i remember no one was saying anything about it and very few people even knew anything about it. when people come home they need to have an actual exit plan, a place where they can go to just to detox the whole prison experience, a place where they

can be stable and get their i.d. and social security card where they can begin to feel welcome and they can begin to get back in touch with why am i here? what is my purpose? even though i have been through all of these things what do i do with my life tomorrow, next year, next decade? hadaway reconnect with my children? and some of the same things that we think about for our own lives as far as the further development. what will i be doing in 10 years? where do i want to work? where do i want to play and how do i get to rebuilding my life? how do i become a part of a policy system? how do i become a voter? you know, how do i get my life

back in my dreams back in my goals back. some of the things that we need to be thinking about are what do we do to support those coming back home to become constructive members of our community? to be useful and productive in our world. and in a new way of life that's her whole purpose. that's what we do with the women that come their is just a small nonprofit in the smallest city in the world. we do what we do and i think we do it really really well. but there needs to be organizations across the county, across the state, across the nation that are bringing people back in and supporting them to become engaged in their communities.

>> jeanne why's it so hard to get money? i had an interesting conversation recently with a prison warden and he told me if someone gave him $100,000 or a million dollars of discretionary money to spend anywhere in the prison that he could he would spend it outside the prison and re-entry programs. >> why is it so hard to get money? >> yeah. >> such a limited amount of resources and i think that's the hope of realignment. before realignment counties could push their problems to the state and now with realignment is kept locally and is hopeful that the money that is given counties will be utilized with more emphasis on re-entry and providing those services because it's so critical. there have been studies that show people when they leave jail or prison know where they are going to spend their first night out they can be more successful and if they have a place to stay

for 30 days the success rate continues to go up. so we know what works. it's just really getting people committed and the resources behind those things. again i live in the san francisco area so i know what they are doing there. they have spent a lot of their resources on making sure the people have the services they need to be successful. other counties need to hold their probation departments and their local communities responsible. >> a real visceral social sense that is not fair to get people in job training resources that they broken the law and something we really have to confront and overcome and realized how they become if we don't try to lift everyone up. i taught education programs for year. i taught at a college program at san quentin for several years and i can tell you how many times i've answer the question how why should you provide higher education services for

people that broke the law when you have college students in her classroom classroom and were you taking time away from them? my answer is do you know how expensive it is to take care of these people in prison as opposed to the college classroom and my tuition in california went up because we are spending so much money in encouraging people. my students tuition continued to go up because we were taking money away from them. it's not only committing to it but really stepping back to have the bigger perspective to understand that if we are not educating those people in prison and that they might be less deserving of a college student in my classroom that we are in the long term hurting the college students in my classroom because we are taking resources away from them over the longer budgetary system. >> i heard a commercial a few days ago and the commercial made just really good sense. i think the buttons and the

stickers out there do the math. it says you can spend a dime now or a dollar later and it was just really simple. do the math. are we going to keep spending more and more and more, over $60,000 on a person in prison and jail and no services and no education and $9000 on a person's education, a kids education? it's like a dime now or a dollar later. >> i think it's a very difficult conversation that we also have to address which is when we are talking about reforming our prison system what we are also talking about is the inevitable loss of jobs. i think no one is actually facing that conversation as well

so when we continue to decrease our prison population that means we are going to need less and less prisoner guards or administrative or what have you and we also need to figure out a way to utilize that population as well and get them to a point to become educators and social workers that can actually wean us off the prison system and put us back into more education conducive and the warden said if he could have a million dollars he would do reinjury, one of my personal views i heard a gentleman say this before van jones and i have taken it on sense which is we need to incentivize wardens to reduce the prison population. currently we have like jeanne who are incredible and they have no incentive to be incredible other than the business of their heart but our prison system as

it stands right now actually encourages more people to be locked up. we need to switch that system to where we are discouraging people being locked up and encouraging wardens and others to reduce the prison population. i think then we strike some sort of a balance because yes the numbers on their surface show is easier and less costly to educate folks that it is to incarcerate but we are also talking about losing a substantial amount of jobs that the system has unfortunately created. so part of this dialogue is how do we replace those jobs? >> and i think having performance-based funding is really a way to get to that. i have little to say about --

but when you get money out to other counties or to the prison system and tie it to performance measures says the more successful you are the more money you get the morbidity can do and we have had some of that. as an example the state gave more money to counties who reduce the money they were sending to prison so counties really worked hard to reduce the amount of people they were sending to prison and as a result i think they were given a million dollars after one year. those are the kinds of policies we want to see put into place. the better you do the more money you get to do more good. >> one thing ms. burton had gone in terms of re-entry, it's very small and i'm not sure people realize how big it actually is but just getting a social security card, driver's license, i personally think that should be done within a few weeks before you can step out of the

prison system because i can tell you when i was released i didn't have the family and support around me or i would not be here i guarantee because i was released with $200 was told to forge a new life after being imprisoned from the time i was 16 to 22. no fundamental training within that type so that certainly a point of failure where we can clearly target and say here are some tangible things we can do to change it. the legislative side of things in terms of former inmates getting housing and those things, that's a larger battle that hopefully in november i will be fighting but it's certainly something that can be addressed before folks can be released. >> this is all very optimistic and i want to throw in a little

cold water. what he think the possibility is a backlash? these counties are also getting dumped with a lot of prisoners who were not their responsibility and the recent history of social policy is not necessarily that the best decisions are made as responsibilities devolve to the counties in the states from federal government. >> is a very different view if you read the orange county. there's the fear in california and crime is up. realignment is causing crime. there are more murders and offenders in our community. there's no evidence of that. realignment is too new to study that and we are bad at understanding what causes crime as sociologists as a society that when one person comes out and commits a crime there is real potential for there to be backlash and it's a real danger as we look at policy. one thing that's really

important to think about and prison reform is that we have a real expectation that we can get it and that's where a lot of reforms have failed in the past. if we just understand their right to risk assessment no one would commit murders and we would never let in anyone i personally did anything bad. we are not perfect at anything and to get better criminal justice policy we need to be a elusive except a little bit of air. sometimes we would get it wrong and that's okay. assuming the whole policy is wrong and we have to think about all the stories that don't get told as often. it really creates a backlash because when you look at prison reform anytime there's an attempt to be more humane and to get more people out of prison there are indeed stories in the news like willie horton, someone who commits a really gruesome crime and it's hard for us to put that behind us. it's more memorable than the

thousands of people who came out and did really well. i think you are right. we have to think about how to tell the stories that people are succeeding better. >> create a counternarrative to all the negativity that is constantly pushed is so vital to the success. we can change all the policies. we can rely more resources in different places but until the narrative is changed what it is for someone to have committed a crime because i can say through and through when i was 15 i committed a crime but i was not a criminal. i think that is a dialogue that we have to begin to have with the public so when a person commits a crime they are not forever wearing a scarlet letter in society and they actually have an opportunity to succeed. and go back to their communities

and make it more successful. we have to bite the bullet. everything isn't perfect. we are going to make some mistakes and have his conceptions. some individuals are going to commit crimes and we are not going to be able to catch them. but the clear direction we should be on is how we treat mental illness and how do we successfully treat drug addictions because that's not a crime. it's a serious illness and i think those are two things that are huge for this. mental illness, specifically in our children who have ridiculous amounts of trauma, who grow up in nonthinkable violent impoverished neighborhoods and then are expected to somehow be the golden child. it's just unrealistic. we need to certainly bite the

bullet and focus on that. >> i think that's where individuals and institutions. >> i think information is power and i've advocated for a public report card by county. how many mental health beds do we have, how many drug treatment beds and patient in each county putting those numbers out and then we can compare that with how well people are doing. we have to put money toward what works and not go back to let's just lock people up. we know where that goes i think the public report card is really important. it's a concept that we need to take a look in the state. we have 58 counties we do at 50 different ways. what's working? let's do that. what's not working let's stop that. >> do you have any thoughts of the sides prophet on one of the hard pieces of this is how you start to build that tolerance for risk which is inevitable.

