Posted on 02/01/2018 2:02:40 PM PST by Sopater
The rental agreement lists authorized drivers. It also serves as your registration while driving the rental car. Or so I have been told when renting cars. The driver not being listed, and no listed person being present, would seem to be a suspicious circumstance suggesting possible theft of the car.
I’m thinking that if somebody other than the contractee drove that car with the contractee’s permission, the property rights would automatically revert back to the rental company as a result of the violation. The police didn’t get permission from the company to search the car. The search is null and void.
We don’t have an inquisitional constitution. If we did it would make ferreting crime out easier, but it would also make government harassment easier.
Then the cops had a duty to contact the rental car company and get their permission to search the vehicle.
I'm pretty sure Gorsuch will be writing the majority opinion.
From the constitutional standpoint, I’d have to agree with the argument that the driver of the car held greater claim to title than the police, and that therefore constituted a de facto (if temporary) “ownership” for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. I didn’t hear much of a rebuttal.
I agree with Gorsuch.
Splitting hairs about property (as opposed to goods, effects), no?
IANAL but I would think it’s more about privacy than property.
As for unauthorized drivers, that’s between the authorized driver and the rental company. Police are forever telling folks “That’s a civil matter,” or in other words, they’re not involving themselves in peripheral disputes that are not criminal in nature.
Need more dogs and cameras in police cars...
Could be. These are the types of cases the courts should be hearing to fine-tune constitutional issues. Not cases on invented rights (gay marriage, forcing a Christian baker to celebrate your sodomy, etc.) which only move the country further left . . . which, by the way, is the whole idea of this sort of jiggery-pokery.
An interesting angle. Perhaps rental firms could file statements if they chose that if government officers ask them for verification of who is authorized driver(s), and that is not the same as actual driver, they grant search and seizure permission.
Could be. These are the types of cases the courts should be hearing to fine-tune constitutional issues. Not cases on invented rights (gay marriage, forcing a Christian baker to celebrate your sodomy, etc.) which only move the country further left . . . which, by the way, is the whole idea of this sort of jiggery-pokery.
Could be. These are the types of cases the courts should be hearing to fine-tune constitutional issues. Not cases on invented rights (gay marriage, forcing a Christian baker to celebrate your sodomy, etc.) which only move the country further left . . . which, by the way, is the whole idea of this sort of jiggery-pokery.
He didn’t steal the car. It was loaned to him by someone with legal possession. She may not have had the legal right to loan it, but he wouldn’t necessarily have known that. I can’t see how that means he gives up his rights. I’m with Gorsuch.
when RBG wakes up I’d like to hear her opinion
That sounds as reasonable as anything. So and so is driving this car and cannot show a contract for it. May we search it.
In this case, the trespasser is law enforcement, which, absent probable cause, has no authority to search the trunk.
One thing that hasn’t been noted on this thread, the article frames this as a disagreement between Gorsuch and Alito yet these are not their post-case opinions they are simply questions attempting to challenge the lawyer’s cases in order to flesh out the issues before the court. When their final opinions are written neither Gorsuch nor Alito would necessarily favor the POV their questioning appeared to lean towards.
I didn’t say he stole it. I asked if Gorsuch is contending this about a stolen car.
If she lends her car to Bill, and Bill gets pulled over, and the police find contraband that is hers in the trunk...
According to Feigin, Byrd, "like other unauthorized drivers, simply has no connection to the car at all."
Really? So if someone is an unauthorized user (but a sub-bailee, as is this case - it isn't like he stole the car) in a state like TX that allows you to carry a handgun for self-defense in an automobile without any permit, does he lose the right to carry a weapon in it for self-defense? I think not. He DOES have a connection to the car...he is IN IT, and DRIVING IT (i.e. controlling it).
Here are 2 questions for Alito and others with his viewpoint:
1) Does one lose one's 8th Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment if one commits a crime? [The obvious answer is, "No" - particularly since punishment by the government usually ONLY occurs as a result of some crime having been committed.]
2) So, if you don't lose your 8th Amendment rights after having committed a crime (up to and including murder), then how can you lose your 4th Amendment rights just because you were the unauthorized user of a motor vehicle?
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