[$tinkle]

i'm all for locking up crims at any cost, but wow:

Court Upholds Conviction From Illegal Traffic Stop

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― The California Supreme Court on Monday reinstated the drug conviction of a man based on evidence found during an illegal traffic stop, in a case that had brought the issue of passenger rights before the nation's highest court.

The unanimous ruling came in the case of Bruce Brendlin, who was riding in a car that was pulled over in Yuba City after a deputy suspected something was wrong with the vehicle's registration. During the November 2001 stop, a Sutter County sheriff's deputy found equipment used to make methamphetamine in Brendlin's possession.

Brendlin challenged his conviction and four-year prison sentence, arguing that the drug evidence should have been suppressed at trial because it was found as the result of an illegal stop. The state had since conceded there was no basis to stop the car.

His appeals reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled last year that passengers, like drivers, have a Fourth Amendment right to challenge the legality of traffic stops.

Brendlin's case, however, was complicated by the existence of an outstanding arrest warrant against him, which prosecutors said would have justified a search even if passengers can challenge traffic stops. The U.S. justices sent Brendlin's case back to the state courts to sort out that issue.

In its ruling Monday, the California justices said authorities were allowed to use the evidence because the deputy had recognized Brendlin and discovered the warrant prior to the search.

"Despite the unlawfulness of the initial traffic stop, the facts of this encounter demonstrate that the drug paraphernalia found ... was not the fruit of the unlawful seizure," Justice Marvin Baxter wrote for the court. "The police searched defendant's person and the vehicle only after they discovered a valid outstanding warrant for his arrest."

And even though the deputy would not have learned of the warrant if it hadn't been for the illegal stop, the deputy had acted "in the absence of purposeful or flagrant police misconduct" in pulling over the car.

from this ruling, it seems to me cops can enforce dwb with impunity. am i wrong?

 

[Samirol]

I'm not one to cry out police state, but this is bull****.

 

[jimmydean]

I know enough cops to know they can pull you over for anything and get away with it.

I had a cop tell me I blew through a stop after he found I hadn't been drinking at the bar he saw me leave. He gave me a failure to yield ticket for wasting his time.

 

[$tinkle]

I know enough cops to know they can pull you over for anything and get away with it.

it's just that now they have the backing of the state s.c., which is practically unassailable.

i'm all for cleaning up the streets, but that takes a backseat to my constitutional rights.

 

[RenegadeRick]

i'm all for cleaning up the streets, but that takes a backseat to my constitutional rights.

Since when has that been a problem for you?

Have you been driving around with your mobile meth lab $tinks?

 

[$tinkle]

i only ascribe to nazism for the fashion

 

[Defenestrated]

You don't have any rights, only privileges.

 

[DirtMcGirk]

You don't have any rights, only privileges.

You don't have privileges.
You have the notion of privilege.

Or as Saddam Hussein would say "You're all really ****ed now!"

 

[Defenestrated]

Perhaps the greatest tag of all on this thread.

 

[manimal]

who was riding in a car that was pulled over in Yuba City after a deputy suspected something was wrong with the vehicle's registration.

reasonable suspicion is all that is needed to stop a vehicle.

The state had since conceded there was no basis to stop the car.

States vary in their interpretion of stops for registration violations. Supreme court says that tag checks can be made without any suspicion as tags/registration have no expectation of privacy considering that driving is not an inherant "right."

In its ruling Monday, the California justices said authorities were allowed to use the evidence because the deputy had recognized Brendlin and discovered the warrant prior to the search.

Excellent decision by the justices. Once the defendant is determined to have a warrant, a search incident to arrest comes into play and all matters of consent search go out the window.

without the details, here's how i think it could have gone down:
def. vehicle passes deputy, deputy notices that the year sticker on the license plate is out of date (happens a lot, people steal the stickers). deputy stops the car after he "suspected something was wrong with the vehicle's registration." maybe it turned out that the registration was, in fact, valid but it is well within the officer's authority to ask for ID of all occupants of the vehicle. deputy discovers that passenger is wanted and searches the vehicle incident to arrest, finds evidence of criminal activity.
seems like a pretty cut and dry case to me as there is no evidence that the deputy was flagrantly trying to make stuff up about the initial charges. heck, i've stopped for less (tag light out) and gotten some good busts out of it (guns,dope) the court bases it's decision on the reasonableness test: was the action of the officer reasonable when compared to the information provided to the officer at the time the incident. in this case; if he was suspicious of the vehicle's registration, then yes.

 

[$tinkle]

manimal: what % of your warrants do you clear on traffic stops?

