I don’t think it was nitpickery. If a person is obeying your order and getting out of the car, are you allowed to grab them and physically move them away from the car (yanking them) which prevents them from blocking your view of inside the car with their body and also preventing them from shutting the car door so that you can (plain-view) search the back seat over the driver’s refusal?
Because you basically said that’s what you are allowed to do.
No, I can order people to roll down their windows. If they lie and say they don’t work that is another issue. It doesn’t affect my lawful authority.
Usually if the windows are tinted in a way that prevents viewing someone is sitting inside, then they are illegal. Then I can order them down or the vehicle can no longer be operated on a public roadway and I will tow the vehicle. Before a vehicle towed we check to make sure nobody is inside.
I am going to see if someone is in that back seat regardless of what scenario you throw at me. And I am going to see legally. Sorry that you don’t like it.
In the case of overly tinted windows that in itself is RS for a stop.
A more tricky scenario is a cargo van. No windows other than the front driver/passenger area, and a makeshift wall and door between the driver compartment and the cargo area. Muffled Sounds coming from the cargo area but not exactly like people talking. A radio? An electric motor running? Is there justification to demand a view to the back cargo area? And yes, this did happen.
If I say “Joe got slammed with 5 speeding tickets in a week” would you assume the officers slammed those citations right on his face?
If I were to say “Joe got so many traffic tickets the state yanked his driver license” would you assume someone from the DOT actually grabbed his license card and yanked it out of his hand? These are just figures of speech. Get over it.
I don’t see how it can’t affect your lawful authority. I’m not under any legal obligation to drive around with rear windows that work. Shit, I’m not even under any legal obligation to drive around with rear doors that open. The more I think about it, if you can’t see in the back seat and I give you no probably cause to think someone’s back there (like you mention about cargo vans), you’re not getting a look back there.
I’m gonna call nonsense on this. In my state, rear and back windows can be any darkness. It’s been that way in every state I’ve lived in. Maybe your state differs but I don’t see how, considering cargo vans and the Chevy HHR Panel Van are legal. You can spray paint the rear windows black in Ohio as long as you have functioning side mirrors.
Your own example undermines your confidence. You can’t see in the back of a cargo van legally without probably cause, even though someone may very well be sitting back there.
It was the equivalent to a trunk. But like a trunk if I can articulate someone is in there I have cause to verify. The courts have continually ruled in favor of officer safety.
I have been on the job since ‘82. So long, in fact, I retired after 25 years, took my pension, and started a second career with another agency. This includes having held a rank in my first career. I am rather certain if I didn’t know WTH I was doing I’d not of made it this long. In the case of the OP I am going to see if someone is in that back seat whether he unrolls those windows or not. And no court is going to rule I didn’t have the authority to do so. Accounting for all occupants of a seized vehicle is not a search.
Sorry you don’t like it.
It’s not that I “don’t like it,” I don’t have a dog in this fight other than I think it’s an interesting thought experiment. I don’t really care one way or another.
Consider the scenario laid out in the OP, with some added details.
You pull me over one night for speeding in my 1985 Ford Crown Victoria station wagon. The front windshield and driver/passenger front windows are untinted, but the rear passenger windows and cargo area are all completely black in accordance with Ohio law. You ask me if anyone else is in the vehicle. “No sir, I’m alone.” You ask me to roll down the rear window. “I’m sorry officer, it’s a 35 year old car and the power windows are broken back there.”
Barring any other probable cause to suspect that someone else is in the back seat, what’s your next step?
Since it is not a illegal order, yes, they can.
Well fine, I guess they can make the order, but nobody has to comply. That’s a distinction without a difference. It’s like asking passengers to produce a state ID – that’s a lawful request, but since nobody is required to have a state ID on them as a passenger, they can just say no.
I’ve read that this is why windows that are tinted too dark are illegal. There could be a sawed-off shotgun aimed at the cop and he can’t tell (thanks to the driver wanting to look like… what, a badass? What’s the attraction of dark windows?).
I do practice in the Fourth Circuit, but do very little federal criminal work. I haven’t read those cases, but if they say what you picked out, then I disagree vehemently. SCOTUS will have to have the final say nationwide, so it may very depending on your state.
