This is really more like an opinion poll, but due to the subject matter I feel sure it should be here in GD.
From the NY times key excerpts:
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Well, the smartass answer is: It’s not a violation of the 4th Amendment because the majority of the Supreme Court says it isn’t.
Unfortunately, that’s also the non-smartass answer. Without reading the decision, I cannot say why they made the decision. But obviously, the majority does not find it unreasonable to arrest someone for a fine-only offense.
The thing is, I see several ways in which such a ruling can effect law enforcement as it stood vs. what they could now do. Or more succinctly I see slippery slope issues out the ying-yang.
Here’s the case, if anybody wants to read it: Atwater v. City of Lago Vista.
I used to know the guy who argued the case for Mrs. Atwater five or six years ago when he was not long out of law school. He was a pretty decent guy, so I’m personally kind of disappointed that he lost the case. I’m also totally sympathetic that police ought not to be able to arrest someone for a simple traffic violation, just as a matter of public policy.
But in terms of Fourth Amendment law, I’m not at all surprised or offended by the outcome here. It makes no sense to me to draw a largely arbitrary constitutional line between traffic offenses and other kinds of criminal acts. The basic principle here seems to be that if you break the law, it does not violate the Constitution if the police arrest you, even if it doesn’t make a bit of sense for them to do so.
Local laws may limit the power of arrest, of course. For instance, cops in Texas generally cannot arrest you for exceeding the speed limit. But that’s by statute, not because the Fourth Amendment prohibits it.
I am not a lawyer and I do not even pretend to know all that much about what various amendments to the constitution do or don’t say about what can and can’t be done. However, it seems to me that common sense should enter into whether a person is taken to jail or not. And whether a cop can arrest and person and take them to jail for not buckling their seat belt does not necessarily mean that they should. Somehow, to me, it just seems ludicrous to send a person to jail for not buckling their seat belt whether it is for an hour or for a day. Just stupid. The $50.00 fine would be more than sufficient, IMO.
I can only hope that where I live the police use their brains instead of their handcuffs.
And I also echo what andros said. It’s the law because the Supreme Court says so. Kinda reminds me of when I was a kid. When we played football, we played by my rules because it was my ball. I had the final say because it was my ball. The Supreme Court, right or wrong, has the final say because they are the highest court in the land.
Sometimes it is really sad. Really sad.
So, racial profiling is illegal, but pulling over every Tom, Dick and Jane on misdemeanors is legal?
Huh?
I think the real argument here is not whether it’s a search-and-seizure issue, but a child-endangerment issue, and this case may have been an attempt to tie seat-belt laws with child-endangerment laws.
I, as an adult, have the right not to wear a seat belt. I, as an adult with children in the car, do not have the right to endanger those children by not having them wear seat belts. I can pay the fine and live my life. A child can’t.
As a practical matter, seat belts are a minor nuisance. Yeah, they’re uncomfortable. OK, they’re a pain in the ass and I wish we didn’t have to use them. However, accidents do happen, and seat belts are designed to keep you from dying in them.
From the useless testimonial department: About four years ago, I walked away from what the cop and the guy at the body shop said should’ve been a fatal accident. Had I not been wearing my seat belt, and had my car not had airbags, my brain would be decorating the windshield of my car. Instead, I literally walked out of the emergency room with a scratched-up face (from the airbag), a scratched-up arm (also from the airbag), and a permanently messed-up jaw. (minor unless it rains.)
So, I think it’s good public policy to require everyone in a car to wear a seat belt, and I think parents who lack the common sense to require their kids to wear seat belts deserve what they get.
Robin
Personally, I see a clear way of defining the line between arrestable and non-arrestable offenses. You shouldn’t be able to be arrested for crimes for which the maximum punishment does not entail incarceration. Seems pretty logical, and allows local control over what offenses are jailable and which aren’t.
Minty, your link appears broken. Here is a fixed link.
Hm. After reviewing the link, I am no longer as outraged as I was earlier. It seems the Texas law regarding the seatbelts explicitly allows the officer to arrest the offender, although it is typically enforced by merely issuing a citation.
The Atwaters were arguing that arresting anyone for a crime not involving a breach of the peace should be unconstitutional. As IANAL, I don’t feel qualified defining exactly what a breach of the peace is; maybe someone who is could step up to the plate. Anyways, the Atwaters rely on common law as the basis of its unconstitutionality, but there was apparently equal common law that disagreed with them.