you have to somehow do it, you have to create some level of strategic patients in a society that doesn't have any look at what hasn't changed in the system. parole boards operate very much the way that they always have when there is political pressure on willie horton. the system kind of kicks back into its old instincts very quickly. do you have some sense of how to change back? >> i think you had part of an answer which is i'm pretty cynical about change and backlash that the move for greater transparency is really huge and you have been doing incredible work on this. part of the problem with stories like willie horton or the guy who committed the crime because he was under realignment or paroled to commit a murder is what we don't have the data to

counter that narrative. we don't have the numbers to say yeah by 500 other people or paroled and didn't do that and look at exactly where they are doing and where they are or look at the numbers of realignment. if we don't have the data we can't counter the narrative. i think that works to create better databases that shows exactly what criminal justice has been doing where people are and how they are competing or not is an important way to counter the narrative. >> in the stories that are being told and captured what people are actually doing. it's amazing to me some of the work that people are engaging in after spending some time incarcerated. but we never hear about it. we never see it. one of the women came to me last week and told me the child she grabbed out of the street that was about to get hit by a car,

this is something that she did it save the life which any of us would have done it but that's what she did that day. there are amazing things being done daily by people who have been incarcerated and want to come back to their community and just be useful and thoughtful and want to give and make their lives count for something more than the number of the time they have spent. there's a deep yearning than people to be that person. so i agree with you that there needs to be more stories put out there on what people are doing, not just the willie horton's or the newsflash of what the personal parole bid. one person. >> be articulation of policy at the federal level has changed

dramatically in the last several years and is almost not been noticed for his big a deal as it is. you sort of wonder today where was the impact of federal drug sentencing guidelines that have changed now going back four years on these incarceration rates. is there sort of a less of a role for the federal government? is this one of those places where the power of the presidency is a lot less than people thought? >> the national person population has continued to fall fall so there's some impact there. i think people forget when you say 1.5 million people in prison less than 200,000 in the federal prison system so any reform is implemented isn't targeting the

individual criminal justice systems that are in her state. it's a question of whether reformist trickling down and when eric holder says does that have an effect on the state then i think probably it does. it just takes time to change that culture. i think one place where we need changes federal litigation. it's federal courts that it said they federal prisons are overcrowded and that's going to trickle down everywhere because that's national law. i think there is room and similarly when mandatory's sentencing is -- but that's a very slow process. when you look at a lot of the policies they are coming from the state level. there's a lot of stuff percolating from the local level and states like texas are having a big impact on the federal system to match.

not an easy answer. >> we started out talking about how california was doing and are we seeing lessons of other places. where are their other solutions out there and other programs that have jumped out at you as models that should be looked at? >> i believe it's massachusetts now that aren't sensing mentally ill to prison. they are sending them to treatment centers and showing tremendous success. that just happened recently and lots of states are looking at the model. new york again, we talked about the prison population that is fallen and so is the crime rate far more than california. hawaii had a lot of success with their hope initiative and some of the other programs. i think there are bright spots around the country and people

are beginning to look at what is working and try to duplicate that. i think that's good news. again it's just a slow transition. >> i was going to say in boston as well there's a program that for every day they keep someone out of prison who would otherwise be in prison there's a certain percentage that the government gives to the employer and it's like this constant trade-off of jobs versus imprisonment and it's constantly turns out to be cheaper. similar to what you said, i was in new york a couple of weeks ago and there was a national conversation of different organizations of how we affect the justice system. i think there are all these bright spots and there are a lot of them that are correlating with one another about bringing everyone together and working cohesively. >> there's an argument that the

kinds of success you have with juvenile justice is getting at the low-hanging fruit and a much harder problems have to do with people who are in prison and are not sympathetic caregivers in any way. to represent bigger numbers in some ways and more elusive solutions. can you talk a little bit about that since you are nodding? >> this is something i think about a fair amount. in solitary confinement there have been similar performance for the mentally ill and mentally ill juveniles in pregnant women trying to get them out but this has been a systemic problem. you are left with the score people that it's pretty hard to advocate for. the prison system as a whole will they be hard to advocate

for? on the one hand i would say juveniles are a great time to start because they're so young and they're so much hope. at 22-year-olds that are facing the rest of their lives in prison and they did something at 15 that they didn't even understand fully what was wrong. we can get them out we can demonstrate people having successful rights. the same time we have to start the harder conversations about what to do with those tough cases. if we don't as a society believe in solitary confinement and people are starting to say long-term solitary confinement is torture and that the human rights is that we have to talk about a person who murdered a prison guard in isolation and think about that too and whether that person can never get out and whether that person is mentally ill and needs treatment and whether that person is so rare and we look at some of the other cases were maybe one person in isolation in california who murdered a prison guard there are probably 100 more who committed violent crimes but maybe education for

conditions of confinement. i think to rate the whole system to be more humanely tough to talk about the ecm but tough. >> jeanne. your prison rings out across the nation for the work and the programs that you did across-the-board with men that are incarcerated there. you might be able to talk about how you implement it and talk about the programs that raise the consciousness of everybody. >> first i need to say i was fortunate to be at san quentin because it's located in the bay area. our ability to bring in volunteers is just so tremendous. my last year there we had 3000 officers coming in. volunteer professors from

berkeley and stanford and a state university. how could it be better than that? and there are many organizations around there. i am just fortunate to be there. you try to duplicate that across california and it's really difficult because where we have built our prisons. it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try and as the prisons have done a better job of opening up their doors and there are more programs coming into prisons around the state, but i also want to comment on what you said. i think the point really is that we need to look at people within the systems as individuals. what are their needs? what -- can we meet the needs of many of these people and the truth is we can. are there hard-core people they probably should never get out of prison? the truth is there there is that we have a look at it in that way. we have decided to take people and throw them away and we can't continue to do that.

i think the point you make is about looking at people. what are the issues? there are so many veterans in our prison system. it's so sad to see a veteran within our prison system. many of them have -- under -- been paroled under governor brown and that's good news. >> i would like to add too the conversation of low-hanging fruit. i suggest that it's more than just low-hanging fruit and projecting 20, 30, 40 and 50 years down the road. the reality is the men and women who are currently in prison and who we are unable to look at with the same empathetic i starting off as a child and there are very few psychopaths in the world and that suggests

every child has an opportunity to not be a victim and in fact most of the men who are in prison currently started off his victims. so it's two conversations that have to be had at the same time in and the juvenile conversation has to be pursued with extreme tenacity to project the next two years so we are not having the same conversation in 100 years. it's like we see what has happened now. most of the children are the direct effect of our war on drugs in the vietnam war and all these different things that have occurred in our history and most of these men who are hearing we will never be able to let you out started as children. now we have an opportunity to do that and kerry both

conversations. >> i think we have to look at people individually and think about their stories but we also have to acknowledge the worst possible conditions we put people in our very hard to control. if we say okay this is the worst prison system so we are going to leave them in total isolation and dark room forever it's very hard to do that to only one person want to build the structure. i think that's another important piece of the story is to say the way we treat the worse people in system needs to be something we as a society of thought about that embodies our democratic ideals and we are comfortable with the possibility that it might expand to other people and they might eventually get out of prison and think about it from that perspective. >> we are going to cause -- pause and move to questions. >> we want to take questions from the audience. there are two of us walking around with microphones. please raise your hand. we are recording the senate will be up on a web site first thing

tomorrow morning so you can share with friends family students and colleagues who could not make it out tonight. if you can please say your first and last name before your question i would be grateful. c-span is here as well and it will be read broadcast as part of the national audience at a later date. you have the first question. >> i. my name is mary sutton and i'm a member of critical resistance and californians united for responsible budget with a statewide alliance of over 70 organizations fighting prison and jail expansion in california and right here in los angeles. my question is, does the audience know there is a billion dollars in jerry brown's new budget to delegate for new jail expansion? does the audience know that yes, two-point billion dollars is being spent on a project to expand the l.a. system and what

you think l.a. county getting over a billion dollars over the four years of realignment in giving 90% of it to the sheriff's department and almost nothing to the community organizations? >> i would actually like to address that. i am probably one of the most staunch people against building additional prisons or expanding our jail system in any form however we have to focus on what has happened with realignment. with realignment we have pushed more people into our jail syst system. that unfortunately are the mentally ill that need more educational programs and they are there. ..

need to be shut down and under no circumstances should we continue to increase the amount of beds. i want people treated to tackle the systemic problem here. >> next question over here on your left. >> my name is todd. i wonder if you could comment on the relative impact of things like the private industrial prison complex and the huge number of plea-bargain is that take place on prison sentencing?

