[JURIST] The New Jersey Supreme Court [official website] on Thursday ruled [opinion, PDF] to broaden police authority to search vehicles without a warrant based on probable cause. The ruling, which was decided 5-2, was praised by the state attorney general and others as good for effective law enforcement, but others believe it intrudes on basic civil liberties. The case stems from a man who was charged with illegal possession of a handgun that was found during a routine traffic stop in 2012. William L. Witt was pulled over on a local highway after failing to turn off his high beam headlights when approaching an officer. After a filed sobriety test, the officer determined that Witt was intoxicated and searched his car for alcohol, subsequently finding the handgun. A state appeals court found in May that the officers lacked the “exigent circumstances” required of the officer by the 2009 New Jersey Supreme Court case State v. Pena-Flores [NJ.com report]. A controversial decision by the court, it was overturned with this week’s ruling.

Citizen rights and police authority, including stop-and-frisk procedures, continue to be an issue throughout the US. This month a Ferguson, Missouri, reform panel released a report [JURIST report] calling for the consolidation of police departments and municipal courts. Also this month Baltimore City Circuit Judge Barry Williams rejected motions [JURIST report] to drop charges against six police officers implicated in the case of Freddie Gray, a black man who was injured in police custody and later died in April. Last month the Chicago Police Department has decided [JURIST report] to allow independent evaluations of their stop-and-frisk procedures that many have said specifically target African Americans under an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In August of last year New York City formally dropped [JURIST report] the city’s appeal of rulings in lawsuits involving the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) use of stop-and-frisk tactics. Mayor Bill De Blasio’s administration agreed to end the lawsuit against the NYPD after reaching a settlement requiring three years of NYPD oversight by a court-appointed monitor.