And, apparently, my idea above was considered and rejected by the majority as not being adequate. Depending upon circumstances which the officer might not be in a position to know, they said, a given offense may or may not be punishable by incarceration. But in my opinion, if the officer has the means to determine whether or not it is, and chooses to not check, and arrests the person, that’s too much leway to give them. If the police have no reasonable suspicion that a jailable offense has occured, they should not be allowed to arbitrarily arrest the offender.
All I know is, just from the undisputed facts of the case, the Atwaters were treated miserably by the officer. If officer Turek wasn’t at minimum forced to take an unpaid leave of absence of a month or two, then they were robbed.
Ack! Thanks for providing a proper link, Pun.
Again, I’m sympathetic to the idea that an officer ought to be able to arrest someone only if they’ve committed an offense for which the possible punishmemts include jail. There are a couple of problems with that, however.
First, some offenses are punishable by prison in some jurisdictions but not others. For instance, ISTR that basic, small-time marijuana possession is punishable only by a fine in California, whereas here in Texas it’s subject to jail time (even though that’s pretty unlikely to be the actual outcome). So does would it offend the Fourth Amendment to arrest the guy in the Phish shirt in California, but not the one in Texas?
Second, it’s often unclear precisely what crime a person has committed, even when there are grounds for the officer to believe that some sort of crime has occurred. For instance, take the marijuana example once again. Say our smelly hippie is in a state where (and I’m making this up out of thin air) possession of one ounce of pot can get you jail time, but anything less than that is a catch-and-release ticket. Our hypothetical hippie has an undetermined amount that’s right on the border. Is it unconstitutional to arrest him if it later turns out that he has only .99 oz, but constitutional if he has a full ounce? Do we have to carve out a fact-intensive, largely subjective “good faith” standard for arrests where the cop thought the perp had done a crime subject to jail? What if the cop was mistaken about whether a crime was punishable by jail?
Like I said, I’m real sympathetic to Mrs. Atwater, but her position on the 4th Amendment presents some problems of its own.
I am surprised at y’all. The supreme court does not define laws or make laws. Their only job is to interpret the constitutionality of the law. I will say that I think they have way overstepped their limits on numerous occasions.
How can the police officer justify arresting Mrs. Atwater for a seat belt violation without arresting everyone that he pulls over for the same offense? I’m sure the truth of the matter is that Mrs. Atwater was less than cordial and Officer Friendly arrested her just to show her who’s the boss. The problems I have with giving police the authority to arrest (at their discretion) for minor traffic violations is that 1)its arbitrary 2)in no way does it protect the public 3)should we fill up our jails with murderers, rapists or seat belt offenders? 4)the punishment in no way fits the crime (Mrs.Atwater had to pay $310.00 for bail for a $50.00 fine not to mention being fingerprinted, photographed, etc… at a cost of ??? to the taxpayers.
I also noticed the ACLU is concerned that police stopping minority drivers through racial profiling would use her case to justify arrests. This is the only thing I have ever found myself in total aggreement with the ACLU on.
Let me suggest that there is a very good reason for local law to authorize arrest, as opposed to citation (simply issuing a ticket). The reason is good but some might think reprehensible. One of the bases the courts have recognized as authorizing a search in the absence of a valid warrant and of probable cause is a search incident to arrest. In other words, if you get to arrest ‘em you get to search ‘em, and the car they were riding in
In my state the state supreme court concocted a “search incident to citation.” Under state law a citation was to be issued for specified minor crimes, for the most part traffic violations, and there was no authority to arrest (and consequently, search) unless the “perp” refused to receipt for the citation and promised to appear in court. Sensing a lost opportunity in the war on drugs, several prosecutors began arguing for the legality of citation-based searches. As a matter of course, many police agencies were searching everybody along with their car and everyone in the car, arrest or citation. These searches were routinely thrown out at the trial court level, but one got to the state Supremes who in a divided and pretty rancorous decision accepted the search incident to citation argument. When the case got to the U.S. Supremes that court in a rare unanimous decision rejected the whole rationale of the state decision.
If indeed Texas law gives the police discretion in whether to arrest or cite, then the U.S. Sup. Ct. decision maybe perfectly consistent with the “search incident to citation” case. It also demonstrates the ability of the Court’s shifting majority to slip from a posture of second guessing legislatures, to respecting legislative judgments.
On the underlying question of why would a state legislature grant the police the discretion to arrest or just issue a ticket, my vote is that they did it so as to provide a pretext to search. This is known as not being soft on crime. Too bad for the defendant and her kids, but we cannot coddle criminals.:rolleyes:
Having followed Mrs. Atwater’s story since the Supreme Court first agreed to review it, I can fill in a few details.