>> i am going to take that plea-bargain piece. as the person that has been through this system and working with people that are currently going through this system and coming out, is not a plea bargain that people gate. it is a thread. and that is the real bottom line on that. if you don't take what they offer you the man they threaten you with three or four times the number of years that you are going to be behind bars. so, it is a processing wake, processing people through a system that we call the justice system. but there is no justice in that system for people that don't have attorneys.

so what i say, it is not a bargain, it is a threat. that is just the way it is. >> an airport topic, the lack of attorneys and representations' focusing in on this when it deals with plea-bargain, a lot of the people who are represented in our court system because we have a lack of resources for the state system did not even have public defenders. and they typically have panel attorneys. in panel attorneys are often given three or $400 for the life of a case. so that being said, if i can get this case out my door in the next hour and $9,300 an hour. i do my due diligence to the investigation, what it takes to actually defend the case which could be months. amelie given $300.

and so there is, again, this incentive to push people through plea bargaining in county supervisor is actually working on an initiative to get more funding for things like this . >> and similarly, an example of the perverse incentives to you are both talking about we change the incentives of the system away from justice in toward efficiency or financial gain, and that creates the problem. the u.s. has pushed have 34,000 beds mandated to be sold by undocumented people every day. so now required that those beds remain. so keep the system full. similarly with the plea bargain. >> next question. >> steve goldsmith, connected with the use services. we have affronted program where we set up meetings between victims and offenders, youth offenders.

very effective. evidence based, but i don't imagine we have to many people from the juvenile justice probation or law enforcement here. how do we educate them? that is really the folks that need rehabilitation, those front-line workers because they don't make referrals to programs like that. they have this idea that, in fact an operation department as a number of employees whose job is to go out and violate people. that is all they do, sending them back to prison. how do we change the system on the outside so as to reduce people going in to begin with? >> create dialogue. step one is to create dialogue between these two different groups and see that there is more commonality then there are, you know, the centrist. >> and that every county to miami many of the counties, particularly the bay area,

they have councils where everyone is at the table, community-based organizations, the district attorney, the sheriff, the probation department, and they are all working together. some of the counties have mandated that a huge percentage of their funding goes to those programs. they have done a lot of training with the probation officers to make those referrals and the performance reports are based upon the skies of referrals. so you have to change the law and your whole system has to be at the table, in my opinion, along with the community based organizations that either the help. >> as an example, san francisco, 33 percent of the funding they receive goes to programs. so that is what they voted to do. i think you have to do that at the local level to make that happen. >> good evening. my name is barry marlin. how do you get to the for profit motive out of the prison system? we really have not talked about that this evening.

it is a business. it is a business upon which people are making money, whether they are the lobbyists directing political contributions to my congressmembers who are proving vast growth and the private construction and private operation of prisons how can we conceivably direct the profit motive? that is what this country works upon, the rehabilitation effort ensued their restructuring efforts to get these people back into society with a lot. how do we stick the pen in the balloon of the profit motive of the prison system? >> and i would just throw out, the balloon has already been stuck in some ways. and you already see private prison corporation is betting very quickly and very nimbly to move into

probation services, in to bail, and to a whole series of incarceration services committee know, with the exception of immigration detention, private prisons are not really a growth business at this point. >> i think jenny mentioned this earlier, just the restructuring of what we spend our resources on. so if we are encouraging social impact, we are saying, if you are successful with reducing the population then and only then will you be paid. and i think we are encouraging a profit model where, yes, you can still make money, but you will do so by reducing the prison population. >> we will even give you more. >> this is also an area where i think there is a black-and-white. it really is inappropriate to allow anyone to profit of

the punishment. that is what we have allowed one we sentence people to probation and have them a private companies i interest loan. they agree to be on probation. when we put them in private prisons. so rehabilitation is maybe a creative idea, but profit enough punishment inevitably creates perverse incentives. there are many things are black and white to me, that 1s. >> i think we also need to decide what the purpose of prisons to be. an appeal codicils as punishment. really the sentence is the punishment. the focus of prison should be rehabilitation. and, you know, i think we have to really be clear what we expect people to achieve. >> next question comes to your right. >> hi. actually went through the program. >> thank full. >> wonderful. so my topic is poverty. whenever i read books by civil rights movements back

in the day come martin luther king, dr. sherman, and every criminal justice books commanded seems like sometimes they have the same common theme to my attacking poverty. okay. the rich get richer and deported prison. a state that has the most income and people make money , hire the prison population. dr. thurman says people, all morals are out the door when you're in survival mode. martin luther king says if you empower somebody let them know that their voices mean something and have a skill that they can focus on . fixing crime ever becoming a civil rights type? it seems like that becomes part of the problem, i guess , but how can it ever goes that route where we are hurting our own citizens but that empowering them and educating them in treating him like a human being?

>> mass incarceration is the final frontier in the civil-rights movement. >> is something nice about privatization. highlights for us in no way that this is a civil right. when you read about people in ferguson, misery not being able to pay their fines and essentially being in debtor's prison, we really see that we have violated the civil right in a way we have a much harder time seeing when it has not been privatized. thanks to privatization for and lightning people in that way, i guess. >> we have not touched on race in this conversation. you know? [laughter] [applause] we have not touched on race, the 13th amendment, when you are imprisoned. in that really needs to be in the heart of this conversation. when you see so many black man, so many black boys, the

numbers are astounding, the numbers that are incarcerated. when you're in that place and you are getting $0.8 an hour for picking pecans or making a desk. you get out and have these fines are get with $200 to. but we have not touched on how race is driving this. so 70, 80, 90, 100 years ago being black guy was, you know, pushed out. but now today having a criminal history and pushed out. and so many of our young men, so many of our women of color, men of color are pushed out and incarcerated and worked as a slave under criminal justice system.

