And somehow the dog is going to change this how?
The cops are allowed to search you, they just aren’t allowed to do an illegal search. Looking in your car is a form of a search. Reaching up your anus is a search, but it’s unlikely to be allowed just because you were speeding.
There’s some hidden equivocation. Your post uses two meanings of the word search – the common english meaning and the for-4th-Amendment-purposes meaning. They aren’t the same.
–Cliffy
Yeah DESK you were pulled over for no reason at all. :rolleyes:
Be careful talking in circles, you may dizzy yourself.
Ever hear of radar?
Well, I’ll back up Desk 110%, having endured a similar experience.
I was traveling from El Paso to Atlanta with a couple of friends. We were coming through New Orleans on I-10 in the early morning hours. We didn’t do a damn thing but look suspicious, and yet we got pulled over. The cop said we were weaving. (Not true, but how do you disprove that?) My friend who was driving is part Vietnamese, but might be mistaken for Mexican at a glance. We were in a rental car. Since that stretch of I-10 is heavily used by drug traffickers, I’m certain we got “profiled.”
This officer detained us for over 1/2 hour while he took turns questioning the three of us separately about who we were, where we’d been and where we were going. (Obviously looking for discrepancies.) Meanwhile, he was making repeated calls to another officer and asking him how soon he could get there. I assume he was calling a K-9 unit.
Now bear in mind that we had done nothing wrong. After 40 minutes or so, I was fed up. I lit into the cop (well, firmly but politely) and told him we had a long way to go and it was late, so he should either give us a ticket, arrest us, or let us go. He got a bit flustered, but he let us go. His fellow officer (presumably with K-9) never arrived.
buttonjockey308, if you think police power never gets abused, or that innocent people don’t get targeted, you are, to put it as kindly as I can, mistaken.
And there’s the problem. (Or one problem, anyway.) Who do you suppose will be targeted with drug-sniffing dogs? Do you think a businessman in a suit is at any risk of being waylaid for 40 minutes like this? Do you think that drug-sniffing dogs will be used randomly? Or will they be targeted at certain segments of society? And is that just?
talk about talking in circles. yes, the police are allowed to search you, but only under certain circumstances. If they have a warrent, they’re allowed to do the search specified in the warrent. But to get a warrent, the prosecutor had to have probable cause that a crime occured and that you were the likely perp. the cops are also allowed to search (limited) pursuant to an arrest (ie if they’re putting you in their car, they can search you for weapons for example). They’re also allowed to search if you say it’s ok. Or if they have probable cause. Speeding alone does not give them probable cause. generally.
however, under this ruling, you were speeding, and the police decide (why??) to bring in the dope sniffing dog, and the dog alerts on you, you may indeed end up w/a cavity search.
you’re missing, IMHO, the point that’s being made. under this ruling, the police will no longer need probable cause to bring out the dope sniffer. So that speeding, all by itself will be sufficient to bring out the dog. Walking down the street will be sufficient. If using the dog is not considered a search, the police can simply stand at the entrance to the local concert with the dog sniffing at all the patrons. If using the dog is considered a search, the cop must establish probable cause to check otherwise apparently law abiding people simply going about their daily lives.
That’s rather the point of the probable cause hearing, to see if there is sufficient evidence to sustain a charge. Bricker is contending that a savvy defense attorney at a PC hearing questioning the cop would blow up the cop’s shaggy dog story after the cop had done it a few times. To get to a PC hearing the defendant has AFAIK been arrested. My point remains that Bricker’s confidence that the system will work and the innocent will walk is dependent on the innocent’s life being fucked over, along with the other innocents who make up the other “few” that Bricker asserts will twig the savvy defense attorney to the cop’s nefarious scheme.
See but I really don’t care because the only people it’ll really affect are those possessing illegal drugs the dog can detect. All this bullshit about cops using the dogs as an excuse to perform an illegal search is pointless. I truely doubt that good cops are going to decide to start violating people’s rights just because they have a dog.
I’m a little confused on why the cop is going to arrest anyone? Let’s say Otto’s driving through Texas and they don’t like the way he looks. They pull him over for doing 2 over the limit and bring the dog by. The guy with the dog says that Otto has drugs in his car. Then what? They search you car and find none. Are they really going to arrest you for possession without any drugs? If they plant drugs how is involving the dog going to stop them from doing that any way?
Ah, here we get to the crux of the matter. Since it “wouldn’t affect you” personally, you don’t have a problem with it.
First issue is that under our system of justice, we all have the presumption of innocence. that is, that unless some one has established that a crime has occurred and that there’s some chance that I’m the one who committed it, I’m presumed to be innocent as I walk along. Without a search, the police cannot establish that the crime (drug possession) has occured. With the dog, my presumption of innocence is gone, since the dog will establish (w/o other factors) that there is indeed a crime. this is a major shift.
Second issue - you surely have heard of hte term “profiling”? My local narcotics squad already does this - they’ll scope out the local low income area looking for possession, low level buys, but ignore the local big ten campus. This sort of thing would continue.
Third issue. Do the math. OUr (collective) budgets are already straining for the cost of prosecution, incarceration etc. The whole “get tough on crime” and stiff penalties for drug offenses that came about in the late 80’s, early 90s have borne the fruit of Corrections heavy budgets.
