In a surprise ruling, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that the race of a person who has been stopped by police can factor into that person’s perception of the encounter in ways that impact their constitutional rights. The ruling affirms the idea that Black men may have a “reasonable” belief that they are not free to walk away from police stops, and that police therefore may have a greater duty to protect a stopped person’s rights in such cases.

Supreme Court allows race to factor into protection of rights in police encounters

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal in the case United States v. Donte J. Carter, involving a man who was stopped by police and ultimately arrested when police discovered he was carrying a stolen gun. The arrest came at the end of a 2020 encounter between Carter and police in Washington, D.C., in which Carter was stopped by police, questioned on whether he was carrying a weapon and asked to adjust his clothes, which led to police noticing a bulge that was ultimately identified to be a weapon. Carter’s lawyers argued that police had violated the Fourth Amendment, which protects “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Carter’s lawyers argued that he did not feel that he was free to walk away from the police stop, which made the encounter a “seizure” based on the amendment. Under such circumstances, Carter’s legal team argued, police did not have a proper basis for detaining him and thus finding the gun. While this argument did not succeed during Carter’s trial, the D.C. Court of Appeals accepted this explanation. Its ruling hinged on the standard of what a person would “reasonably” believe about the police encounter in such circumstances. The appeals court accepted the argument that, as a Black man, Carter might reasonably feel based on his experiences that he was not free to walk away from police, whereas a different person might perceive the encounter differently. This appeals court ruling thus allows for a race-conscious determination of what is reasonable concerning a person’s interactions with police.

Supreme Court’s conservatives generally skeptical of race-conscious policies

By declining to intervene, the Supreme Court is allowing this race-conscious standard, which could lead to legal protections being granted more strictly for Black people in circumstances like those Carter faced based on how race and lived experience can factor into such encounters. This is a surprising outcome for a conservative-dominated Supreme Court that has been skeptical of other race-based legal protections. In recent years, the Supreme Court has ruled against race-conscious affirmative action for college admissions and gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965’s protections against race-based gerrymandering that dilutes Black voting power.

Two of the court’s conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented from the decision to leave the D.C. Court of Appeals decision standing. Alito, writing on behalf of himself and Thomas, said, “The injection of an individual’s race into the ‘reasonable person’ test contravenes our decisions” and argued that it is “hardly ever” constitutional to allow for people to be treated differently based on their race. Alito also took issue with the idea that the “lived experiences” of Black men might require a different application of legal protections, and he expressed skepticism concerning research used by the D.C. Court of Appeals that shows that “Black men are more likely to comply with police demands rather than exercise their constitutional right to terminate a suspicionless police encounter.” Alito argued that the Supreme Court should have taken up the case rather than let the D.C. appeals court decision stand.

“It is important, and it warrants this Court’s review,” Alito wrote of the case.

It remains to be seen whether other jurisdictions will follow the standard set by the D.C. Court of Appeals, and differing standards from other regions could bring the issue back to the Supreme Court. For now, at least, the appeals court ruling stands, despite Alito and Thomas’ objections, acknowledging that the lived experiences of Black men can be different from the experiences of others in constitutionally relevant ways.