[supercat]

It's just a tool available to fight crime, and I don't want to hamstring a trained police officer based on somebody's unfounded fears.

If someone 'consents' to a search and the cop finds something, that suggests:

1. the person is a total moron, or
2. the person believed the cop was either going to search whether or not consent was given, or was otherwise going to punish non-consent, or
3. the person had no knowledge of the item found, perhaps because it wasn't there when permission was given.

I know most crooks aren't the smartest knives in the drawer, so #1 is certainly plausible in many case, but it seems to me more people are apt to be found because of #2 or #3. We would both agree, I think, that in case #3 the cop shouldn't be stopping the motorist; I would argue the same for case #2.

So tell me, how many crooks are caught because of case #1 who wouldn't be easily caught in short order by other means?

[Kryptonite]

I'd add:

4. the person had no knowledge of the item, because the person is driving a used car.

So I say buy cars new and get a CCW permit. Oh, Wisconsin has no CCW law. And if you can't make sense of this understand that I have mixed feelings about this particular story.

[flashbunny]

Ever watch cops? Quite a few. A lot of criminals are morons. They get caught for doing stupid things because they are stupid. Some of them think the cops won't find anything. If you're going to allege planting of evidence, that can be alleged during stops WITH probable cause and WITH warrants as well. So you might as well say "why do searches" because evidence could be planted there, too.

So to reverse the question, why would you want to completely deny this constitutionally valid tool from being used by trained officers?

[Mr. Silverback]

So tell me, how many crooks are caught because of case #1 who wouldn't be easily caught in short order by other means?

Actually, you should get on mhking's "hold muh beer" ping list if you aren't already. The supply of "dumb criminals" news items makes it one of the highest volume ping lists on FR. Most of these people choose crime because they are too stupid/undisciplned to excel at real work or get into gangs before they are finished with school, and are severely undereducated. A surprising number of people consent to searches knowing that there are weapons or drugs hidden in the car.