so we, you know, deep conversation that we must put race into this. and mass incarceration of black and brown folks in this conversation. [applause] >> we have time for one last question. we have run at a time. what take time to thank all of our panelists for sharing the evening with us. all of them will be at our reception. everyone is invited to go up to them individually and ask further questions. want to take a moment to thank the california endowment for hosting us. we could not have done this without them. now will ask questions. >> hi. i am here to talk about rehabilitation. my brother just got out after drawing cheers. he basically went to jail

because he was trying to feed his family. he shot a man and it just so my brother it would have done less time if he had killed the man. i did not really believe it, but i was there when he said it. so try to figure out, once you get out of prison car rehabilitation like what is next? is in no, once you're a felon there is no really opportunity or access to jobs, especially as a black male, you know, hard for me. you know, what is next for us? we have all this money, but no one is getting jobs. by brother as a child on the lake and the can't get any work. >> so having been a co-founder of the arc to while we are two-pronged. one, 50 percent of our time is still with adequacy. better policy. the other piece of it is looking for individuals were going to commit to being drug-free, crime free, of

service to the community concerts of employment education. we have just created a housing model for that is right across the street from an existing college. and it gives folks an opportunity to live. they pay a certain amount of rent, but it goes back to them when they leave out of college so that they can actually have more money once they are successful with their college degree. and i think for your brother, unfortunately we do not have an immense amount of re-entering the programs today, and that think that is the point of this panel to talk about how we get there in the meantime or in the interim. the nrc is a source of hope and something your brother or others can utilize. if we don't have the resources we can try and connect. and i would encourage anyone who is a ceo or president of

the nonprofit organization, it is vitally important that you all communicate with others, nonprofit organizations because what is happening, people like your brother will come home, and there is only this one small organization in south central that can fulfill his needs, but there may be others, and there is no communication between the two to actually get the help. >> and if i could just comment, i know there's somebody in the audience to provide jobs because they e-mail me. is it you? >> called on one second. but while we are getting a mite, let me just say this, there are many organizations popping up around the state to help people get employment. i have gone out and spoke to employer groups. explain to them why they

should hire someone coming out of the prison system and educating employers as to the benefits of firing people. tax breaks, all kinds of things that the state is offering when you hire somebody that has been a criminal justice system. >> we are from a recycling company and e-wis corporation here in chinatown. we hire the population and we train them. it worked extensively with them. so we are trying to have a good story instead of, you know, you getting out. [inaudible] to find work. we need more. the more jobs, the more it waste we get the more jobs we can provide. we are working with large corporations trying to get the message out. >> i would like to connect with a young man at the breaktime try and in south l.a. we do organizing with incarcerated people. we worked extensively with both male and female on the

organizing side. and we're also working with the mayor's office. so let's talk during the break. >> everyone talk during the break. let's go out. see you at the reception. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> coming up tonight on c-span2, the supreme court argument. a case examining whether a police officer is misunderstanding a lot and can justify a search. then a look at the impact of social media on politics.

later, state and local officials in texas discuss border security issues. >> on tuesday the national league of cities releases its annual report tracking fiscal conditions in u.s. cities. 10:00 a.m. eastern white house council of economic advisers chair joins mayors and city leaders to discuss the report. live coverage here on c-span2. and at noon eastern decade ago institute examines the public policy implications of self driving cars. that is live also here on c-span2. >> here are just a few of the comments we recently received from our viewers. >> just that a gentleman on from the nra supporting the nra so-called second amendment. the chairman that handle this question never went

back to the fact that this man did not answer that two questions fully perry did not answer why is the nra does not support background checks. and did not answer fully how much money the nra's getting from the gun manufacturers and other friends. in you guys don't support or d

>> please show where the president has said he is against the second amendment letting of this. this was just one side. thank you. >> and continue to let us know. call us at 202-66-3400. e-mail us. or you can send us the tweet . join the c-span conversation like us on facebook, follows on twitter. >> next, the supreme court's oral argument. the court is considering whether a police officer's misunderstanding of the lock can justify the stop and search of a vehicle under the fourth amendment. this is an hour.

>> our first case this morning. mr. fisher. >> mr. chief justice, and may it please the court, in the country dedicated to the lot governmental officers should be presented of the law at least as well as the citizens are. that being so, what questions about individualized suspicion a rise of the fourth amendment there should be an address against the backdrop of the correct interpretation of the law, not simply any possible reading an officer might have. >> suppose that this state, north carolina, did have a

good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. what would you be arguing today? >> we would be arguing, if that were the case, that not only the fourth amendment was violated but that the good-faith exception did not apply. but you would not have to reach that question in this case. i would exceed to you, justice kennedy, that would be a debatable argument. >> what would it be any more debatable that the argue you're making here? i more or less anticipated your answer. the thing that has to be your answer. think you have to tell us even if the good faith excuse air role applies. >> that is not exactly where they jurisprudence holds. the nfl that reasonableness of mistakes of law can be taken into account that the remedy states. >> but then the question is, why is that a problem for you when you say that there cannot be a reasonable mistake of law. we know that there can be. >> but there is a difference between rights and remedies in the court's jurisprudence

and you ask a question of what is reasonable as to whether or not the first man was violated in fourth amendment jurisprudence in criminal cases and unqualified immunity cases, you did that assessment against the correct interpretation of the law. >> talking about whether as a categorical manner, jurors provincial matter, we can have this dichotomy known as a reasonable mistake. difficult and interesting question. but it seems to me that you have to make this same argument here in a case where we have a good-faith exception as you're making here. a problem with davis and if you have a problem with davis quarrel then that undermines our categorical argument. >> i really don't think so, justice kennedy. the best exposition of this problem in the court's jurisprudence is actually in the anderson case, the qualified immunity case where there wrestled with the notion that have been something be reasonable in one sense and unreasonable and another? in the answer that the court gave is that when we asked

with the for the memo was violated we did not take the stakes of law into account. the reasonableness of a mistake of law can go to the remedy question. this is the premise from which leon the macro, and davis all derive. >> the fourth amendment. >> i have a preliminary question. even if you are right, a question in this case because as i and a stand it the traffic stop ended with a warning citation. so the traffic stop was over and at that point the police officer asked if he can inspect the car in the answer is yes. why isn't the consent to the search the end of this case?

>> it would be the fruit of the poisonous tree, justice ginsburg, at the stop was illegal. there would have never been an aborigine to ask for consent. does why there's been no argument that the consent wipes away the fourth amendment question. >> oppose the officer had said, all right, i'm giving you a warning, you're free to leave now by the way, mastercard. >> i think that is more less what he did say. >> and you would say then because it would be the fruit of the poisonous tree? >> yes, because the stock would not have taken place. a traffic stop is the seizure. and so upon pulling him over the officer needed to have reasonable suspicion to do so, and the only argument for reasonable suspicion is the mistake of north carolina law as to the bright light in this case. >> if i understood you to say earlier that you don't take distinguishing the

issues arrow and qualified immunity, you don't take reasonable us into account when it comes to the state of law. >> i am sorry. i think us said that you don't take their reasonableness of the mistake of law into account when you ask where the fourth memo was violated. ..

whether or or not there was a warrant outstanding for his arrest would have been a factual question not necessarily a legal question. andersen and kroll and leon and leon mr. chief justice the course as the officer in a case acted exactly as a reasonable officer could and should have acted. time and again in the court's conclusion or a rule cases if the reasonable stage you can take into account whether the officer reasonably understood the law. cnet putting aside our discussion what is to make sense to say you don't take reasonab reasonable -- reasonableness into account when the only protection is unreasonable searches and seizures seizures?

>> is a practical reason a theoretical reason and a jurisprudential reason. i will start with what i was just describing describing. the deep common-law heritage in this country that we have always followed in the best exposition in the chief case was the criminal laws pursuant to be definite and opal opal so in all kinds of settings where there be punishing somebody for violating the law or any other actions citizens or the government engages and we all may assume a correct understanding of the law even if it's later construed by a court in a way that wasn't exactly -. >> the court hold in cheek that under attack circumstance it would be a defense? >> because of an exception that congress had written the beginning of part two of cheek is what i'm relying on justice alito whether it's a paragraph or two that sets out with numerous citations this principle just as holmes described and many others of the

criminal laws pursuant to be definite and opal. once you take a a presumption and put it into a police officer's mind in this case or any other governmental actor who acts on the mistake of law than there is no reasonable suspicion because we present it into the law when we acted. >> suppose the officer stopped the driver and said you know i have been going to night law school and we don't know about this one might,, to lightning are there any court of appeals is sounds like they are going to say one might? i don't know what the law is that you had better get this fix. >> there are two questions in there. >> and then he receives the contraband. >> there are two questions embedded in there. one is whether the officer can look to the court decisions or third-party sources to help him do his job. again that is what the court has said in the crow and davis cases that you take into account things like police manuals court decisions and the court has

