The Arizona Supreme Court is providing motorists with a new reason to keep right: Failure to do so can get you stopped and pave the way for a search of your vehicle.
In a unanimous ruling, the justices rejected claims by Asalia Alvarez-Soto that the fact she was driving in the middle lane of Interstate 10 through Pinal County was an insufficient reason for a Department of Public Safety officer to pull her over. Once she was pulled over and consented to have a canine sniff around her vehicle, 55 pounds of marijuana found in the trunk of her vehicle was legally seized and could be used as evidence against her.
Friday's ruling is contrary to the one reached a year ago by the state Court of Appeals.
There, a majority of the judges concluded the stop in this case was an overly strict interpretation of the state's "stay right'' laws.
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They said the evidence showed Alvarez-Soto was driving at about the speed limit and had not interfered with the flow of traffic. They said the trooper was enforcing the law in a way that could "subject all travelers to virtually random seizures.''
And with the traffic stop not justified, those judges had ruled the evidence seized could not be used in a criminal case against her.
Friday's ruling overturns that.
The case dates to December 2018, when Officer Ashton Shewey stopped Alvarez-Soto for violating the statutes that make it illegal to impede traffic flow by failing to drive in the right lane.
Court records show the stop of the 2007 Chevrolet Malibu wasn't entirely random.
It says Shewey later testified that he knew drug-trafficking organizations often use Chevy models from 2002 to 2008 as "company vehicles'' used to move narcotics out of border cities.
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A check of the license plate revealed it was newly registered out of Nogales and recently crossed the international border multiple times. All that led to his decision to follow the vehicle and, if he saw any traffic violation, to pull it over, he said.
While writing Alvarez-Soto a warning, the trooper asked her about her travel plans and asked for her consent to search the vehicle, which she refused.
But she did agree to let Chili, the trooper's dog, sniff around the vehicle. And when the dog alerted, that led to a search that ultimately led to her conviction on charges of possession and transportation of marijuana for sale and a sentence of five years in state prison.
Justice John Lopez, writing for the unanimous Supreme Court, said the key is that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires only that police have "reasonable suspicion'' to stop and briefly detain a vehicle.
He said that is determined on the "totality of the circumstances viewed in consideration of the officer's training and experience.''
In this case, Lopez said, the officer observed the vehicle traveling in the middle lane three miles an hour over the posted 75 mph speed limit over several minutes and several miles. The driver slowed to 70 mph, at which point another vehicle passed her on the right.
Lopez pointed out that the law requires motorists to drive in the right-hand lane if they are going less than the normal speed of traffic. Once Alvarez-Soto slowed to 70 and was passed on the right, he said, that met the "minimal reasonable suspicion threshold.''
He also rejected the argument advanced by the Court of Appeals that interpreting the law that way essentially would force Arizona motorists to violate speeding laws -- Alvarez-Soto was driving 78 mph with the flow of traffic -- to avoid being pulled over on the "stay right'' provision. Lopez said Alvarez-Soto had multiple opportunities to comply by pulling into the right lane after she was passed on the right.
Lopez acknowledged that a traffic court might reach a different conclusion about whether Alvarez-Soto was violating the traffic law. But he said that doesn't affect whether the decision of a police officer to stop a motorist was legal in the first place.
"The Fourth Amendment does not require an Arizona officer to interpret every traffic provision with some measure of flexibility before initiating an investigatory stop,'' the justice wrote.
"It requires only that the officer have a particularized and objective basis to suspect that a violation may have occurred,'' Lopez continued. "An officer's reasonable mistake about the facts or relevant law does not preclude reasonable suspicion.''
The new ruling does not end the case. Instead, it sends the case back to a trial judge to determine whether the officer unlawfully prolonged the traffic stop.
A 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling says police generally cannot extend a traffic stop beyond the time necessary to deal with the reason for the stop -- in this case, a warning for violating the stay-right law -- unless they have reasonable suspicion that another crime has occurred.
Howard Fischer is a veteran journalist who has been reporting since 1970 and covering state politics and the Legislature since 1982. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, Bluesky, and Threads at @azcapmedia or email [email protected].
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