And that’s without this ruling. Hell, we could fill our county jail twice over just by sending in the dog to two campus dorms. I’m not interested in shelling out that much more in tax money to pay for the costs of prosecuting and supervising the number of casual drug users there are out there.
Fourth - where do you wish it to end? Shoplifting is a serious crime. We could have full searches done on every person leaving the stores to cut that particular crime out. Bad checks? have the police have access to your checking account. regularly. Be prepared to increase your tax dollars once again for all this enforcement. Have the police stationed at the exit of each bar parking lot to pull over each driver and conduct breathalyzers. Have each tax return pulled and audited. Of course, by now, you won’t have anyone left to hire to do these things since lots of folks will now have criminal records. and of course, then there won’t be as many tax payers to support all this increased enforcement. Ohhh, wait, I forgot all about all those fun laws about sex! certian positions are illegal in various jurisdictions - we’ll need lots of extra folks to enforce those! Why here in Michigan, it’s against the law to debauch an unmarried woman!
or you could just allow folks to live their lives w/as little government intrusion as possible.
I don’t have a problem with it if it did affect me. Don’t do the crime if you don’t want to do the time. I don’t get all pissy when I get a speeding ticket, I deserved it.
See if you weren’t emitting then the crime couldn’t be detected. But you were, you committed a crime by possessing the dope and you were detected because you let stray molecules get out of your possession and into the air. Tought titty.
And they’d catch criminals. Oh my, bummer. If everyone stopped breaking the law in that area the police wouldn’t hang out there.
Then change the freaking laws. As long as the populace supports a law and it’s not violating the consitution, then enforce it.
If they’re stealing steaks and the dogs smell it. Or smoke detectors and the Geiger-Meuller counter detects it. Pat downs on people? Now you’re getting into the person and their possessions. Emissions eminating from a person are not their possession and are in public domain as far as I’m concerned.
Sure, why not. It’d save some lives.
Well was it an evil conspiracy that forced them to cheat on their taxes? Are all people who cheat on their taxes thrown in jail? Or are you being rediculous. Should I just suffer because I follow the rules? Tell me, which laws sould I be able to break?
Yes because if all the blue laws were enforced, none would be overturned. :rolleyes: Sure, let them arrest me for chaining a wheelbarrow to a tree on Sunday and placing a for sale sign in front of it.
There you go! Let’s go to an anarchy! No pesky government to deal with. Lynch mobs can enforce the local views, such as on what race, religion or sexual orientation you should be. If you’re funny looking, they can kill you or toss you in prison for the rest of your life. Sheesh.
And what about the cop who wants to search my car, tear apart all my stuff, drag it out on the street, detain me, and in general make my life miserable because I’m a weird looking person in his whitebread rural town and he lies and says he smells alcohol coming from the car?
I should do what? Thank him for doing his job?
kidchameleon, I’m honestly curious – would you have any objection to the police coming over to your house at random intervals and giving it a good thorough search just in case you might be doing something illegal?
If a cop is determined to profile, I’m sure he can do so without the aid of a drug sniffing dog.
And DESK , give me a break. ANYONE who is going 10 over in a school zone will and should be pulled over George Bush or Allen Iverson. I’ll also call you an irresponsible asshole for speeding through a school zone. Learn some responsibility and grow up.
Simply put kid, there ain’t enough jails in our land to hold all of the folks who are actually use drugs. Should we change the law? perhaps, but that’s not what is happening, nor is it what this ruling is about.
There isn’t enough money in our budgets to investigate the actual reported crimes we have now. Don’t believe me? check out the ‘solved crime’ ratio for property crimes. Increasing the police ability to arrest folks who are otherwise simply living their lives, not causing anyone any problem, is a poorly thought out policy.
Hope in the meantime that you’ve carefully logged in all of your internet and mail order purchases so that you can pay your state’s use taxes on all of 'em.
Again…What does having a dog be able to sniff for drugs change this?
I don’t condon it at all, but forbidding dogs to sniff your car or you isn’t going to magically make all the bad cops good.
As long as they’ll dust. 
They can look at my house all they want, use UV cameras, Mass Spec analysis on the air coming out of my vents, whatever. None of that is invasive at all.
But you’re assuming that all people who are arrested for drug violations are put in jail. What about all those who are fined? And if it was SUCH a bad thing for society, it’d change. It’s not like people are drones incapable of observing what is happening to society. Should we force police to wear nose plugs in fear that they’ll smell a lit doobie?
So forbidding dog searches will fix all these problems? Eh? No. Perhaps the increased fines would allow for more officers to investigate your other crimes.
Just because you think YOU know which crimes are important and not doesn’t mean that society should accept your views. I’m all for the police enforcing all the legitamate laws on the books.
Or they’ll throw me in jail? Maybe I’ll get the death penalty? Again, if I’ve committed a crime then I’ll accept the appropriate punishment like I always do.
It’s just another avenue for someone to trump up a reason to hassle me, or some other innocent person who their personal prejudices lead them to.
Well I can’t help it the black U.N. choppers are out to get you.
Because of course paranoia is the only reason to think there are asshole cops out there who will use any excuse they can to hassle someone who is ‘different’.
It’s not like I’ve ever been needlessly hassled before.
Oh, wait, I have.