embraced that in its remedy jurisprudence but it's off limits as to the fourth amendment. i think there's also an element of your question asking about what if all the officer was worried about was his safety on the roadway. i would be a very different case. again i'm going to turn where the court said if there's a stop lamp a size size from's -- probable cause the purpose of that stuff such as the community caretaking function might kick in but the state hasn't made any arguments in this case because the record is quite clear the officer was performing a criminal investigation. >> mr. fisher we don't review opinions. we review judgments. we review results. what you are complaining about here is the admission of what was discovered in the search of the car, right? now what difference does it make whether that was lawfully

omitted because it was a constitutional search or it was lawfully admitted because the remedy of excluding it would not be applied if there was a mistake of law are reasonable mistake of law? i mean the constitutional problem is the admission of this evidence and it seems to me whether it's properly admitted because the fourth amendment wasn't violated or whether it's properly all made it because the remedy for that violation is not exclusion of the evidence you lose either way, don't you? >> justice scalia no one has addressed remedy in this case because nobody needs to address it. >> if we find as you urge us to find that it violates the fourth amendment to make the search we would then in order to decide

whether this judgment is lawful we would have to decide whether the remedy of excluding that evidence has to be applied. >> forgive me. with respect justice scalia i'm not sure the court needs to do that. the court can vacate and remand the judgment just as it does in a raw other times where it finds a problem with a lower court decision and sent it back. even if this were purely a federal case i think i've i think i'd be seeing the same thing which is nobody has briefed or argued the exception in this case. >> you have and you acknowledge that it applies to remedies. >> no, no. i guess this is important. we have acknowledged that the question of whether the mistake was reasonable would be relevant if at all at the remedy stage so what you would do is you would ask the question if this were a federal case where you had to reach the question you would ask whether the officers going to

take up the lawn this case renders it appropriate. i would add that holding that it did render suppression appropriately would be an extension of the court's jurisprudence which thus far has help a good-faith document applies only when an officer relies on finding law from the legislature or a court. >> so it is a remand. >> that's right. >> letting the court decide whether the remedy of exclusion should. >> i'm not sure if it's any different if i said that constitutional violation may not be entitled for a remedy to close the error was harmless or not. those are the situations where the court would always resolve the constitutional question that the lower court addressed and sent it back down to the question of remedy. >> i don't know why from what's justice scalia is saying, he says we don't give you a remedy unless we believe that one is warranted under the fourth

amendment. and since we applied, it doesn't whether north carolina plays good faith or not, when we apply in terms of determining whether a federal violation, a constitutional violation is subject to any type of remedy for you is the good-faith exception so why do we have to reinvent? i think that's justice scalia's question and i'm not quite sure who to answer to. >> a reason to remand is the lower court has not just the question of remedies on the first instance you should send it back for full adversarial briefing. >> i thought if you violate the fourth amendment that's it, we don't have a good-faith exception. >> that would be our position on demand justice ginsburg. >> isn't that what the north carolina lot is now? it's easier to send it back than to answer to the exception since

i have that. >> it a would be feudal justice ginsburg. i think the analogy that i gave earlier about chapman is more or less some point. the court has held the constitution is violated the defendant in a criminal case doesn't get a remedy unless he satisfies that test. all the time in criminal cases in the constitutional issue and send it back for remedy analysis that the lower court has an address. >> that's because they would be applying federal law. they would be answering a question that you want us to leave unanswered mainly whether the constitution requires that this evidence be stricken from the case. if indeed they are not going to ask that question when they send it back it seems to me we have to answer that question here before we are able to reverse or affirm the north carolina court. it's a federal question. they are not going to get to

that but you are asking us to invalidate his conviction on the basis of federal law and it seems to me we cannot do that unless there has been a violation of the fourth amendment. the remedy must be an exclusion of the evidence. >> that's a federal question we are going to have to decide. >> up with send it back to you north carolina they are not going to decided. >> i don't believe they would or should it just if the state adopted a rule saying we are going to have a more favorable jurisprudence of constitutional error and get automatic new trials the court wouldn't be prohibited from deciding a constitutional issue in sending it back down to the state but danforth against minnesota a case where court has said the state can choose for themselves to have more favorable remedies and the court simply deals with the federal question. >> there's no question that if north carolina applies a state

constitutional analogue to the fourth amendment they could have a more extensive remedy that is recognized under our fourth amendment cases. state violation is more protective of defendants than federal case law provides. that would be your argument, right? >> i don't need to make that argument. i think that would be an interesting question in the state would be able to do that but the harder decision in north carolina says violation of the state constitution cannot be overlooked on good-faith doctrine. >> was this decision based on the state constitution? >> it was based on on the federal on the federal constitution so it was said about them and we preserve the argument that under state law violation of the fourth amendment also violates the constitution. >> you seem to reverse it on the basis of federal law and you are asking us to send it back to a

state court which is not going to inquire any further into federal law. even though federal law arguably you will concede says that even if there is a fourth amendment violation if there's a good-faith reasonable belief that the law was violated the remedy of exclusion will not be imposed. that's what the constitution requires and you are asking us to say oh no there has been a violation of the constitution and we are going to reverse this judgment even though we haven't inquired to whether the remedy you want is required. it seems to me i don't see how we can do that. >> i will try to say one more time. i think it's fully customary for this court to have a case from the state court for a state court to issue a ruling on federal law. there may be many other issues in the case federal state

whatever, but the question of federal law the state decided this court can reverse the judgment saying you got federal law from. >> but it chooses to decide based on only half of the federal law or orders of the federal law. north carolina set this up this way. >> forgive me. >> which is a follow on to justice scalia's question. >> they didn't get federal law were on. their opinion got federal law wrong but their judgment did not get federal law were on if indeed a good-faith mistake of law does not require the exclusion of the evidence from the trial. the judgment did not get federal federal law wrong if that's the case. >> i think their analysis got federal law were on for the reasons we describe. >> we reviewed analyses and we review judgments.

you are urging that this conviction has to be set aside. that is what we are reviewing, the conviction, not the opinion. >> justice scalia if you want to decide the good-faith question it has not been briefed by any party. i suggest you might want to try carefully. we have given you and maybe what i need to do at this point before your reserve my temper bottle is explained even if you did feel like you needed to get to that question which i don't think you need to but if he did need to get to that question why you should say that the good-faith option doesn't apply. >> i do want to take up your rebuttal time but your argument has confused man something i thought i understood. i thought the reason you argued this case the way you have trying to convince us to draw a sharp distinction between white and remedy is because you believe north carolina has the right under state law to devise its own version of the exclusion or law. if that's not your argument that i'm really puzzled by what you

are doing. >> functionally that's the way things work in north carolina. the only thing that maybe i need to make more clear is the reason why it works that way in north carolina is because the state has held violations of our state constitution cannot be subject a good-faith exception. >> it's irrelevant because your argument is a mistake of law in determining whether a search is reasonable constitutional united states. north carolina can do whatever it wants on the same question with respect to the state constitution. >> that's the next thing i was going to say. what north carolina said is article i section 20 which is the state counterpart to be determinant with the board so that's not the way the court goes about its business. functionally in a state of north carolina where you are is the fourth amendment questions weren't exactly parallel to the state constitution and that's a

violation esa press. >> mr. fisher's. >> mr. fisher suppose this were a federal case and we had available to us and it's all been briefed to alternatives to support the conviction and one was this is not a violation of fourth amendment law in the first instance and the other was this is a violation of the fourth amendment law that the exclusionary rule operates so to good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule so the evidence comes in. is there any difference between those two holdings? >> i think the difference between the two holdings of the court remanded me play out differently in north carolina. >> no, no in a federal case. >> i'm sorry. it's functionally the same holding an outcome of the same case that there would be important reasons nonetheless even though that would be a functionally identical holding to the parties in the case. there would be important

