This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to review a Utah case that explores an apparent gap in search and seizure law.
In December 2006, a South Salt Lake detective found drugs on a man who had just left a suspected drug house.
A trial court judge later found that the officer did not have enough evidence to initially stop and question Edward Joseph Strieff Jr., now 50. But the judge ruled that Strieff's subsequent arrest on an outstanding traffic warrant justified the search, which turned up a baggie of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.
The Utah Court of Appeals agreed with the trial court that the drug evidence was admissible at trial, but the Utah Supreme Court earlier this year reversed that decision.
The Utah Attorney General's Office appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Utah Supreme Court noted in its January decision that the case presents "a gap of substantial significance" in terms of prior rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court on Fourth Amendment issues, and that other courts that have addressed the issue have come to "substantially different conclusions."
The U.S. Supreme Court grants only about 75 of the more than 10,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari it receives each year, the attorney general's office noted in a news release.