Can a cop make me roll down my tinted window?

[Saint_Cad]

@pkbites

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.

I think the issue is the contention that if a driver refuses a search an LEO can still open the back door (assuming tinted windows) anyways saying, “I was checking to see if anyone was in there.” thereby nullifying (at least in part) the 4th Amendment.

[DSYoungEsq]

The 4th Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches. In essence, it precludes the authorities from engaging in “fishing expeditions.” Whenever you are looking at a 4th Amendment case, keep this context in mind.

[Lamoral]

Note to self: if engaging in something illicit involving the rear compartment of a vehicle, use a panel van with no rear windows.

[pkbites]

Here’s one for you: I was the back up Dep on a traffic stop where a motorcycle rider refused to take off his full face helmet to reveal himself. Without giving you the date involved, what were the issues involved and were we within our authority to force the helmet off? State was Wisconsin.

[SamuelA]

@pkbites

Here’s one for you: I was the back up Dep on a traffic stop where a motorcycle rider refused to take off his full face helmet to reveal himself. Without giving you the date involved, what were the issues involved and were we within our authority to force the helmet off? State was Wisconsin.

Consistent with your previous examples, if you have probable cause to pull the vehicle over, you apparently are allowed to identity all of the occupants and determine if they are of interest to law enforcement.

It would be possible for a person not revealing their face to hide their identity, using a counterfeit copy of a valid ID.

But even if you don’t suspect that - although for bonus points, I’m going to assume there was an inconsistency between the ID the rider gave and the registration on the bike - it seems you likely have the power to check that.

Once you forced the helmet off, what was he hiding? Did you actually try to wrestle it off in the field or just place him under arrest for refusing to comply?

[pkbites]

@SamuelA

Consistent with your previous examples, if you have probable cause to pull the vehicle over, you apparently are allowed to identity all of the occupants and determine if they are of interest to law enforcement

I never claimed we can ID every one on a traffic stop, only detain them. Fact is, occupants other than a driver in my state don’t have to show ID.

You missed a key factor In the scenario I gave. While a real case, this is for fun so don’t get pissed.

[SamuelA]

@pkbites

I never claimed we can ID every one on a traffic stop, only detain them. Fact is, occupants other than a driver in my state don’t have to show ID.

You missed a key factor In the scenario I gave. While a real case, this is for fun so don’t get pissed.

Is it the state or the date? Mostly I am wondering how you ‘force’ someone to do something like remove a helmet. A simple sounding, thuggish sort of task is surprisingly tricky if as a law enforcement agency you are trying to minimize the chance of permanent injury or death.

[Machine_Elf]

@SamuelA

Is it the state or the date? Mostly I am wondering how you ‘force’ someone to do something like remove a helmet. A simple sounding, thuggish sort of task is surprisingly tricky if as a law enforcement agency you are trying to minimize the chance of permanent injury or death.

Shouldn’t be too hard to get the helmet off once you’ve got him handcuffed. I’ve seen this done to perps who flee on a bike and then crash.

I’ll say yes, the officers did have legal authority to require helmet removal. Two issues I can think of. The first is the obvious need to confirm the ID of the rider. The second is that a helmet may provide the rider with protection in a wrestling match, serving as impact armor, an OC spray shield, and a bludgeoning weapon; making him remove his helmet is the equivalent of confiscating a contact’s legally-possessed knife, giving the officer the confidence that he (the officer) will have the upper hand if any sort of physical confrontation does occur.

[Loach]

@Lamoral

Note to self: if engaging in something illicit involving the rear compartment of a vehicle, use a panel van with no rear windows.

Or just hide it and don’t do anything to give probable cause for a search. Not all criminals are stupid, just a sizable percentage.

[puzzlegal]

@puzzlegal

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.

Oh – and I was really relieved the officer didn’t ask to search my car. I had several bottles of my friend’s wine. (He was moving across the country, and the moving company wouldn’t take it.) And I was glad I had taken the precaution of hiding it under the gardening stuff. I’m not actually certain it was illegal to be carrying them in the back seat. I certainly couldn’t have reached it while driving! But I was happy that issue didn’t come up.

[Falchion]

@UltraVires

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.

