SJC’s Ruling in Commonwealth v. Larose on Marked Lanes Violations Sparks Debate Over Reasonableness and Public Safety

In Commonwealth v. Larose, 483 Mass. 323 (2019), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that crossing a fog line, even briefly, constitutes a marked lanes violation under G. L. c. 89, § 4A. The court vacated the suppression of evidence obtained from the traffic stop, concluding that the stop was reasonable and valid based on the violation.

October 10, 2019.

Our Take:

Both the majority and dissent agree that the marked lanes statute is poorly worded. In response, the majority grafted onto the statute an element of intentionality found nowhere within its text to neutralize some of the absurd results which the majority conceded it’s literal reading of the statute invited. On the other hand, the dissent maintained that the statute read as a whole prohibits only unsafe movements, which is more consistent with what everyone agrees is the animating purpose of the legislation – promoting public safety.
But in my view, the question of the lawfulness of the stop cannot be resolved as a function of statutory construction alone. This is because the touchstone of the 4th amendment is reasonableness.

The stop in the instant case failed by that metric. Freedom from seizure must be the norm, with intrusions on freedom tolerated only in the narrowest of exceptions.
As the dissent points out, the labyrinth of statutes and regulations which govern the roadways is so extensive that a police officer who wants to stop a car will invariably find a way. Such broad powers invite governmental abuses similar to those arising from general warrants. That is why lawful motor vehicle stops should be constrained to those offenses which implicate genuine safety hazards. The marked lanes statute should be no exception. Because brief, momentary contact with or crossing over a marked line would not on its own warrant a genuine safety concern, I would consider a stop on that basis unreasonable, regardless of the wording of the statute.