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Posted on 01/26/2009 8:05:38 PM PST by jiggyboy
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.
-- snip --
The pat-down is allowed if the police "harbor reasonable suspicion that a person subjected to the frisk is armed, and therefore dangerous to the safety of the police and public," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
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The case is Arizona v. Johnson, 07-1122.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Ergo, an armed citizen is a threat to police and to the public. So much for the Second Amendment. (And this BEFORE 0bama has altered the court.)
Liberty is an illusion. We have lost our republic.
Alas.............
Code words for "the id check found a CCW permit?"
Related threads in the past couple of days:
Do police have the right to confiscate your camera?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2171950/posts
Question on requirement to present ID to police officer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2171229/posts
May I see your papers, Citizen?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2158293/posts
It’s getting closer and closer every day.
Good angle. It could be anything coming out of any one of the big computer in the sky that they pray to. Any prior arrest, any prior complaint against the guy, maybe even a tax issue is enough to decide that this is a guy who doesn't follow the law in quite the way he should.
can be frisked......if she’s really hot...
Decided 9-0.
OK Frisk Zer0!
Can he produce a Drivers License, or a passport?
Then, can he produce a voter’s card?
Then, can he produce a Birth Certificate?
If not,
Then, what the hell is he doing as our usurper-in-chief??
Odd , isn't it..thinking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and frisking. It is probably a safe assumption that Ruth Bader Ginsburg , wishes someone would frisk her. Not going to happen Ruth.
Yet more Gestapo powers going to our local police. Socialism is an insidious process.
What the hell!!!!
well, it does hinge on the interpretation of reasonable, doesn’t it? I see the opening for abuse in a land unfriendly for RKBA. Let’s hope a slap-down under that circumstance is 9-0 as well.
Much obliged.
I guess this chin-stroking conjecture is all you need as “reasonable suspicion that a person subjected to the frisk is armed, and therefore dangerous” these days: “A passenger’s motivation to use violence during the stop to prevent apprehension for a crime more grave than a traffic violation is just as great as that of the driver.”
So it’s “reasonable” to assume, every single time, in any circumstance, that any passenger is going to whip out the .45 because you were going 31 in a 25 zone when school let out. Hands on the trunk where I can see ‘em, Mom!
The State of Arizona does not have to listen to the Supreme Court, they Could still and should refuse to allow this evidence in. Force a Constitutional Crisis. Arizona is an OPEN CARRY STATE, Police are required to ASSUME EVERYONE IS ARMED. There story doesnt wash. Fire them and the idiots who appealed this to USSC. Maybe what we need is a State Proposition Making it a FELONY to be employed by the Federal Government in Arizona. by the way US Code Title 18,241 and 242 are still the law of the land, This guy should file immediately and bankrupt these individuals.
eyeamok
Rashid, Ayman and Abdul are speeding down I95. The police pull over Rashid, who then says to Ayman ‘here hold the C4’ and to Abdul he gives his piece. Ayman and Abdul are nervous as they aren’t quite ready to meet their virgins yet, and the police are suspicious.
some of you would have it so the police or ‘the pigs’ can’t search Ayman and Abdul ?
lets change the names then...three gangbangers named Anquan, Plaxico and Pacman are rolling through the hood. yadda yadda yadda.
still the 5-0 can’t do a simple pat down ?
whats wrong with you people...you want those pigs to be bacon ? srsly.
the supremes found it reasonable because it IS effing reasonable...if it isn’t then police your own damn neighborhoods. whiners.
The public "harbor reasonable suspicion that a person subjected to the frisk may not be a citizen, and therefore dangerous to the safety of the country and public,"
[extract from court document slightly digested]Sounds like reasonable suspicion: In a place of gang activity, someone dressed like a gang member, carrying a police scanner, and admitting to being a convicted criminal recently out of prison.On April 19, 2002 members of Arizona’s gang taskforce were on patrol in Tucson near a neighborhood associated with the Crips gang. At approximately 9 p.m., the officers pulled over an automobile after a license plate check revealed that the vehicle’s registration had been suspended for an insurance-related violation
At the time of the stop, the vehicle had three occupants—the driver, a front-seat passenger, and a passenger in the back seat, Lemon Montrea Johnson.
Johnson was wearing clothing, including a blue bandana, considered consistent with Crips membership.
Johnson provided his name and date of birth but said he had no identification with him. He volunteered that he was from Eloy, Arizona, a place known to be home to a Crips gang. Johnson further said he had served time in prison for burglary and had been out for about a year.
This very thing happened to my d-i-l, her best friend, and best friend’s boyfriend a week ago. Boyfriend was driving and speeding. Cop stopped them and frisked all three of them. D-i-l said he kept saying that he thought it was really odd that she’d let somebody else drive her new car. My d-i-l was so scared that she even let him search her car.
Sign me up. I’d rather NOT see police in my neighborhood. and YES i am serious.
Yeah, the “conservatives” have a disturbing habit of government-sucking at the most inopportune times. Some of Scalia’s statements in particular seem to parse down to “but that would be inconvenient for the police”.
Well if you see C4 being passed around the car by three scraggly guys, it’s very reasonable indeed to think that some kind of crime has either already happened (theft), is happening (improper transport of explosives?), or is about to happen.
