348
Opinion of the Court
demonstrable threat of it (whether "minor crime" be defined as a fine-only traffic offense, a fine-only offense more generally, or a misdemeanor 17). But the claim is not ultimately so simple, nor could it be, for complications arise the moment we begin to think about the possible applications of the several criteria Atwater proposes for drawing a line between minor crimes with limited arrest authority and others not so restricted.
One line, she suggests, might be between "jailable" and "fine-only" offenses, between those for which conviction could result in commitment and those for which it could not. The trouble with this distinction, of course, is that an officer on the street might not be able to tell. It is not merely that we cannot expect every police officer to know the details of frequently complex penalty schemes, see Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 431, n. 13 (1984) ("[O]fficers in the field frequently 'have neither the time nor the competence to determine' the severity of the offense for which they are considering arresting a person"), but that penalties for ostensibly identical conduct can vary on account of facts difficult (if not impossible) to know at the scene of an arrest. Is this the first offense or is the suspect a repeat offender? 18 Is
the weight of the marijuana a gram above or a gram below
17 Compare, e. g., Brief for Petitioners 46 ("fine-only") with, e. g., Tr. of Oral Arg. 11 (misdemeanors). Because the difficulties attendant to any major crime-minor crime distinction are largely the same, we treat them together.
18 See, e. g., Welsh, 466 U. S., at 756 (first DUI offense subject to maximum fine of $200; subsequent offense punishable by one year's imprisonment); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 154 (1925) (first offense of smuggling liquor subject to maximum fine of $500; subsequent offense punishable by 90 days' imprisonment); 21 U. S. C. §§ 844a(a), (c) (first offense for possession of "personal use amount" of controlled substance subject to maximum $10,000 fine; subsequent offense punishable by imprisonment); Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 42.01, 49.02, 12.23, 12.43 (1994 and Supp. 2001) (first public drunkenness or disorderly conduct offense subject to maximum $500 fine; third offense punishable by 180 days' imprisonment).
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