court,” Jackson wrote.

The case stemmed from a 2023 dispatch call to Washington, D.C., police around 2 a.m. reporting a suspicious vehicle. When an officer arrived, two individuals fled from the car, while a third person began slowly backing out of the parking lot with a door still open. The D.C. attorney general’s office argued that the totality of those circumstances provided reasonable suspicion to justify the stop.

In an unsigned per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court of the United States said the lower court failed to properly consider the fact that two individuals had fled the vehicle before the stop occurred.

Jackson, in dissent, said the D.C. appeals court had done a basic “culling” of the information and narrowed the relevant facts in determining that the stop was not justified.

“Under these circumstances, with only seconds to decide whether to intervene, the officer was entirely justified in detaining the driver,” lawyers for the police argued. They added that “within moments of stopping the driver, the officer observed a smashed window and punched-out ignition, confirming that the vehicle had been stolen.”

Although Jackson is known for advocating court intervention in broader constitutional battles over presidential power, her dissent in this case highlighted the importance of judicial restraint.