The United States Supreme Court unanimously issued a ruling in favor of police in a Washington State case in which police stopped the suspect for one crime and ended up arresting him for another. The court held that as long as there is probable cause for the police to believe a crime has been comitted even if the conviction is for a completely unrelated crime.

The defendant, Jerome Alford, was stopped on November 22, 1997 for using police-style emergency lights. The police observed scanners and handcuffs on the front seat of the car and a tape recorder which was on. Both criminal charges were dismissed by a state judge but Alford then sued the officers for unlawful arrest. A closely divided appeals court ruled that the offenses Alford was eventually accused of were not 'closely related' to the charge he was arrested for.

The Supreme Court unanimously voted in favor of the police indicating that an arrest is reasonable if the police have probable cause to believe a crime has been or is being committed based on the facts that they know at the time of the arrest. The decision was 8-0 with Chief Justice Rehnquist not participating in the case.

Justice Scalia said that, 'A predictable consequence ... is not ... that officers will cease making sham arrests on the hope that such arrests will later be validated, but rather that officers will cease providing reasons for arrest.'

The case will be sent back to the Ninth Circuit to determine if the police had probable cause to arrest Alford on charges of impersonating a police officer.