Regarding the “as many as 75% of suspended drivers continue to drive.” statistic.
This is not the statistic that is relevant!!!
The one that (might) matter is what percentage of drivers of cars whose owners have suspended licenses are driven by said person.
As noted, the car can be loaned out. So maybe the car is driven 90% of the time by a licensed driver and 10% of the time by the suspended driver. Or whatever number.
And even if it is a high percentage, that just odds. Not a fact at the time of the stop.
I hate what I call “A then B” arguments. E.g., “Men are stronger than women. Being a fireman requires strength. Therefore only men can be firemen.” Um, a lot of men may not be strong enough and quite a few women can be. So skip the gender thing and just focus on strength. (And given how many older firemen may not be in great shape, the standard could be quite low.) So skip the “A” and start at the “B”.
To me, this is another “A then B” argument … with odds.
The class to which he belongs is all you need for a reasonable, articulable suspicion.
If someone reports being robbed by a guy wearing a red baseball cap, then everyone the cop sees wearing a red baseball cap belongs to the class of “people who can be reasonably suspected of having committed the robbery”. It doesn’t prove guilt - it establishes reasonable suspicion.
The only thing wrong with this argument is the word “only”.
Most men are stronger than most women, and rather a lot of men are stronger than all women, and no women are stronger than all men, and very few women are stronger than most men. Therefore, it is reasonable to suspect that most firefighters are going to be men, and therefore it is likely that any given firefighter is going to be male.
Even without a driver’s license, hell, even without a vehicle, you can still move your person/goods on the public roadways. You’re be stripped of your [legal] ability to operate a motor vehicle.
However, the only people I ever hear making the ‘right to travel’ argument when talking about having a suspended license (or not needing one) are sovereign citizen loonies and if that’s where you’re getting your information from, there’s no point in discussing it.
That’s a fallacy.
If A then B and if B then C certainly implies If A then C. However, it’s not the case that all men are stronger than women, it’s some men are stronger than women, therefore only men can be fire fighters doesn’t follow.
Aha – the elephant in the room. Even on this liberal board, a majority favors surrendering personal freedoms, in order to strive for zero tolerance for a handful of not-very-threatening scofflaws. It’s what the majority wants.
“So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause.”
– *Padme Amidala, Revenge Of The Sith *
But then that suspicion is individualized. If a person reports being robbed by a person wearing a red baseball cap, and you are seen a block away wearing a red baseball cap, that is individualized suspicion to stop you. Nothing criminal about wearing a red baseball cap, but the totality allows the stop. Good police work.
This is more akin to social science which finds that red baseball cap wearing people are more likely to commit robberies than those without, so we stop red baseball cap wearing people without any individual suspicion but solely because of their cap wearing habits. Or, as I said, blacks.
Nobody has really addressed that point. If this stop is reasonable, why wouldn’t it be reasonable to pick the black guy? Statistics bear it out.
This is a bit of a hijack, but I agree with jtur88 on this one. In 1900 you could use the customary method of travel on the roadways without a license, but today you need one.
Whatever purpose drivers licenses originally had, they do not serve those purposes now. Sure it is a big dangerous hunk of metal, but it is one that a teenager can learn to control with a few times out training. It’s not the space shuttle. My grandmother had a valid driver’s license until the day she died even though she had not driven in the 35 years prior. Most people who have suspended licenses are fully capable of operating a vehicle yet have had their licenses suspended for punitive and regulatory action, not because they are unable to control or operate a car.
This “driving is a privilege not a right” talk is nothing more than government control of what for most people is an essential aspect of life.
This case is even WORSE than stopping a random black guy after a robbery. At least after a robbery the police know that a crime was committed. In this case the police don’t know that a crime was committed until after the stop.
Terry is really the seminal case here. In Terry, an officer saw a guy walking by and looking into the windows of a department store about 15-20 times and each time walking back to talk to two guys. To the officer, it looked like they were casing the place to rob it. Of course, it could have been three guys heading to a bar and the one guy really wanting to buy that new couch in the display window, changing his mind each time he walked past and talking to his buddies about whether he should buy it or not because his wife might kill him if he does. That is totally lawful. However, the individualized suspicion the officer had was reasonable to do what became known as a Terry stop.
Seeing a car whose registered owner has a suspended license invites investigation. But the individual driving did nothing suspicious. He or she is just driving a car like hundreds of other motorists in that area. Without observing a traffic infraction there is no immediate danger that requires a stop. Worst case is that a suspended driver lives to fight another day. Worst case in Terry is that an armed robbery is committed.
In this case the officer can gather more facts. Does the driver match the same age, sex, build of the registered owner? He can follow the driver and watch the driver get out…you know, investigate. Now, the Court has absolved the officer of doing his very basic task of investigating by allowing a detention of a free citizen based on statistics.
So, in place of the police being able to pull over a car owned by a dude with a suspended DL, how about if the state puts a lock on any car(s) owned by the scofflaw?
I’m blind, and my DL has been suspended forever. But I stilll own the title to my properly plated and insured and inspected and washed car. So my partner is a perpetual suspect of terrorizing the community with this heinous crime, and subject to being detained daily until she proves her innocence…
This would be bad, for the very same reason that this officer’s decision to stop the car was bad: because in countless households around the country, more than one person needs to drive the car in order to go to school, get to work, etc., etc.
