It is *not *a license/permit to move about. You can still hire a driver to take you around. It is a license/permit to operate a complex and potentially dangerous piece of machinery known as a motor vehicle, when out among the public. Which piece of machinery BTW is itself required to comply with a certain set of specifications and regulations to be able to be used in public thoroughfares.
It is well established law that the state has the faculty to establish safety regulations for operations of potentially risky devices where the public may be affected.
Suspicion and probability are no quite the same thing. Probability doesn’t care about who is acting, but suspicion does.
The issue UV seems to have is that the driver is not suspected of committing a crime, but that the car is being suspected of being driven by the wrong person. He objects to being able to pull over the driver without suspicion that said driver is commuting a crime.
I appreciate the logic, and think that, at the very least, this should be minimized, as pulling over people unnecessarily is a great inconvenience, and I do worry about fishing expeditions and ulterior motives.
I would would think the stops could be minimzed by using this feature of cars called windows, and looking to see if the driver at least appears to match the owner’s driver’s license photo, which should be shown with the owner information and license status.
Only at night when you can’t see the driver at all due to reflextions should you ever need to even consider suspecting the wrong driver. And, even then, minimze the stop by having the driver’s image on hand. If necessary, identify the driver with their license. Then, if no crime was committed, immediately end the stop.
I get that sometimes, you need intrusions like this to reasonably enforce the law, but they should be minimal. Give people power, and it will be abused by at least some. Thus we should give the minimal power necessary to accomplish the goal.
This might be true of a certain, small number of unlicensed drivers- those who have a license and didn’t renew it on time. But the other unlicensed drivers ( the ones who don’t have a license because it’s been suspended/revoked on multiple occasions for traffic infractions or the failure to answer tickets for traffic infractions) in my experience continue to drive just like they did before the suspension/revocation even when they face far more serious consequences than a traffic ticket. ( You wouldn’t believe how many people with warrants of all sorts are found when they get pulled over for speeding or running a red light.)
I know a number of people who have had their DL suspended for various reasons. Every last one of those people drove while their license was suspended. I love the 4th amendment to the constitution, but I have no problem with the SCOTUS decision here.
This is exactly it and why it is such a wild and monumental break from prior precedent. There is no reasonable articulable suspicion of that individual. It is a probability analysis which does not bode well for minorities or the poor.
I further agree with you. If the officer actually investigated the individual (which prior to this case was a requirement), say pulled up beside the car and observed that the driver reasonably matched the age, gender, build of the registered owner, then I would have no problem with the stop.
Oh, but I do disagree with your “at night” exception. I don’t see why this case should subject a free person to being detained simply because the darkness of night prevents the police from gathering a particularized suspicion of that individual. I’ve never read a case where a Terry stop was allowed at night because darkness made the individualized suspicion more impracticable.
And your whole new “once they see that the driver is not the suspended registered owner so they must end the stop” creates a whole new traffic stop jurisprudence. The general rule is that once suspicion for a stop exists, then the stop can continue as any other stop. If we make an exception here, what is to prevent the next guy from saying, “Yeah, he saw me speeding, checked my license, and issued me a citation. Why can he detain me to see if I had outstanding warrants? That had nothing to do with why he stopped me.”?
This is suspicion of driving with a suspended license. There’s no need to stop the car at all, follow it to it’s destination. When the driver gets out of the car ask to see their license if they resemble the driver known to have a suspended license. If they go home and pull into their attached garage go up to the door and knock and question them. If they don’t cooperate go to a judge and get a warrant surveil their car.
We don’t need this ruling because we already have the means to deal with this without violating anyone’s rights.
Never-the-less, I don’t care about people driving with suspended licenses. It’s illegal, it’s dangerous, and driving is not a right. I just care about bad SCOTUS rulings and the collateral damage they cause. If it’s constitutional and people driving with suspended licenses suffer than TFB.
But the driver is suspected of committing a crime. He’s suspected of committing the crime of driving without a valid license. He’s suspected of that for a reason, because he’s driving a car for which the most likely driver would be a person committing that crime. And I just articulated that reason. So the suspicion is both reasonable and articulable. Bottom like, “reasonable and articulable suspicion” is not a very difficult bar to clear.
It’s not dangerous. How does a guy who drives after failing to pay civil fines or because he got a DUI two months ago “dangerous”? These are simply punitive regulations to make people not do the bad things. They are no more or less qualified to drive than you or me.
