[null and void]

The thing is, SCOTUS looked at that very issue in 1996, and ruled (unanimously -- how often does that happen?) in Whren v. US that using a traffic violation as a pretext does not violate the 4th amendment.

I wonder how long before that is reversed?

It only took a decade and a civil war to reverse Dred Scott v. Sanford.

[absalom01]

So you think that there’s mass outrage about the Whren decision? It’s been 15 years, and the lack of commotion is deafening.

Here’s the thing: Whren didn’t expand the power of local police, it strictly limited when and how they could conduct warrantless searches, and have the fruits of those searches admitted into evidence at a criminal trial. It’s not that long, and worth reading, which is why i gave the link in the previous post.

But, here’s a serious question for you. If you don’t like the Whren standard, what, in your view should the standard be? If an officer conducts a traffic stop and sees a bag of meth in plain view, what should then happen? Send the guy on his merry way? Get a warrant to retrieve the dope? Repeal the drug laws so this doesn’t even come up? Seriously, if Whren is bad, how should we demand that the police do business. After all, almost all law enforcement is handled at the local level in this country, and there’s nothing stopping the people of any given county from placing a more restrictive standard than Whren on their own police forces.

So, what would that standard look like?