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 ...
That's the only place I've been in NC.
Well, I noticed the difference. Up in New York (upstate) the cops were friendly and non-aggressive as can be. I'd have no problem having them around.
Then I came to the South. What a difference! Like angry hornets waiting to sting!
I asked a few Southerners, and they all confirmed my opinion... but the problem is probably all over....
Well, I noticed the difference. Up in New York (upstate) the cops were friendly and non-aggressive as can be. I'd have no problem having them around.
Then I came to the South. What a difference! Like angry hornets waiting to sting!
I asked a few Southerners, and they all confirmed my opinion... but the problem is probably all over....
Doh!
NC is a big state, mostly rural (like California). Out West here, it's definitely Southern and definitely conservative.
But also like California, the rural folks always get outvoted by the city folks in Raleigh.
My oldest son is a townie in OK. He enjoys the adrenalin when he makes the drug busts... I don't know where I went wrong... ;(
My #2 son is a high school music teacher, and never got high in his life. But, he smokes cigarettes, has asthma, and plays a great trumpet!
I'll not state what I smoke... but... I do go through a lot of these...! 
I did that too.
That 'splains it!
So you think that John Lenin is being a jerk by using the fame of the Beatles?
John Lenin, I set up the shot -- you go right ahead and spike it over the net.
I love Rochester city cops... like the time my band smoked a joint on the side of a parking garage downtown and walked around the corner to 4 cops standing there laughing at us (whoops! good sense of humor, though, officers!) Or the time I was dead broke and let my car insurance lapse, which caused my NYS DMV registration to get revoked, and I got pulled over for a burned out headlight on the way back from a party. Good thing it was in a bad neighborhood, the cop says "son, you want to tell me why you have no insurance?" When I explained I was dead broke and that was also the reason they suspended my registration he says "well, just get the hell out of here and fix up your problems".
Sometimes I like living in a high-crime city. LOL!
t, does your tagline mean that you are a MC5 fan? (kick out the jams)
"But aren't the two rulings inconsistent? I.e., don't you release a heat signature into public air, just as you do a scent? If so, why is a sniff okay but a thermal image not okay?"
I think the difference is that the thermal imaging cases involved looking into homes and courts have ruled that people have a greater expectation of privacy in their homes than in their vehicles. Also, these thermal imaging devices can actually see the thermal images of people in the homes, doing whatever people might be doing in their homes that they might not want others watching them do. It is a greater invasion of privacy.
In the collar communities of Chicago, the cops can be pretty cool, too. I was pulled over one time in Naperville, found out I had a procedural license suspension (an unpaid NY state ticket), and the cop said, "Clear it up. I'll check next time I see you around."
In Atlanta, I would have been dragged from my car, swallowed some pavement, been booked and thrown in jail, and my car would have been impounded.
On the contrary, thermal imagers merely read the temperature of the outside surface of a house. Both wood and glass are opaque to far IR. The reason for the ruling was not that cops could see people doing things inside their houses, but rather that the specialized technology crossed the line too far beyond the "plain sight" arguments offered by the cops. (Presumably when everyone has thermal imagers in their cell phones, this reason will vanish. It has already vanished for radar speed guns, the practice of using a formerly classified military technology to enhance revenue at the municipal level.)
Incidentally, submillimeter wave radars see through wood, clothing and drywall ... those things aren't thermal imagers. And SCOTUS hasn't ruled on their use, either.
From the present ruling, I'd expect the court to be all for SMMW radar, so long as the suspect was actually guilty - and therefore have standing to appear before SCOTUS in the first place.
Around 1970 my best friend and I prided ourselves on being probably the only MC5 fans in Daytona Beach, FL. We somehow got ahold of their live album and played it over and over. They were probably ahead of their time.
I suspect the "drug smell on money" thing is a scam. Money has its own smell, and if you taught a dog to sniff that, then if you have money the dog sniffs it and that is probable cause for a fullblown dope search.
Otherwise, bring the dog into a bank and have the cops remove all the contaminated money, then search the bank for contraband.
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