What action did the driver take that makes you think that the driver is committing a crime? The driver, not the car. The driver.
You were doing well until you delved into probability and statistics. After a home invasion when police see seven people walking from the scene, six males, one female, six whites, and one black (also male) can he do a Terry stop of the black male because of probability and statistics? I assume the answer is no. Why not after this case?
Remember, it doesn’t have to be certain, just reasonable and articulable. So why not stop the black dude?
ETA: And the police have no description at all of the home invader (as in this case, the driver)
Yeah, sorry, but despite the fact that I’ve agreed with your overall position in this thread, you’re drawing a false equivalence here.
The guy who got a DUI was a danger to the public, and he was specifically a danger when behind the wheel of a car. Taking away the driving privileges (or, if you prefer, rights) of a person who has shown himself to be a danger on the road might be a “punitive regulation to make people not do the bad things,” but it is also a reasonable penalty in the case of someone who drives under the influence. We want that person not to do the bad thing anymore, because it endangers other road users. That’s quite different from taking a license away from someone who is late paying his tickets, or is too poor to pay them on time.
Suspending the license of a DUI or a reckless driver protects other road users, and is a punishment that has a direct and rational connection to the type of crime. Suspending the license of a poor person because they can’t pay their tickets is not only punitive, but it is also bad policy, because it deprives them of the very thing that is often necessary for them to earn money and pay the fine.
But you would agree that a guy who was busted for DUI on Friday night coming home from the bar is not a danger when driving sober to work on Tuesday morning? Even with a suspended license. The sanction was punitive, even if as I agree, a reasonable penalty. But his violation of the sanction does not endanger me when I am driving to work on Tuesday.
But, by definition, he’s not the most likely driver, because his license is suspended. As Justice Sotomayor points out in her dissent, reasonable suspicion is supposed to be particularized, and courts are also supposed to look at the reasons given by the officer.
I don’t think this is the worst 4th Amendment decision ever, not by a long shot. But it’s just another chip away at the right against government search and seizure, something that has been happening for a long time under judges and justices of all political persuasions, and that has rendered the automobile in America effectively a 4th Amendment-free zone.
I’ll return the disagreement. It is the worst because it absolves the government of any individualized suspicion. This will uphold racial profiling. It will allow the harassment of young people or those who drive shitty cars or wear unkempt clothing or have tattoos or non mainstream piercings. Because we can use probability and statistics, based upon “officer training and experience” (already a bullshit and overused phrase) to harass people based upon these probabilities because no individualized suspicion is required.
I don’t know what point you’re trying to make. Cars don’t commit crimes, and nobody is claiming that they do.
The action that the driver took that makes me suspect he’s committing a crime is that he drove that particular vehicle.
And yes, of course someone who’s gotten a DUI should be considered to be dangerous. He’s known to have a history of making poor decisions that result in unsafe operation of a motor vehicle. I don’t know if he’s drunk on his way to work on Tuesday morning. Maybe he is. When someone’s caught driving drunk, we don’t just tell them “OK, you’re not allowed to drive after drinking now”. They already weren’t allowed to do that. We tell them “You’re not allowed to drive at all, because we don’t know when you’re drinking”.
See how you are turning law on its head? If I drive a vehicle owned by someone with a suspended license, I am not doing anything to bring suspicion. I am driving an legally registered vehicle. Completely legal and non-suspicious. I have done it today.
In fact, the total is now 3 vehicles in the last 6 days I have driven when I was not the registered owner. Neighbor lady got a flat tire, I put the spare on and drove it down to the tire shop for her. I know it is anecdotal, but the driver of the vehicle could be any number of people besides the named owner on the pink slip. The nexus is weak.
But you agree that he’s not dangerous on Tuesday unless he is drinking? Not merely because of the regulatory infraction that he is committing?
How about this? As the presumption that the registered owner is driving the vehicle is so strong, could there be reasonable articulable suspicion that if someone who does not fit the description of the registered owner is driving that the vehicle is stolen?
Would a felony stop with guns drawn be in order when I drove the neighbor lady’s car?
It is the worst because it absolves the government of any individualized suspicion. This will uphold racial profiling. It will allow the harassment of young people or those who drive shitty cars or wear unkempt clothing or have tattoos or non mainstream piercings. Because we can use probability and statistics, based upon “officer training and experience” (already a bullshit and overused phrase) to harass people based upon these probabilities because no individualized suspicion is required.