reasons, last to make sure you have rendered that holding not as the fourth amendment itself in what i try to say a couple times as the government should be presumed to know the laws. it would undercut public confidence in law enforcement and the, model rule was the criminal is built to say the government has -. >> some people say the existence of a rule remedy gap under public confidence in the law so why should we take that argument any more seriously than the remedy gap problem? >> because that comes from academic literature and mine comes from the courts jurisprudence where people have argued that you shouldn't suspend remedy anacortes projected that wilkinson wrote in the love review piece where he cited the breathers and important to announce the right even if you are not going to get the remedy. there are practical reasons for this as well. even in good-faith jurisprudence that court has given leeway to

officers only because the officers are relying on a new directive from the third party like a legislature or court. this is like the johnson case from 1982 where the court held if an officer acts on his own unsettled rule of law would not only find a fourth amendment of violation violation was oppressively even if i argued this place -- case. >> i would dispute if you're asking in a chevron sense that the statute was ambiguous but i don't think it should be viewed as a reasonable mistake under the good-faith doctrine because the good-faith doctrine deals with directives from third parties. johnson that i would cite to you says. >> i want to assess the context of any other body of case law but commonsense understanding of the term. even an attorney sat down and

read the relevant north carolina statutes do you think it would be reasonable for that attorney to conclude you have to have two conjunctions and not just one? >> i think in a commonsense way i could conceive that would be reasonable but there's a legal way to ask what is reasonable and what is not to let me say two things. one is reminded the court has never taken into account ambiguity or the possibility for error and asking whether government -- government officer gets a lot right and secondly even if you look at the facts of this case many think while this mistake was reasonable the other side hasn't given a definition of what they would say would be reasonable mistake of law. there's jurisprudence in the state's brief in the solicitor general uses language to say a foothold in the statutory text. i'm not sure what definition actually would apply here but one thing i do know from accord

qualified immunity is you have to define a concept in the definition that exists in a lot right now are very broad. i think that goes to the practical reason that i would describe to the court why you shouldn't hold the fourth amendment is satisfied here. if you say that anything is reasonable or susceptible to debate you vastly expand police officer discretion in traffic stops. as the court is not already officers have enormous discretion both by the nature of the traffic laws and the decision. >> mr. fisher at me try my comment one last time before your time. if you assert that we should not decide the remedy question because it hasn't been argued, but wasn't it your responsibility to argue it? do you are asking us to set aside a judgment of the north carolina court. that judgment can be set aside

only if number one the fourth amendment was not violated or number two it was violated at the remedy does not have to be exclusion of the evidence. it seems to me it's your burden to establish not just at the fourth amendment was violated but also the exclusion must necessary enter the constitution and if there's no answer to say well that hasn't been argued, you haven't argued and that's the problem. >> i would need to argue it in the pre-argument in her opening brief to explain even if you moved it into -- that would be my argument justice scalia. the only case that comes to mind is a the case several years ago where there was a tasting question in the court divided that question into two pieces and when a lower court addressed the first piece of the case the court reversed on that first piece of the case and send it back down. what i'm asking for is materially different.

>> best for the court to decide the other piece that this court will not decide that peace and give knowledge that. >> of the state makes that choice to give a more favorable remedy then they should respect that choice mr. scalia -- justice scalia and i'd like to reserve my time. >> thank you. mr. montgomery. >> mr. chief justice and may it please the court. the fourth amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures but it does not require police officers be perfect. it calls the touchdown of the fourth mend is reasonableness all that is required is that a police officer has a reasonable view of the facts and applies those facts to a reasonable understanding of the law. >> when will we ever get a right understanding of the law meaning the north carolina supreme court decision still hasn't told me

whether it's one or two and an ex-police officer who wants to stop someone won't either. he may be bound by the appellate court decision but that won't help clarify the state of the love. isn't what you are doing to read criminal law unclear? it's one thing to say that you want to not subject officers to civil liability. it's another to say you want to make the law clearing a criminal prosecution. >> your honor in north carolina controlling precedent does come from the intervening court of appeals. that's not to say something might not reach a different decision someday but for now a police officer would be bailed by what the court of appeals

decided. so a lot has been decided. an officer goes up out and makes a stop tomorrow because one brake light is out would be asking reasonably under that decision. so it doesn't leave criminal law uncertain. >> it would for the appellate condition if it takes your view that we can find out whether the officers reading of the law is reasonable. it basically means any open question police officers were whirl in favor of their rights to search. >> it depends on whether the question is an open question whether that interpretation by the officer is reasonable and that certainly may be an unreasonable interpretation. >> define what would make it unreasonable. >> it would be unreasonable if there was plain language of the statutes that no one could reach it different interpretation at all or if there was a definite

decision by an appellate court that would be unreasonable for for the offers for the officer to interpret it in his own way. the whole standard would be a reasonable person standard, what a reasonable standard taking the view of the statute. >> that's a very broad definition of reasonable. i understand the idea when 99 people out of 100 think you have to have two brake lights like you do everywhere else in the country and its reasonable a police officer would think that it sounds to me like you are adopting the same standard which gives the officer quite broad scope and that's troubling. >> it's not the same as qualified immunity. qualified immunity looks at the plainly incompetent. we are not saying that a standard here. >> i think it doesn't. >> i'm sorry it doesn't. >> i think what the justice is asking is describe a case for us

for the officer would receive qualified immunity but it would not be reasonable for these purposes. >> one of the things this court has said in wilson v. lane is that this court another courts can look beyond just the officer's interpretation. it can look to other matters. there could be an officer who had an unreasonable interpretation of the statutes and yet he may still have qualified immunity for instance because he was told by a judge or attorney general or by someone that this was correct and that was a complete misunderstanding of the statue. it may be that officer would still be protected by qualified immunity but for fourth amendment purposes that would not be a reasonable interpretation of statute. >> let's say the case was flipped here and the most reasonable statute is -- so

someone is driving around with one brake light and he's pulled over and he's going to say i have reason to have thought that i only needed one in the court says i need to. in case. >> no it would not but the flipside of that is in officers believe that you needed all of your brake lights and does not actually the law does not mean that person is guilty. in other words in this instance the defendant here were the driver actually could not be held liable for the brake light violation. it's not that the officer thinks reasonably that the laws something. that doesn't make it the law just like if a citizen does not think that's a lot to that does not mean he can escape. >> one of the problems however

is the police officer wasn't stopping him because of the brake light. the police officer is involved in criminal interdictions and this was a prefix. a lawful pretext he thought so he wasn't there just to stop him and say fix your brake light and drove away. >> that's correct. >> how many citizens have been stopped for one brake light who were asked to have their cars searched? and is that something that we as a society should be encouraging? >> wholly innocent people are stopped quite often. for instance that's part of the whole how terry works and those types of briefs. they are told that citizens have not committed any kind of offense and yet they are stopped. this is just another example of

that in which an officer acted reasonably justice with a reasonable mistake of fact and it turned out that this was not actually a violation. >> i would like to focus on your definition of reasonableness. let's say you have to court of appeals decisions and one says you need to lie to me that says you need one. is it reasonable for the officer to pull someone over -- over when one of the two brake lights is burned out? >> we have conflicting rulings from the court of appeals in what would be reasonable for the officer to decide what he would call a federal rule if there was a different decision from the court of appeals which is not supposed to happen our system but that did happen it would be reasonable for the officer to rely on -. >> mr. montgomery i take that mr. fisher's primary argument is that it looks like a remedies

question and it doesn't look like a rights question. it focuses on the culpability of the officer in the way we do when we think about immunity or when we think about the exclusionary rule. the extent that this conviction not to be held on remedy reasons rather than rights reasons fits in with their basic understanding of what remedies and rights do differently in our love. >> certainly this court looks at different things one that looks at the right versus the remedy. reasonableness is important and that may be considered but also the culpability of the officer whether he was deliberately disregarding the law and those types of things. this court has addressed this takes a while both in the rights and remedies stage. and so it would be important to

address it in the right stage here in this particular case because we don't get into the source of things that would be necessary. >> what about the defendant in the north carolina court of appeals who said north carolina has no good-faith exception so all this decision does is it allows the police to get around the absence of a good-faith exception. wasn't that position of the dissenter allowing the mistake of law? what is the functional equivalent? >> the position of the dissenting justices of the north carolina supreme court one of the things they said, again this gets back to reasonableness as the standard for the fourth amendment.

