Posted on 01/24/2005 9:20:02 AM PST by Lazamataz
The Supreme Court gave police broader search powers Monday during traffic stops, ruling that drug-sniffing dogs can be used to check out motorists even if officers have no reason to suspect they may be carrying narcotics.
In a 6-2 decision, the court sided with Illinois police who stopped Roy Caballes in 1998 along Interstate 80 for driving 6 miles over the speed limit. Although Caballes lawfully produced his driver's license, troopers brought over a drug dog after Caballes seemed nervous.
Caballes argued the Fourth Amendment protects motorists from searches such as dog sniffing, but Justice John Paul Stevens disagreed, reasoning that the privacy intrusion was minimal.
"The dog sniff was performed on the exterior of respondent's car while he was lawfully seized for a traffic violation. Any intrusion on respondent's privacy expectations does not rise to the level of a constitutionally cognizable infringement," Stevens wrote.
In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg bemoaned what she called the broadening of police search powers, saying the use of drug dogs will make routine traffic stops more "adversarial." She was joined in her dissent in part by Justice David H. Souter.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
You might like to know the origins of that saying. Justice Robert Jackson originally coined that phrase in an appeal for a disorderly conduct conviction arising from a man's public speech. This was stated in his dissent, contrary to the other judges who upheld Terminiello's freedom of speech.
The second attribution many years later is Justice Goldberg, and the issue was limiting the power of the government to automatically strip draft dodgers of their citizenship. He said this while coming to the conclusion that that while the Constitution granted wide powers to Congress to require military service to protect the country ("not a suicide pact"), it couldn't sidestep basic constitutional protections. Another statement from him from that case also goes against the sommon use of the "suicide pact" quote:
The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit governmental action.
Then there's Franklin's "They that can give up essential liberties to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I hope you are being sarcastic.
Because if you are not, China would be a cheaper place for you to live, and you could have all that free police-state monitoring....
The comment was in response to the information provided in your own comment, which was, I think, more than enough to form a reasonable opinion of how you view this case and others like it. If you'd like to clarify your position, I'd be happy to hear it.
What about you walking out in your front yard in the nude to pick your pot plants? It's on private property. So shouldn't that be a protected freedom?
Ditto. My only concern about this was time lost.
Yeah, the current War On Drugs didn't stop my cousin from OD'ing on cocaine, the current War On Drugs didn't stop several of my friends from ruining their lives with drugs, and the current War On Drugs didn't stop the crackhouse in my old neighborhood.
I know exactly what I'm talking about. Enjoy your cushy life in the 'burbs. Drugs are there too, and the WOD ain't stopping that, either.
Sophomoric
I'm freer than my dad was (workaday engineer.) And freer than my granddad (farmer to death.) And freer than my family in the great depression, etc.
Really? So what laws, rules, regulations or other government intrusions have been removed since then that have caused you to be so much more free than your ancestors were?
You make good very good points and I would never advocate or participate in arresting a crowd with the hope that some were guilty, but rather the opposite. However, we have to give cops the tools to do what we task them to do. We have then to hold them to a high standard for how they use those tools.
But then I'll be nervous. Because getting pulled over by a cop is nerve wracking enough. But if I see the canine units coming at me? And I'm not doing anything illegal (except maybe speeding)
They did.
Give it up, you are totally out of your league. I'm done with this thread. It's like walking into Cheech and Chong movie.
Apples and Oranges. Drugs are illegal. Guns are not.
Depends on who you are and where you live. Some guns are illegal for everyone, in some places. (States that don't allow Class III possession). All guns are illegal for some people to own everywhere (felons, handguns for people under 21). In some states and locals nearly all guns are illegal for anyone to own. (N.Y.C.) Actually it's a lot more like drugs than even I realized. With pot-heads having state-sponsored prescriptions in places like Cali and Oregon the supposedly "illegality" of drugs is a checkerboard as well.
The precident is there. The WOD is *ALWAYS* the battering ram used to destroy rights. The collateral damage is almost always much wider.
And technology marches on.
"Sorry, sir. In this jurisdiction the detection of any alcohol in the vehicle constitutes a violation of open container laws. You'll have to prove to the court that your deodorant has alcohol in it. Zero tolerance, sir. It's for everybody's good."
Noteworthy to the cop, yes, but irrelevant to the Court's opinion.
The question on which we granted certiorari is narrow: “Whether the Fourth Amendment requires reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify using a drug-detection dog to sniff a vehicle during a legitimate traffic stop.” Thus, we proceed on the assumption that the officer conducting the dog sniff had no information about respondent except that he had been stopped for speeding; accordingly, we have omitted any reference to facts about respondent that might have triggered a modicum of suspicion.
The cops cannot hold a "nervous" driver after a ticket is written until a dog arrives. That's a seisure without probable cause (acting nervous doesn't justify holding you after the time needed to write a ticket). But, if a dog is present and sniffs the car while the driver is being written a ticket, that's OK. The cops are allowed to hold you while they are writing the ticket, and the dog simply sniffs the air around your car.
So now we know which SC justices leave a bunch of McDonald's bags along with Wendy's wrappers and Burger King ones on the floor of their back seat. A light sprinkling of pepper around and those dogs will paw all the trash out for the cops to pick up and toss in a plastic bag.
Straw man. If you're growing pot in plain view, the police can quite easily get a warrant to search your house.
If I'm driving along and violating no law and the cops set up checkpoints in order to have dogs sniff my car, the situation is quite different.
"Too bad. It's for the chirren. We'd like to care but we don't. Please pull over to the side and wait in line."
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