In the case of Virginia v. Kevin Lamont Hicks, 2002, the U.S Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Virginia. The issue at hand was whether a police officer's mistake regarding a minor traffic law invalidated an arrest and subsequent seizure of evidence (cocaine) from Kevin Lamont Hicks' vehicle. The arresting officer had pulled over Mr. Hicks for having a defective brake light, which he mistakenly believed to be against state law; however, under Virginia law it is legal to operate a car with one working brake light. Despite this error on part of the officer about the specifics of traffic laws, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that such mistakes do not necessarily violate Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures if they are reasonable errors made in good faith by officers enforcing other valid laws or regulations - as long as these mistakes are objectively reasonable ones.

In the dissenting opinion for Virginia v. Kevin Lamont Hicks, Justice Stevens argued that the majority's decision to uphold a conviction based on evidence obtained from an apartment search violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. He contended that police officers had no legitimate reason to believe criminal activity was taking place in Hicks' apartment when they entered it without a warrant after responding to a noise complaint. The officers only discovered incriminating evidence - cocaine and digital scales - after conducting what Stevens considered an unwarranted search of the premises. In his view, this constituted "a classic example of the dangers of permitting exceptions to the general rule requiring probable cause." He also criticized as overly broad and potentially dangerous precedent-setting, the majority's assertion that any lawful visitation by police could turn into a full-blown search if they happened upon contraband or other evidence in plain sight.