By that logic, isn’t pretty much everything punitive. If my neighbor is sick of his wife so he kills her, does he really need to go to jail? Isn’t that just punitive at this point? He had a problem with her, not anyone else. He’s not a danger to me or the other neighbor or his kids or his boss.
The person who got the DUI on Friday has proven they’re not responsible enough to be driving. If a cop sees him out on the road Tuesday morning, how could they possibly know that this person, who the cops knows beyond a shadow of a doubt is willing to get behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated, is sober? Just because it’s Tuesday or it’s morning or they’re on their way to work doesn’t have anything to do with their sobriety, or lack thereof.
Hell, I know plenty of 3rd shift bars that are open and full of patrons at 8am.
Yes, I agree with you. There is simply no way to “limit the stop” to identifying the driver. If John Smith is the registered owner and has a suspended license, so you pull over the car and find that Jim Smith, his son, is legally driving the car, but you also see a decapitated corpse in the back seat, do the police have to ignore that and let Jim go on his way? What if there is the smell of marijuana in the vehicle and Jim appears intoxicated? Off he goes?
Of course not, but once you agree with this point, then it is just like any other traffic stop; there is no limit to it.
I agree that pretextual stops are bad and they are very much a part of restricting our freedoms. The problem is that there is no good way to stop them. Let’s say that a police officer sees a suspicious looking character driving around and has a hunch that he is up to no good and would like to question him. However he has no reason for a stop. But, aha, look he isn’t wearing his seatbelt so the cop will pull him over for that.
I don’t like that anymore than you do, but what is the remedy for it? Cops cannot issue seatbelt tickets anymore? Do we turn every criminal trial into a “you didn’t really pull him over for that” exercise? Is everyone else subject to getting a seatbelt ticket but you can get out of it by acting shady? What if the motive is mixed? What if the cop truthfully testifies that yes, he wanted to speak with the guy because he looked suspicious but he equally wanted to enforce the seat belt law? What if it was 90-10 or 80-20?
I am not saying that a person driving on a suspended license should not be pulled over and should not further be punished for driving on a suspended license. I am not saying that being punitive towards someone by suspending their license for a DUI is a bad thing.
I am disputing the idea that a person who does nothing more than drive on a suspended license is “dangerous.” That person is not dangerous unless he additionally violates traffic laws, but you can say the same thing about anybody who violates traffic laws. The lack of a government permit does not add more danger. A person driving drunk to work on Tuesday morning is equally dangerous whether his license is active or suspended.
Please visualize a nation with no driving or vehicle regulations. Have fun. Right-of-way belongs to the biggest. Pistols are turn signals. Vehicles may freely spew thick toxins. Spoiler: Regulations exist because people die otherwise. But don’t let me stop you from riding a moped in the fast lane of I-95. It’s your right, right?
We face fewer restrictions on private property. I can ride a loud smoggy two-stroke go-cart all over my forest acreage chasing wildlife and blaring. But venturing onto public roads means I follow the law or face punishment.
Where are you prohibited from purchasing ink and paper?
Don’t bother; I know you’re paralleling. But you seem not to discern the difference between private and public realms. Print your sheet with purchased or homemade ink and paper, fine. Mail it, fine. But dump it by the roadside and you’re littering. Tsk.
There is the central issue. Where is the constitutional support for the wild discrepancy between the 4th Amendment rights of a suspicious-looking character walking around, and one driving??
Per this wapo analysis, 7 million license suspension due to traffic debt. Not because they’re a danger.
Some states have since changed their laws.
As I mentioned before, the increased use of electronic plate readers means an increased likelihood of the car being stopped every time anyone takes it out. That is a bad outcome.
I think that your direct experience is right. In fact, I linked to a report on the first page noting that a lot of license suspensions are, in fact, widely disregarded.
But that’s precisely why I quoted Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, where she notes that statistics offering population-wide generalizations are not an appropriate basis for the individualized suspicion that is supposed to be required for a traffic stop. Of course, given that she was a minority of one in this case, the other justices obviously disagree with her (and me) on that issue.
Again, not the relevant stat. It’s how many cars owned by people with suspended licenses are not being driven by a licensed driver at any given time? Citing the wrong stat is such an obvious fallacy that this whole thing (and a large part of this thread) surprises me.