that is what this court has said is important that stage whether in officers acting reasonably. there are other considerations that take place at the remedies stage. so the state was asking for nothing more than simply whether this violated the fourth amendment and not about remedies. >> council maybe you have the answers to all the questions i was asking mr. fisher and i guess the answer is you haven't argued that point, right? you did not assert in your brief and you haven't asserted it in oral argument thus far anyway that if they did constitute a violation of the fourth amendment to remedy did not have to be exclusion of the evidence

and that remedy is indeed subject to reasonable mistake of law. therefore the decision -- you want to put all your eggs in the basket whether it's a violation of the fourth member right or not. >> that's correct your honor. we did not make that argument below in the supreme court in mr. fisher is correct in that it is our state constitution that says there's no good-faith exception. if a defendant had only raised a fourth amendment question in our courts the good-faith exception would still be available if that defendant did not make a claim under the state constitution. >> while i'm not too sure it allows north carolina supreme court to put to us what is basically an abstract question.

speak the question. >> to give an answer without reference to the fact that part of the fourth amendment is it good basic -- it bears and reasonableness. >> that's correct in this court has in cases like rodriguez dealt with mistake of bull law just in the right stage or in the remedy stage and that is all that has has been briefed in this instance. this b that's correct. >> one of the thing that is different from most from crawler davis. >> excuse me. in other cases we just decided the right and we don't have to decide remedy but this is the case in which unless the remedy is an exclusion there's no basis for us to set aside the judgment of the north carolina supreme

court unless, unless the remedy is exclusion. it seems to me that's part of the case. if we can say that the comment that hasn't been argued i guess we can do that. >> that is correct. the difference between the kroll and davis is this case, this involves a mistake bull law as to his substandard statute rather than a mistake of laws to the fourth amendment itself. the difference and not is that a reasonable violation of the fourth amendment is still a violation of the fourth amendment. if there is a statute that gives the officer an opportunity to make a seizure less than required by the constitution or reasonable suspicion even if the officer is reasonable is still a fourth amendment violation which is why this court would have to go to the remedy portion to

decide whether the exclusionary rule applied. in this instance, in this case it was a mistake as his substandard statute used by the officer as part of the facts and circumstances in this case. as part of the totality of the circumstances of this case the officer considered what he felt was the correct love. >> why did you draw between the fourth amendment, it is the fourth amendment is violated but if statute than the fourth amendment is not violated. >> because the officer only acted reasonably and the fact that he gets the statute wrong does not mean he acted necessarily and reasonably. >> the fourth amendment requires

could also be an reasonable. >> it could be an important to consider in the remedy stage rather than a rights stage. in the defilippo case that this court decided there was a situation in which a statute, substandard statute was found unconstitutional for vagueness and yet this court found that there was probable cause in that case for the officer to make an arrest based upon that statute. that was one case in which this court looked at it at the right stage as a mistake of law rather than at the remedy stage. >> but if the vote came up again today with all the cases that have been decided since then that we would decide at the same way or would we conceptualize it now is a remedies question? >> i think the court would decided the same way.

and this court in arizona v. evans said that if the case is decided before the good-faith exception are still viable in terms of the fourth amendment. >> what did the police officers say in defilippo? why do you classify this as a mistake of law question? >> you said it was presumptively valid and he the acted according to the statute. you don't have police officers to ignore the law. >> that is correct in this different than this case. >> this is a mistake of law. according to the appellate position. >> that's right. the defilippo case is important because you have someone who is acting wholly innocently. as in this case someone who is acting wholly innocently and was

not meeting a violation of the law so in defilippo the court said even though he was wholly innocent there were still probable cause despite the case of law and that is all we are saying in this case. >> is there a difference between defilippo in this case? defilippo talks about how there's a presumption of constitutionality for any statute and we don't want officers to go around questioning the constitutionality statue. but here that's not the case. an officer is not to read it as broadly as possible. there's no presumption that goes into effect and there's no way in which we can say the same thing about defilippo that we don't want officers to inquire into this area. >> it is different that we do want officers to enforce the law. we don't want them to just sit back.

>> fairly and is written and not to push every statute to the furthest, furthest they could go without being found utterly unreasonable. >> that's correct or honor that we want them to act reasonably and still enforce the law not turned a blind eye to what may be a violation. >> what are the exact words of the statute? >> the statutes has two parts. it has a subsection d. >> where do we find it? >> this would be in the appendix to the respondent's brief pages one actually through five has all of the relevant portions of the statute. subsection d involves -- and

says that over every motor vehicle shall have all originally equipped rear lens or the equivalent in good working order. that's the relevant portion of subsection d. subsection g which is on page three of the appendix says no person shall sell or operate operate on a highway of in the state any vehicle manufactured after december 31, 1995 unless it's included with a stop lamp on the rear of the vehicle. the north carolina appeals said one was to stop lamp that was the only thing that was required. the confusion comes in justice scalia in the last sentence of subsection g on page three which says the stop lamp may be incorporated into a unit with one or more other router wins but the key infusion comes in that the stop lamp is a rear

lamp and it can be incorporated into a unit with one or more other rear lamps. if you go back to subsection d that's the section that says all originally equipped rear lenses must be in good working order. so there is some conflict. >> that applies to all lamps and all the other lamps. >> that's correct. >> so it has to be plural if it's going to apply to the stop lamp. is that not so? >> binky council. >> mr. chief justice and may it please the court. since the founding of probable cause standard has allowed

police officers to make stops when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a person committed a crime even if the officer later turns out to have been mistaken about the facts before the law. as justice kennedy observed given that this court's cases recognize that there can be a reasonable mistake of law and officer makes a reasonable mistake of law may have a reasonable ground to believe that a person committed a crime. if i can go to a question that justice kagan asked. we think there are three main reasons. the first has to do with history. since the founding this court has treated the probable cause standard allowing for reasonable mistakes of law. >> are all the cases you cite including riddles indy customs statute that didn't permit customs officers to suffer damage is? >> yes, your honor.

>> this is an error of law, correct? none of those cases involved a violation of the fourth amendment. >> that's correct. the reason the cases are relevant here is because those cases are interpretation of the probable cause standard. >> but how is that different in terms of its analysis in most cases are what we ultimately apply as the apply community standards with respect to civil damages today. don't they follow exactly the same recent? >> i don't think so your honor. probable cause reasoning is what the court has done at the merits stage of the fourth amendment analysis so this court has routinely cited cases as eliminating the meeting of the probable cause standard and therefore. >> so you disagree with justice and you make the point that i just made. >> there's no doubt in those

cases the question of the court was asked -- answering are those customs officers liable but the way to answer that question was by determining whether those officers had probable cause and probable cause in the constitutional standard. that's why this court has relied on those. >> can i ask you question that i would like you to address for a minute. assume for the sake of argument that i agree with you that this is an excuse but what is a reasonable mistake? that is what i would like you to address in a particular would you have an objection to it being exceedingly rare and two objective than three it has to be a reasonable lawyer would think the policeman was right on the law and only if after your brief a careful scrutiny and serious difficulty in answering the law does it turn out that he's wrong. what do you think about that?