Stanfield very clearly stands for that proposition. Brown is a little weirder because it’s not a traffic stop, it’s car in a parking lot.

Are you aware of contrary authority? What’s the rule in West Virginia? A limited KeyCite shows that Stanfield appears to have been adopted by a handful of states and a few other federal circuits. Most of the cases to the contrary deal with whether or not the interior of the vehicle was actually obscured and/or whether or not the initial seizure was lawful. It might be that there is some dispute in the courts on this subject, but I’d be interested in reading the contrary authority. I find Stanfield very persuasive from an officer safety standpoint (i.e., if you accept the Terry rationale of for the “protective search”).

[UltraVires]

@pkbites

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.

1. If the stop was for illegally tinted windows, I might agree with you. We were talking about other minor traffic stops.

2. The US Supreme Court has not gone so far as to give you the authority to detain passengers.

@Maryland v. Wilson

Maryland urges us to go further and hold that an officer may forcibly detain a passenger for the entire duration of the stop. But respondent was subjected to no detention based on the stopping of the car once he had left it; his arrest was based on probable cause to believe that he was guilty of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute. The question which Maryland wishes answered, therefore, is not presented by this case, and we express no opinion upon it.

It makes no sense that you could detain a passenger. The passenger did not commit a motor vehicle infraction. Unless you have RAS that the passenger committed a crime, he should be free to walk away from the stop like anyone else. Under what constitutional authority would you believe gives you the right to detain a passenger?

The Maryland Supreme Court in that case said that a passenger could absolutely walk away.

@Loach

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.

You need better jargon. It is overly provocative to use that sort of language when talking about free people being stopped for minor infractions.

As far as these balancing tests, they are always indicative of an intent to deny rights to citizens. Anytime you see the phrase “the touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness” in an opinion, you know it is a shitty opinion.

We don’t generally balance rights of constitutional dimension to protect the government unless it deals with DUI, police safety, or some other pet issue that a vocal minority uses its political power to bring to the forefront. If we did that with all issues, then all privacy concerns would disappear. Surely on balance me having to endure one unlawful search of my home would be better than letting a murderer or rapist go free, but we never balance in that circumstance.

And this “reasonableness” argument is a tautology. As Justice Harlan said, “reasonable in comparison to what”? Like the balancing test, the stated goal is always laudatory and the intrusion minimal by comparison and therefore “reasonable.” These cases are always one offs and grounded in nothing in the Constitution or in prior case law.

The better cases rest on the sound principle that all searches conducted outside the judicial process without a warrant are per se unreasonable except for the certain limited doctrines established by law. This is not one of them.

[UltraVires]

@Falchion

Stanfield very clearly stands for that proposition. Brown is a little weirder because it’s not a traffic stop, it’s car in a parking lot.

Are you aware of contrary authority? What’s the rule in West Virginia? A limited KeyCite shows that Stanfield appears to have been adopted by a handful of states and a few other federal circuits. Most of the cases to the contrary deal with whether or not the interior of the vehicle was actually obscured and/or whether or not the initial seizure was lawful. It might be that there is some dispute in the courts on this subject, but I’d be interested in reading the contrary authority. I find Stanfield very persuasive from an officer safety standpoint (i.e., if you accept the Terry rationale of for the “protective search”).

There is no case in West Virginia and I haven’t had the opportunity to review your cases. You may be right that many states and many circuits endorse that rule. But I am not in a position to comment yet, but my first inclination stands.

I disagree that Terry would apply here. In Terry, the officer must have a reasonable articulable suspicion that both: 1) crime is afoot, and that 2) the suspect of that crime is armed and dangerous.

Even if we accept that speeding means crime is afoot, which I would dispute, there is nothing additional (in these automatic cases) to support a reasonable articulable suspicion that the driver is armed and dangerous. Sure, a non-zero number of people stopped for a traffic offense will attempt violence, but the suspicion must be individualized, and that suspicion is random. You might as well say that every police encounter on the street justifies a Terry stop.

