The Supreme Court declined to take up United States v. Donte J. Carter, a Fourth Amendment case that prompted a rare written dissent from Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas over the high court's inaction. The two justices argued that the lower court ruling the Court left standing effectively requires police officers to apply different legal standards depending on a suspect's race — a practice they said conflicts with decades of constitutional precedent.
What the D.C. Court of Appeals Decided
The case originated when the D.C. Court of Appeals vacated the firearm and theft convictions of Donte J. Carter, a Black man, on the grounds that police had seized him before establishing reasonable suspicion. During that encounter, officers asked Carter to pull up his pants, at which point they observed an L-shaped bulge later identified as a .40-caliber pistol stolen from an FBI agent's vehicle. Carter had initially told officers he was not carrying a weapon.
The D.C. court's reasoning turned on Carter's race. It held that Black Americans are "especially distrustful of law enforcement" and therefore "less likely" than others to voluntarily end a police encounter, citing that skepticism as evidence Carter would not have felt free to leave. On that basis, the court concluded the interaction constituted a seizure — one unsupported by reasonable suspicion and therefore unlawful.
What Alito and Thomas Argued
Alito, writing for himself and Thomas, called the D.C. framework constitutionally dangerous in both directions. His core objection: allowing any individual to be treated differently based on statistical generalizations about their racial or ethnic group — even when that treatment benefits the individual, as it did Carter — opens a door that cannot be selectively shut. He asked pointedly what separate rules courts and officers would then owe to dark-skinned Latinos, other Latinos, and members of other minority groups.
Alito grounded his dissent in the Court's own precedent. He cited Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, Louisiana v. Callais, and Shaw v. Reno for the proposition that the Constitution is "color-blind" and "almost never" permits government actors to treat people differently on the basis of race. He also invoked Shaw v. Reno specifically to reject the idea that the Constitution allows differential treatment based on a perception that members of a racial group "think alike" regardless of individual circumstance.
Why the Court's Inaction Has Consequences
When the Supreme Court refuses to hear a case, the lower court ruling stands as binding law within that circuit. The D.C. Circuit's standard now governs how Fourth Amendment seizure questions are analyzed for defendants in that jurisdiction, with race as a legally cognizable factor in assessing whether a reasonable person would have felt free to walk away from officers. Alito and Thomas argued the Court's silence leaves that framework in place without resolving whether it conflicts with the equal protection principles the justices have applied in other contexts — a tension they warned will recur.