>> i think we agree with each of those descriptions. >> if you agree then what about this case because after all it does say a stoplight. >> we think that the north carolina supreme court in the court of appeals were right that an officer could reasonably require statute to withdraw. >> only after careful scrutiny and serious difficulty in pursuit of the law does it turn out to be -- what's the difficulty? a stoplight? >> you're here the difficulty the provision that requires rear lamps to be working. >> but that includes a stoplight and the other light, okay? the stoplight that turn lights, the backup lights. >> it's not the plural. it's the fact that all originally equipped rear lamps

and to be working which means that they are originally equipped with multiple stop lamps as cars now are and when one of them is broken one of the originally equipped rear lamps is not working. that is why none of the courts considering this thought there was anything but a question of statutory interpretation. >> so where does it come out in my hypothetical decision? is a reasonable for the officer to say i'm going to pick this one and follow that? >> if the officer in a jurisdiction in the court of appeals that decided the question we think the officer is bound by that interpretation even if reports come out differently. if the officers in the jurisdiction were to question it undecided and different courts would come out differently other jurisdictions we don't think the fact that one court has decided it in one way as dispositive. we think the court looks to the question is it really difficult? >> i have forgotten one thing which may be obvious. we are not talking about the

difficulty in the fourth amendment itself. we are talking only about the difficulty in construing a criminal statute where in fact the reason for the procedure is based on a violation of criminal law. >> that's right. if the probable cause standard allows for an officer to act. >> how is that different from the qualified immunity? >> we think we point to something that a firmly supports it. it seems to require essentially a president in full disclosure but the officer does to protect everybody except for those who are clearly incompetent. >> there's a piece that follow. he said the importance of -- key

up the question, what is the rule? yet in this case the evidence came in had nothing at all to do with a traffic violation so there was consent and i think the appellate court said evidence comes in. [inaudible] >> that's correct your honor and a question comes up into context. sometimes it will be litigated in a suppression context and sometimes if the officer issues a citation. we are concerned in that portion of the brief that the court takes the position that whenever an officer is wrong about the law it violates the fourth amendment it will deter officers for making stops for their arguments on both sides. >> do you agree that if there is

an illegal stop at this consent is the fruit of a poison trade? >> we think that's a difficult question. we don't necessarily agree with that. the court is that it's not about four tests so even if it was above for clause it doesn't necessarily mean the evidence was from poisonous fruit but the question wasn't argued below by the state and has been briefed here so we would address the question. >> ms. kovner you are going to give us three reasons why this should be a rights question rather than a remedy question he said history and i think that history doesn't say as much as you think it says i want to know a number two and number three are. >> we think that the standard you asked officers to decide and the court to decide whether an officer can reasonably think that person has committed a crime. you don't separate the question of law orders question of fact.

the third is we don't think there's a normative reason to treat the stakes of law and mistakes of facts differently. when officer makes a stop in the situation he can reasonably be confused as to what the law is under the statutes and confuses what the facts are and if we are going to street states of facts is part of the rights to make reasonable mistakes of law in the same way. if the court has no further questions got thank you. >> council. mr. fisher you have three minutes left. >> i would like to make a point if i could. starting with the question of what would reasonableness means mr. chief justice i think your hypothetical of two differing court of appeals in the state i think under the analysis that you describe would violate the fourth amendment and half the states and not the other half of the state. this would be binding to some component of the state. that shows why this court in

many cases has projected that analysis and only for the remedy stage. >> in this case didn't they north carolina supreme court say the interpretation adopted by the court of appeals was surprising? i we would have to say on reasonableness is it that surprising, at the direct interpretation is surprising than the contrary interpretation is reasonable. do we have to go further than that? >> i think you do because you have to give more teeth to it. the solicitor general said you have to have a foothold in the statute and that's more or less what was decided today. the recent d.c. court of appeals decision upholds that a police officer can argue from a foothold of the statute that all -- it's one of innumerable arguments that a law enforcement officer might make. >> it would be one court one way

in one court the other way because you know it has to be unusual. >> i think justice breyer the problem with that is there's a clear presumption that the officer needs to understand the law as it existed in mr. chief justice you asked about the ignorance -- if somebody is readably mistaken about the law we would convict him. and the reason why is because we would assume he knew the law. we would assume that somebody at the court of appeals split in this court decided 5-4 of the person was the convicted because we assumed they knew the law law when you do. always asking for is the exact same assumption to apply to police officers with due respect to the solicitor general the founding in this case described as an help them. the only remedy cases made reasonable in our point in even when the court has fought this case as they are in the context

with the court didn't distinguish rights from remedies. if you want to look at the founding controlling rule it would be the common-law rule. as we said in our brief with no disagreements on the other said the common rule dating back -- common law world even if was perfectly reasonable didn't justify the stop. if i could say one last thing to justice scalia about the colloquies we were having before with all due respect i really do think there's nothing unusual about a party litigating a case through the courts. it may arise in federal court or state court or state corporate can choose the arguments they choose to raise. when we got a judgment in north carolina court of appeals it was up to the state at that point to choose what arguments it wanted to pursue further in the case. just like the first amendment or the second or remedy we think that's all it has happened here. >> thank you counsel. the case is submitted.

>> next to look look at social media's impact on the careers of politicians and journalists and its use by political campaigns and policymakers. from a steamboat institute's annual freedom institute in colorado, this is 40 minutes. >> all right. thank you everyone for being here. every year i look forward to coming to steamboat. this is my fourth year to get to be here and it's an honor to be here this year my first year on the board. this is an event that an organization devoted to educating americans about the principles of our founding but having a friendly conversation

amongst patriots is one thing and does we find all too often winnings have policy battles when pitted against the well oiled machine against the liberal ideologue is another matter. to advance conservative ideas we must not only have the right information we must be prepared to communicate them effectively. digital media presents an exciting venue to connect directly with policy influence influencers. increasingly mainstream digital media quips as with the tools we can use to persuade influence and when. so it's an exceptional opportunity to have two season professionals here who have been engaged in all my battles and have one national policy fights. together they publish an e-mail called right social theory that delivers an overview of the top news of the day with a conservative that's funny, bent and if you don't get right social daily already been prescribed either e-mail and a right social daily.com.

the creative genius comes from their extensive experience. erik andersen is the digital manager at the heritage foundation. she currently manages heritage that social media presents which leads on many issues of the day. previously she was a political reporter of human events at digital strategist for the house republican conference ankenman negations director in the u.s. house. erik telford is one of leaders of the conservative movement on line. at afp he founded a long-standing conference asserts as a counterweight to the naverud nations. today he serves as senior vice president at the franklin center for government and public integrity perhaps the proudest accomplishment that was being named by keith olbermann as the number two worst person in the world, a truly exceptional accomplishment. so take a moment to look up from facebook and please join me in welcoming the founders of right social daily ericka andersen and

erik telford. [applause] ♪ >> thank you allen for that wonderful introduction and it's when you're out in a bar and you get a call from your parents and the neighbors called and said you are though worst person in the world and we are so proud of you. thank you so much allen and thank you jennifer to the steamboat institute for for having a separate or colleague who does right social daily with us was going to be joining us and unfortunately has a personal situation arise and was on able to make it. don't worry, ericka and i are twice as fun so you will be well served. i am erik telford with the franklin center as allen mentioned in an pleased to be joined by ericka andersen. as allen pointed out we run

right social -- we will talk a little bit about that at the end of what we do and if it's something you're registering getting involved in. how many of you are on facebook? how many of you are on twitter? how many of you have a blog? how many of you are on youtube and have your own channel? how many of you have a you have the kids or grandkids that shows you how to do things. [laughter] wonderful. the hardest part about giving presentations like this in the point we want to make is ultimately how everyone in this room can make a difference. if you are afraid of technology, don't be. there are so many things we can do to help you and so many things that aren't that high the bar that can allow you to use these tools. ..