And even if you get past that hurdle, you don’t have any reason to believe, even if the hunch is correct that there are backseat passengers, that those passengers have committed crimes or are armed and dangerous. The officer cannot possibly believe that as he does not even know if there are passengers. Imagine that testimony: “Your Honor, I didn’t know if someone was in the backseat, but if there was someone, that son of a bitch was committing a crime, he had a gun, and would have used it!”

Further, if tinted windows apply, it would seem as if panel vans would be subject to automatically having their rear doors open, or RVs would be able to be searched fully because a person could be hiding anywhere.

[pkbites]

@SamuelA

Is it the state or the date?

Both.

Wisconsin was one of, if not THE last state to put photos on driver licenses. So in the early 80’s we had a alot of cases of people using other people’s licenses who looked like them on paper. One needed a state ID card (which were issued by the county Register of Deeds Office for some reason) in order to buy beer but no photo ID was needed to drive a car.

However, we did have the authoritah to verify that a violator matched the description on the DL (Height, Weight, Hair, Color, etc). So this cyclist had a full helmet with smoked shield and refused to take it off. Instead of fighting with the guy we took him into custody and right before a judge (you could still do that then). The judge told him to remove the helmet of he’d sit in a cell until the jail Deputies had time to come in and rip it off his head. No jargon insinuated. In those days the Deps at the jail would have literally ripped that helmet off. We probably could have done it at the stop site, but I was fairly new and so was the contact Deputy who originated the stop.

So the guy took the helmet off and he did match the description on the non-photo license. The judge called him an insufferable jackass for wasting everyone’s time. We issued him a citation for whatever the violation was and kept the license as bond (we did that in those days). He then was free to go.

And it wasn’t him!

A month later a very pissed off man came into court demanding to know why he got a court notice for a traffic ticket he never received. Turns out his driver license was stolen out of a locker at the YMCA.

But I remembered what the other guy looked like. About 4 months later I stopped a car in a county park for something. Someone was sitting in the back, kind of curled up and facing out the opposite window. I lit him up with my flashlight and demanded he face me.

It was helmet boy! Now under arrest on a John Doe warrant.

Not too long after that the state finally put pictures on driver licenses.

Always get a look at who’s in the back seat.

[Loach]

@UltraVires

You need better jargon. It is overly provocative to use that sort of language when talking about free people being stopped for minor infractions.

No thanks. I use all sorts of provocative language in my life. I’m just naughty that way. I certainly wouldn’t use job related slang in reports or on the stand. I can even criticize pkbites for using the term in this thread where precise language is important to fully answer questions of those who are unfamiliar to the subject. But internal slang between cops? Think about the poor writers of Blue Bloods. Do you want to put them out of a job?

[pkbites]

@UltraVires

2. The US Supreme Court has not gone so far as to give you the authority to detain passengers

The Maryland Supreme Court in that case said that a passenger could absolutely walk away.
.

You need to reread Wilson and reread Brendlin.

The Maryland Supreme Court does not override SCOTUS nor does it affect other states.

A passenger is seized on a traffic stop and for my safety I can order them to stay in the vehicle or get out. If I can order them to stay in the vehicle I guess they aren’t free to leave, hence “seized”. This is one reason why passengers have the right to challenge the legality of the stop. If they weren’t being seized they would not have that right.

[steronz]

@Loach

No thanks. I use all sorts of provocative language in my life. I’m just naughty that way. I certainly wouldn’t use job related slang in reports or on the stand. I can even criticize pkbites for using the term in this thread where precise language is important to fully answer questions of those who are unfamiliar to the subject. But internal slang between cops? Think about the poor writers of Blue Bloods. Do you want to put them out of a job?

I appreciate your contributions to the thread. Do you have an opinion on the subject of the OP, since it seems this hasn’t been tested in court? Namely, can you open a passenger-sized compartment on a stopped vehicle that you can’t see into in order to verify that no humans are in it, as pkbites claims? Without any reasonable suspicion that someone is present, of course.

[Leo_Bloom]

@Riemann

If this is true, the law is an ass. …

[nitpick]

a ass

[/nitpick]

[Slash1972]

@Leo_Bloom

[nitpick]

a ass

[/nitpick]

what?

[Telemark]

@Slash1972

what?

The original quote is:

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass — a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.”