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Not even the arresting officer claims that Mrs. Atwater was disrespectful.
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Her children were indeed terrified. Fortunately a neighbor happened by and took them to their father. The officer was going to take the whole family to the station house before allowing Mrs. Atwater to call for someone to look after the kids.
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The officer apparently held a grudge against Mrs. Atwater. I seem to recall this being because he thought he had seen her driving without a seat belt a week or so before the arrest.
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Civil libertarians considered this the perfect test case because Mrs. Atwater was literally a soccer mom with a clean record and a fine civic standing. Rarely do middle class white people encounter this sort of treatment.
My reading of the majority opinion seems to be that they disapprove of the officer’s actions but feel that this type of matter should be addressed by state laws. While my heart is with Mrs. Atwater, in all fairness the state legislature should have drafted the law more carefully. They could certainly pass a bill to change it.
Reeder, that’s not quite right. It’s true for cases arising under state law that find their way into the federal court system - the federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have to accept the interpretation of state law given by the state courts, and their job is to measure them against the federal constitution.
It’s not true for federal statutes. The federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have the duty to interpret and apply federal statutes, even if no constitutional issue is involved:
Question: So it’s safe to conclude that the 4th Amendment has no involvement in this case whatsoever? It seems that the issue being debated is the severity of the punishment, not whether or not the cop should’ve pulled Mrs. Atwater over at all.
RE: Concerns about precedent…
I’m sure this may potentially be used to defend future charges of “racial profiling”… however, this may also help protect cops who are falsely accused of such behavior (i.e.- cop pulls over a guy for speeding, guy happens to be black, claims he was pulled over for being black). It can go both ways, of course… however, IMOSHO, “setting a precedent” should be the least of concerns when judging a case.
My problem with this ruling is that it gives police a license to be bullies. And lets be honest, while police work is an honorable profession, it does tend to attract bullies.
If the police can cuff you and haul you away for every violation, then I can envision a world in which you really have to walk on eggshells around police officers. Look at a cop the wrong way, go to jail for jaywalking. Your word against his.
I disagree with minty green about whether this raises a legitimate 4th Amendment issue. We are talking about the scope of police power and what constutes an unreasonable seizure. Seizure for a misdemeanor offense that is punnishable only by a fine strikes me (and most Americans, I should think) as unreasonable.
Damn Republican appointees.
What about the 8th Amendment?
Not wearing a seat belt is an infraction; that is, I don’t think it’s even a misdemeanor. The fine in this case was $50. Ms. Atwater had to post $310 bail, plus she now has a criminal record. She was subjected to the same treatment as a person arrested for robbery. In my opinion this violates the 8th Amendment because the punishment, which included psychological penalties, is excessive. I think the bail was excessive and that treating a “soccer mom” like a criminal is cruel. Since the vast majority of people stopped for traffic violations are not taken to jail, I would call this “unusual” as well.
Oh, I’m going to get flamed for this…
In my experience, the police are incapable or unwilling to use their brains. It’s safer for them to follow the letter of the law rather than its intent. And then there was the Rhode Island (?) case where an applicant was turned down for police service because he was too intelligent…
In a nutshell, the Supremes’ logic is:
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The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.
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We have a whole boatload of caselaw that says arrests based on probable cause are reasonable.
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There is no dispute that Officer Turek had probable cause to arrest Ms. Atwater under Texas law.
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Therefore, we ain’t a-gonna create a whole new body of law to deal with this set of facts.
The majority points out that, in essence, this isn’t a big problem. There is no wave of warrantless misdemeanor arrests sweeping the nation. If the people of Texas wish to prevent their police from arresting someone in this situation, they have only to pass a law. But the Federal constitution does not forbid arresting someone if the law of the state says they can be arrested, no matter how much of a jerk the arresting officer is.
- Rick
Actually, there is no Texas statute saying this. An article in this morning’s Houston Chronicle said that, in response to this ruling by the Supreme Court, a bill has been filed in the Texas House that would make it illegal to arrest people for a ticketable traffic offense.
Bricker wrote:
Not yet it isn’t. Because until now, police did not have a license from the Supreme Court to go out and arrest misdemeanants. Let’s see what happens now that the Supreme Court has issued its blessings.
I pray that some state supreme courts will step into the breach and decide that even if the Supreme Court doesn’t think this behavior violates U.S. Constitutional rights, it sure as hell violates citizens’ rights under state constitutions.