Posted on 10/30/2019 9:12:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
At any given time, millions of Americans are forbidden to drive because their licenses have been suspended, often for reasons that have nothing to do with traffic safety. But their cars can still be legally driven by relatives, friends and neighbors.
Given that reality, should police be allowed to pull over a car simply because it is registered to someone with a suspended license? While the assumption that the registered owner is behind the wheel might seem reasonable, condoning such traffic stops, as the state of Kansas is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to do in a case the justices will hear on Monday, would expose many innocent drivers to the constant threat of police harassment, even when they're not doing anything illegal.
Last year, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that pulling over cars solely because they're owned by people with suspended licenses violates the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable seizures. The case involved a 2016 traffic stop in Lawrence, Kansas, by a sheriff's deputy who pulled over a pickup truck registered to Charles Glover, whose license had been revoked.
While Glover was in fact the driver, the deputy did not know that at the time. All he knew was the registration information he obtained by running the license plate, and the Kansas Supreme Court concluded that was not enough to provide "reasonable suspicion," which requires "specific and articulable facts" indicating that a particular person is engaged in illegal activity.
Urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn that decision, Kansas says the probability that the driver of a car registered to someone with a suspended license will turn out to be the owner is high enough to provide reasonable suspicion for a stop. But the data it presents to back up that argument demonstrates nothing of the sort.
As "there are two to three drivers for every registered automobile in Kansas," the state says, "the likelihood that the registered owner of a vehicle in Kansas is driving his or her vehicle is no less than 33%." The state also cites studies indicating that between 30% and 75% of people with suspended licenses continue to drive.
That first calculation assumes people with suspended licenses drive as often as the general population, which we know is not true. And even if we take the highest estimate of continued driving by people with suspended licenses at face value, it does not tell us how likely it is that they will be the drivers when police stop their cars.
Glover's lawyers illustrate that point with a "stylized (but realistic) example" of a woman whose license is suspended for six months. If she drives her car twice during that period, taking her husband to and from a medical appointment, while her husband drives it twice a day ("to and from work on weekdays and to and from the grocery store and religious services on weekends"), the probability that she is driving on any given occasion is less than 1%.
Kansas argues that stopping cars based solely on the fact that their owners' licenses are suspended is necessary to protect public safety. Yet states commonly suspend people's licenses for reasons unrelated to the threat they pose as drivers, including failure to pay parking tickets, overdue child support and drug possession offenses.
Such sanctions make it hard to keep a job and run errands. The policing approach favored by Kansas would extend the punishment to everyone who helps out by driving the cars that people with suspended licenses cannot legally use.
The threat of such harassment is compounded by the use of automated license plate readers, which can readily identify cars for police to stop if all that's required is a registered owner with a suspended license. Given the multiplicity and ambiguity of traffic regulations, cops already have myriad pretexts for hassling drivers who pose no threat to public safety. Why give them another excuse?
I’ve always been told that driving is a privilege, not a right.
Insurance companies are behind and support this.
That doesn’t make it so.
This sounds to me like a sop to all the illegals who now have one driver’s license for the twelve drivers in their family, and who of course carry no auto insurance.
So the darlings can’t get pulled over by the cops for “reasonable cause”, and there will be one less chance for local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE in sanctuary states and cities.
Don’t forget this case when it’s ruled on by the Supremes will be quoted as “precedent” for all future police policies nationwide.
One more spike driven into the coffin of law enforcement, state and federal, to benefit the border-jumpers.
So say I have 10 trucks registered to me. I drive just 1 and the other 9 are driven by my employees. Only a 10% chance that I’m behind the wheel. Betting USSC rules against.
An idea made out of whole cloth by the states. The (1) claim it is a privilege, and (2) Claim they are the arbiters of that privilege.
One can get stuck in reciprocal bureaucratic hell if this happens to you;
http://www.theusmat.com/consumer.htm
I’m still looking for legal help to get me out of this
If you own 10 trucks and hire enough employees to drive them all, you really need to have an LLC. Register the trucks to the LLC and the problem goes away.
I am in favor of being able to pull over vehicles registered to people with suspended licenses. In my neck of the woods a license suspension is not a meaningful penalty because most people just drive anyway. Now they may prefer to be a passenger, but if the only choice is to either drive or not go, they will drive.
Of course, the rise of Uber has also made license suspension a less meaningful penalty.
As we learned from “Breaking Bad” when Hank pulls the duct tape off the RV to reveal the bullet holes in the door, “probable cause needs to be readily apparent”. So, since the identity of the driver is not “readily apparent” just from running the license plate, there is no probable cause to pull the vehicle over.
Driving might be a privilege, but not being subject to unlawful search and seizure is a right.
Probable cause? Not sure how it’s harassment to ask for one’s license given the circumstances. Intimidating maybe. Harassment no.
It seems like these two are completely incompatible.
Until the govt got involved and started demanding licenses in order to generate revenues, it was a right.
If you have a thousand acres of property, you don't need a license or plates on your vehicle to drive on it. So is it a right or a privilege?
It’s not a right. It has always been regulated by the state.
Unless you were driving in the 1880’s.
Still a classic scene - who knew Joe was a legal scholar?
I don’t know about you, but I get all my free legal advice from salvage yard owners!
Driving is a right, driving on the public roads is a privilege.
The police state has a lot invested into that false meme.
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