 

[manimal]

manimal: what % of your warrants do you clear on traffic stops?

um, not sure on an exact statistic because the call is usually reclassified from a traffic stop to a criminal process. but for anecdotal evidence on my personal arrests, i'd say about 15%. we'll get a lot of crimestoppers tips on wanted subjects/dope dealers and their vehicles; plus with the quick access to photos via air cards on the laptops in our cars, it doesn't take long to positively ID a driver as the wanted person. if we have reasonable suspicion that the driver is wanted/running dope but not 100% sure of the driver's identity we'll use a pretextual stop (ie: find something illegal on the car [registration,lights,muffler,bald tires......] or wait for the driver to make a mistake [improper lane change,speed] all perfectly ok according to the supreme court). So in other words, If i receive information, or develop the suspicion on my own, that Mr. Smith is wanted and/or using his vehicle to perform some form of illegal activity (running dope/guns) i can use any number of on-the-book infractions to find a reason to pull him over. what happens after that is where the line is drawn between legal/illegal search.

 

[RenegadeRick]

You don't have privileges.
You have the notion of privilege.

You are a wise man.

 

[MikeD]

Once again, I think the issue lies somewhere else here.

There is a long-held precedent called "no standing to object."

That is, if some ELSE's Constitutional rights are violated, you as a third party can't claim a violation. It's a standard that if, say, the police come into your house without a warrant or exigent circumstances justifying the warrantless entry, any evidence against you can be suppressed. You can also file a Constitutional tort and sue the cops/government for violation of your rights.

However, if they find a friend (who does not live at the house or enjoy REP in the house for some other reason) with a valid warrant during the entry, he has NO entitlement to immunity from arrest or any similar suppression of evidence against him if found during the entry, as none of his rights were violated in the gathering of the evidence against him. Same if they found, say, evidence against your brother during the search. Since his rights weren't violated, he cannot object (in a legal sense; I'm pretty sure he'd be pissed) to the violation of yours.

This is the same thing. Yawn. But in the tinfoil hat mind of certain people who just live to fantasize about Guy Fawkes Day, but actually know NOTHING about Constitutional law, everything is a conspiracy to rob us of our rights.

This case was made possible by a previous SCOTUS ruling saying passengers can challenge traffic stops (logical, as they are also stopped when the car is stopped...) Hardly sounds like the iron fist of the state crushing our souls.

(The Constitutional Law student handbook from the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, GA is a great primer on this stuff if you can find a copy...the companion case law book is likewise great bathroom reading.)

 

[Defenestrated]

I didn't say anything about a conspiracy, I just wanted to post a snappy one liner.

 

[MikeD]

Actually, my post above is wrong.

I wasn't aware of the new SCOTUS ruling (not pertinent to my job, unlike Manimal's...); this does indeed involve the passenger's rights if new case law exists letting the passenger challenge the Constitutionality of the stop.

I'd be interested to read the actual decision instead of a news article. We'll see what Google turns up.

 

[Samirol]

States vary in their interpretion of stops for registration violations. Supreme court says that tag checks can be made without any suspicion as tags/registration have no expectation of privacy considering that driving is not an inherant "right."

If it was done legally according to the Supreme Court, then why is it pointed out by Judge Baxter as unlawful later in the article?

The reason why I made the first post is because the judge said that the stop was unlawful, but it was still prosecuted.

 

[MikeD]

Samirol,

The stop, according to the quotes from the article, was apparently unlawful but also didn't constitute gross abuse by the police...the problem is that the article doesn't give us a clear fact pattern from the case, minute details of which will end up being of massive significance.

The search that yielded the evidence was also a search incident to a valid arrest (by the warrant, not by the stop), not a search predicated on the traffic incident.

What I'm GUESSING happened was: cop pulls over car, lawfully or unlawfully. (any unlawful search at this point on either passenger is inadmissible.) Cop recognizes guy with warrant and performs lawful arrest with subsequent lawful search.

Court interprets (IMHO rightly, based on my assumptions here and some cursory musing) that even though the stop was unlawful, the warrant itself was legally issued and the cop's recognition of the subject was what started the lawful arrest and search of the subject, not the traffic stop itself or an illegal search of the car. Being independent issues, the fruit of the poisonous tree doesn't really apply.

MD

PS As to the DWB question, this doesn't really enter into that...it would if the officer's actions had to do with an illegal search after the illegal stop. Again, it's the minutae that matter.

 

[Samirol]

Cop recognizes guy with warrant and performs lawful arrest with subsequent lawful search.

Oops, missed that part, I thought the cop just randomly pulled him over and got him.

 

[manimal]

If it was done legally according to the Supreme Court, then why is it pointed out by Judge Baxter as unlawful later in the article?

The reason why I made the first post is because the judge said that the stop was unlawful, but it was still prosecuted.

it may have been illegal according to that state's laws, which are often more strict than the the Fed rulings.
ie: some states do not allow officers to run tags unless there is reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred but the supreme court says it's ok to run them without any suspicion.

 

[Samirol]

it may have been illegal according to that state's laws, which are often more strict than the the Fed rulings.
ie: some states do not allow officers to run tags unless there is reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred but the supreme court says it's ok to run them without any suspicion.

Gotcha, that clears it up