The following opinion was released by the U.S. Supreme Court on April 23, 2008:

• Virginia v. Moore (opinion for a unanimous court by Scalia, J.; concurring opinion by Ginsburg, J.). Police officers received a tip that the defendant was driving with a suspended license; subsequently, they arrested him and, pursuant to a search incident to arrest, they discovered 16 rocks of crack cocaine and a large amount of cash. Because Virginia law authorizes only the issuance of a citation, and not arrest, for driving with a suspended license, the defendant argued during his drug possession trial that the evidence discovered through the search incident to the unlawful arrest should be suppressed pursuant to the Fourth Amendment. The trial court disagreed and the defendant was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. The Virginia intermediate appellate court reversed; the conviction was reinstated by the intermediate appellate court en banc; the Virginia Supreme Court reversed again. The Supreme Court holds that, because the search was undertaken pursuant to probable cause, it was without moment that the arrest was unlawful under state statute. The Court concludes that the Fourth Amendment “does not require the exclusion of evidence obtained from a constitutionally permissible [though statutorily prohibited] arrest.” Slip op. at 13.