This bogus info has been posted before:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3241173/posts
When the “Wise Latina” is the ONLY one who votes for X, it is a safe bet X is stupid/unconstitutional.
See this from one of the the previous threads:
“It was impossible for the cop to “know the law”. After this arrest, the defendant argued the wording of the law only required one light to work. In spite of another sentence indicating both needed to work, the court ruled - AFTER the arrest and for the first time - that the wording only required one working light.
Since this ruling changed the accepted meaning, and came about only after the stop went to trial, there was no way any cop or any lawyer could have known.
The state supreme court was not asked the question, so it remains a lower court ruling that only one light is needed. The state supreme court pointed out the other sentence indicating two were needed, but since they were not specifically asked they made no ruling. However, in reading the state supreme court’s decision, it seems likely that if it DOES go to them, they will overturn the lower court and rule both lights need to work.
Since there was no way a cop could have known, in advance, that a lower court would rule only one light was needed, and since the state supreme court seems to doubt the lower court was right, it is ridiculous to expect a cop to predict in advance how a court will interpret the law.
That is why the US Supreme Court ruled as it did. If cops could only stop people based on the outcome of FUTURE CASES, no one would ever be stopped. The legal principle is that the cop can be mistaken about the law and still arrest you. That doesn’t violate your rights, because the COURTS will determine guilt or innocence. All the cop needs to make the arrest is a reasonable suspicion that the law has been broken...And no cop can be required to know how a future court will interpret the law.”
The old court position is that any invalid law is void from the word go. So this is a change.
And this is not about vengeance on the officers, simply not permitting their illegal act to perpetrate.
I posted before I saw your analysis. Thanks for the information and the clarification of the specific legal issues. I should have known better - an 8-1 decision is usually the correct decision.
Thanks.
Anyone here supporting Free Thought Project is suspect.
Rutherford seems to have gone off the rails as well.
Well, what is more distressing is that cops can use a “busted tail light” being a crime as an excuse for any search in the first place.
The intent of allowing a search if you have reasonable belief that a crime has been committed is to allow the police to search for evidence OF THAT CRIME. Not to allow them go on a fishing expedition because they find a citizen who may not have minded all his p’s and q’s. So, if a cop sees a car with a broken taillight, he already has the evidence he needs to cite the driver for that offense, and he has no cause to perform any additional search.