But here’s my beef. From the link above:
“the Court further held that a driver, once outside the stopped vehicle, may be patted down for weapons if the officer reasonably concludes that the driver “might be armed and presently dangerous.”...Wilson held that the Mimms rule applied to passengers as well as to drivers.”
This says to me that it didn’t matter whether the officer saw the scanner in the pocket, or the blue bandanna, or that the guy came from a town where there was a Crips gang. (If I live in L.A., am I also automatically considered armed and dangerous because I come from a city where there is a Crips gang?) You can get the driver out of the car and frisk him, because any driver might be violent, per the passage I quoted in my earlier post, and hey what the heck, it applies to the passengers too. No observation or thought is necessary, which is the mark of a police state.
I think I read "armed and dangerous." The dangerous part is where I am confused. Does one having permit become dangerous because they are armed? I live in a state where one is advised (though not required) to let the officer know you are carrying if stopped. My guess is they have permit holders listed on auto registrations and that they have the info as they make the stop.
Now passengers will be frisked for looking frustrated.
You’re the one who wants to live in a police state and I am the idiot. OK!
We do police our own neighborhoods here. Your malignant kind are moved along and life is very peaceful. Doors are not locked, things are not stolen and thugs are taken care of except for Federal park and forest service bums. Them we have to put up with for now.
Thanks for those links. What we are seeing is a reaction to the increase of lawlessness. Our Republic is founded upon the assumption that the people in it are moral and law abiding. Today, most still are, to some extent. Many are not.
However, the consensus about how we are to conduct ourselves is breaking down, voluntary compliance is decreasing, and disorder is increasing. Our most basic right (to life) is constantly under attack, whence flows all manner of evil.
The net result is ever more force imposed across the board to maintain order and protect the public. Many of us are clamoring for more of that.
I do not see the trend reversing itself any time soon.
We are at war with the gangs. Dress like a combatant, get treated like a combatant.
However, that is not the rubric teh Court applied, is it? For the sake of the few places of war, they impaired in rights of all in times and places (which are most places) of peace.
I agree with you. I don’t have much use for visiting insurance salesmen, roaches, fire ants, skunks, or other pest either.
BTTT
Ping
Since WHEN does ARMED = DANGEROUS??? Duh....
What about the PO-LICE?? Aren’t THEY armed and dangerrous also, by definition?
Wonderful....
I got frisked at the airport last year. I am a dangerous looking terrorist type, you know, five foot three, gray haired granny, late sixties, scary looking. The black woman who frisked me felt the plastic clip I had on my waist band for my phone and she almost screamed in fright. She must have thought I had a gun in my waist band. She had been so scared by whoever trained her she was a nervous wreck. She did not belong in that job.
Travel all the time and I do fit the physical profile. In my twenties, 6 foot one, five clock shadow, traveling alone. I have never gotten searched, frisked, anything. If I set off the alarm in the walk through scanner I get a nice smile and told to empty my pockets when I’ve seen everyone else from old ladies to businessmen to those who look like they just don’t fly that often be told in sterner voices to step aside. I’m not sure about the TSA manual but if anything it tells them to treat fellas like me with extra finesse. Not that I mind.
Yes I have seen your type breezing through while I stand there trying to get out of my sweater and shoes. Not fair.
Security theater is all it is, but I don’t really see a solution. TSA should try to be more like Israel in how they screen passengers. Behavioral profiling rather than physical as almost everyone in an Israeli flight will look like “my type”.
It may well be reasonable suspicion, but to me, I fail to see how reasonable suspicion isn't a general warrant. I'm sure that there are some cases that find a policeman didn't have reasonable suspicion to search, but I don't recall ever seeing one, and for good reason: the policeman always says something really generic and either untestable or applicable to most everyone: "he looked nervous/it was a crime-ridden neighborhood/he was wearing blue/red / he looked like a criminal," etc.
It's pretty weak. Incidentally, I think a lot of this crappy fourth amendment law comes from the exclusionary rule. It makes judges uncomfortable to know that people who are guilty will go free because of the exclusion of evidence, so there are huge holes cut into the fourth amendment to justify the admittance of illegally obtained evidence. Get rid of the exclusionary rule and I suspect that you'll find the 4th amendment will have more teeth.
Spoken like a true white boy that has never been searched by the cops. Let’s see you get pulled over for a license plate light being out, have to interlace your fingers and get patted down and then see how you like it. You’d be squealing like a pig under a gate.
There would be no constitutional crisis if Arizona didn't want to let this evidence in; the Supreme Court has said many times that states can grant their citizens more protection than the U.S. Constitution grants if they want to. This case reached the Supreme Court because Arizona wanted to use the evidence and took an appeal to SCOTUS.
The exclusionary rule is the only reason there are any teeth left in the 4th Amendment at all. If illegally obtained evidence can be used against us, then for all practical purposes we have no 4th Amendment rights.
Just being named "Lemon Montrea Johnson" is cause for a good frisking, IMHO. ;-)
You could bring civil suits against the state for violation of civil rights. While there's obviously no way to test this, I think that if this approach had been taken, all the dozens of exceptions to the fourth amendment would not exist today.
In terms of policy, I think it is also a good result. Society ensures that the guilty are adequately punished and there is also a significant deterrent to the state not to violate the rights of its citizens.
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