Tinted Window Stop Unconstitutional, NJ Supreme Court Rules

MERCER COUNTY, NJ — Trenton cops who stopped a car for a tinted window violation in 2018 were not justified to do so and the act was “unconstitutional,” the Supreme Court unanimously ruled recently.

While the state prohibits the use of any “non-transparent material” on the front windshield or front side windows, it does not cover rear windows. Hence, the traffic cop who pulled over the man did so unconstitutionally, the state Supreme Court ruled 6-0.

In November 2018, at aroud 10:20 p.m., Trenton detectives stopped David Smith’s vehicle for a purported tinted windows violation after they found dark tinting on the rear windshield.

Despite the windshield’s tint, officers said he saw Smith making a furtive “shoving” motion, raising suspicions he was trying to conceal a weapon, the ruling said. On searching the vehicle, they found a gun and charged Smith with various weapons offenses, according to the ruling.

Smith challenged the arrest saying it was unjustifiable, but the trial and appellate courts denied his motion to suppress the handgun found in his car. He pled guilty to second-degree unlawful possession of a handgun and was sentenced to five years in prison with a three-and-one-half year period of parole ineligibility.

An appellate court sided with the trial judge saying that police did not have to prove an actual traffic violation to make a stop, as long as the “officer had a reasonable articulable suspicion of a motor vehicle violation.”

When the case went to the Supreme Court, prosecutors conceded that officers did not have reasonable suspicion to stop the vehicle. The judge vacated Smith’s conviction and dismissed his charges. But the Supreme Court proceeded with the case anyway “because they are of sufficient public importance and likely to surface again,” Justice Lee Solomon wrote.

In its ruling, the court looked back to 1921 when NJ first passed a law banning windshield obstruction. Solomon said that nothing in that law or subsequent amendments justifies police stopping a car with transparent rear window tinting.

Jonathan Romberg, an associate professor at Seton Hall Law School for Social Justice, filed a brief in this case.

The court also declined to recognize the community caretaking doctrine, where the police can pull over a vehicle if they find “something abnormal . . . concerning the operation of a motor vehicle.”

In the future, authorities will have to prove reasonable suspicion of tinted window violation by presenting evidence “that tinting on the front windshield or front side windows inhibited officers’ ability to clearly see the vehicle’s occupants or articles inside,” the court ruled.

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