In U.S. v. Williams, Criminal No. 3:13MJ137 (2013), a criminal defendant was charged with possession of marijuana, among a bunch of other crimes.  He moved the court to suppress all evidence of his crimes on the ground that the arresting officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop the defendant’s vehicle in the first instance.  The arresting officer claimed that he did have reasonable suspicion to believe that the defendant had committed a crime: his car touched one of the fog lines on at least five occasions.  As such, the court was faced with some interest questions: (i) um, what is a fog line?, (ii) does simply touching a fog line constitute a crime?, and (iii) does simply touching a fog line at least give an officer reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed?  Richmond U.S. District Magistrate Judge David J. Novak fortunately had answers to these questions. Continue reading →