Is this a NJ case where you get this authority? I find it outrageous. Again, nothing personal. I remember the Byrd case when we talked about it, and I know a lot of police officers and even have one in the family. He talks this way sometimes and it is disturbing.
Can you do this automatically or does it require some sort of suspicion? How dark do the windows have to be according to your case law?
It seems odd in the extreme, almost like having your curtains drawn is suspicion that you are up to something illegal in your house. People want privacy for many reasons, illegal activity being only one.
Also, I am only arguing to the extent that you are saying (if you are) that you feel or the cases hold that you can do these things absent any sort of reasonable articulable suspicion that something is going on in that backseat.
In my state, like many, the tint ratio is 50% light for front windows/windshield, 35% for rear. I din’t Give a rip about Ohio as I don’t work there.
In your scenario there are a couple of things I could do. I could ask you if I can look in the back seat from outside the open door to confirm nobody else was present.
If you refuse I could order you out if the car and as the front door is open I could light up the back seat with my collapsible flashlight and see who is back there. I could place you in the back of my squad and drive around facing the front of your car and blast the spot light through your windshield also illuminating the back seat area.
Or in the name of officer safety I could just open the back door and look, without entering the vehicle. THAT might be a search, but not an illegal one. Remember, the courts have consistently ruled in favor of officer safety.
No it isn’t. If the traffic stop was legal the officer has a safety concern to know how many people are in that vehicle. A traffic stop also presents a liability to the officer and his agency as long as he has the vehicle and it’s occupants detained. I have the authority to know how many people I am detaining without it being an actual search. If the stop was for overly tinted windows it’s because of traffic law, not a privacy invasion.
You seem to think I ‘m pulling this out of my nether regions. But these stops happen thousands of times every day in the U.S. and no court has ruled against what I and every other patrolman do. For someone who works in law you should know that.
So in my scenario you’re saying that you can just ignore my refusal to consent to a search and open up the rear door without any probable cause to verify that it’s empty back there “in the name of officer safety,” but if I drove a cargo van you couldn’t? Is it because you suspect there’s a padded seat behind that door and not a flat loading floor? This really seems like an odd distinction.
I told you the cargo van scenario was tricky.
Great job avoiding my question.
So you, with a straight face, would go in front of a judge and say
So, your honor, I was still reasonably afraid that someone was in the back seat so I opened the door and scanned the contents of the back since hey the door is open now.
Every job has its jargon. Using the word “yank” when talking about getting people out of a car means simply getting them out of the car. 99% of the time that’s means telling them to get out of the car and they do with no contact made. Don’t get hung up on the jargon.
Thank you. I’m not the best at explaining this type of things to the teeming knowitalls.
Nowhere did I indicate a scenario involving all of those things at once in my posts. If I reasonably believed there was nobody in the back by any one the maneuvers I described that would be the end of it. But until I’m reasonable sure nobody is in the back I can proceed, step by step, until I am.
Please show me a case going back to January 1982 of [whomever] vs Peter K Beitz USSC or even WSSC that ruled I did wrong. And by me I mean any LEO.
BTW, this stuff doesn’t actually happen very often. At most I’ll have some dink insist he only has to show me his license through the window and not hand it to me for inspection. Most of the time someone will open the back window or door to show there is nobody back there. And when they don’t one or 2 of the techniques tends to answer the question and that’s that.
I’ve once had the police appear frightened when they stopped me. My registration had expired, and the car was full of crap, because I friend was moving and had given me a lot of stuff.
I didn’t notice the police officer behind me right away, and then I didn’t feel safe pulling over for a while. So by the time I did, I think the officer thought there was going to be trouble.
When I handed him my ID, and he saw that the (expired) registration was in my name, I could see the relief on his face. Suddenly, the dicey encounter with a car thief had turned into a routine traffic stop of a scatter-brained middle-aged woman.
He was quite nice after that (although he did ticket me for the violation.) But I’d never realized how tense the police routinely are until I saw his whole aspect change like that. Even if it had been the stolen-car scenario, I was still a middle-aged woman, driving on a busy street, in broad daylight. But he was tense.