How about if you borrow a car from someone whose licence is suspended, you stick a sign in the rear window saying, “Not being driven by owner.”
And then the cop will have to explain why he didn’t consider this ‘“information negating an inference” that a vehicle’s unlicensed owner is its driver.’
Isn’t this just a matter of how probability is attached to the concept of probable cause?
Stopping a black person because you think black people commit more crimes, leaving aside all the systemic racism problems, is basing a stop on a light additional probability. Many white people also commit crimes; many black people don’t commit crimes; most people of any color will not commit a crime today. A small increase in the likelihood of apprehending a criminal based on skin color is not “probable.” It’s not called “maybe cause.”
You say statistics bear it out, but you offer no statistics. In fact, I’m quite certain they do not bear it out. There is a huge, huge difference between “a slightly higher chance of criminal activity taking place, but still pretty unlikely” to “really very likely criminal activity is happening.” A black man walking down the street is NOT probably fleeing a crime scene. He is overwhelmingly likely to being going about his business. A person driving a car registered to a suspended driver is very likely indeed to be that driver. It’s not guaranteed - maybe someone else borrowed the car - but the likelihood is orders of magnitude higher than the likelihood a random black person has committed a crime just now. It’s got to be at least probable to the level of probable cause.
Probable cause doesn’t mean you’re sure the guy is a criminal It’s never meant that.
Now, having said that, my position would be that such a stop should be strictly limited only to verifying the offense for which there is probable cause (the identity and license status of the driver.)
After all, absent any other indicia of suspicion, the first and only thing you know about the owner is that his license is suspended. Surely the first and most obvious logical inference to draw from such knowledge is that the owner would not, in fact, be the one driving, because his license is suspended and you’re not allowed to drive on a suspended license.
This would be great. The problem is that your position is completely rejected by American constitutional law and federal court decisions.
Once the officer has the reasonable suspicion necessary for a traffic stop, he or she then has the right to investigate any other offenses that are either immediately apparent upon the stop (e.g., seatbelt not worn; smell of alcohol, unroadworthy car, lack of insurance, etc. etc. etc.), and to engage in all sorts of fishing expeditions regarding other unseen but possible or suspected offenses.
This decision is a part of the broader leeway allowed to police, and is the thin end of a wedge that adds element after element to the myriad options that the police have for pulling over and investigating motorists. Of course, the fact that it’s part of such a big set of reasons is partly why I opined, a few posts ago, that this isn’t the worst decision ever.
The fact is that, if a cop wants to pull you over, and he follows you for long enough, he can find a reason to pull you over, no matter how carefully you drive. If the cop in this case had wanted to, he could, after noting that the car was registered to an owner with a suspended license, have simply followed until the driver did something like make an unsignalled lane change, or exceeded the speed limit by 2 miles per hour, or accidentally allowed his wheels to cross the lane divider for a second, or rolled through a right on red at 2 miles per hour, or any one of the dozens of other minute infractions (or alleged infractions claimed by the officer) that allow for a traffic stop. Then, when he had the car pulled over and asked for license and registration, he could have miraculously discovered that the guy’s license was suspended, even though he knew that all along.
And, in fact, if the Supreme Court had found for the plaintiff here, I’ll bet that’s exactly what police would have done in response.
Exactly. And that is my point. You have no reason to believe that the driver is breaking the law. Driving, in and of itself, is not suspicious activity. You have a hunch that the registered owner may be driving and may be breaking the law, but the only thing you have observed is completely lawful activity and have no reason at all to believe that crime is afoot without further investigation.
And for whatever the assumption is worth that the registered owner is the one driving the car—which as we have threshed out in this thread is not a very good assumption—it should be weaker, not stronger, when the registered owner has a suspended license. This case allows the police to simply assume that criminal activity is occurring despite making no observation to believe that it is.
And merely saying that a lot of people continue to drive on suspended licenses is like saying that a lot of people commit DUI or shoplift or beat on their wives. You have no reason to think that this person right in front of you is doing that.
No, I’m talking about a bank robbery that just happened. Nobody got a description of the robber. In the area where the robber could be fleeing you see two white guys, two white women, and one black guy. Should you be able to Terry stop the black guy because everything else being equal, he has the greatest chance of being the robber? Can you stop the males before the females because the males have a higher chance of being the robber? What if one of the women is wearing a Bernie Sanders T-shirt? Can you make the assumption that she is trying redistribute wealth and get “her” bailout money back from the bank? Remember, it doesn’t have to be 100% right or even 51% right.
There is probably an argument that you can stop them all, but wouldn’t then the argument that you could stop the black guy, the men, or the Bernie t-shirt wearer be even that much stronger?
And this is in a case where you know a crime happened. In the case we are discussing, we don’t even know if a crime is happening.
I’m not claiming that it is a right, I am claiming that it should be.
It seems silly to have a right to travel in the United States and to freely go from state to state when the government strictly regulates the only real meaningful way that most people can exercise the right. Sure, I could walk or ride a horse or hire a chauffeur but the cheapest and most meaningful way I can exercise the right is heavily regulated.
To me it is like saying that there is a free press, but you have no right to buy ink or paper, those are mere privileges.