Supreme Court Says Police May Use Evidence Found After Illegal Stops

[PosPosPos]

For me to worry about that, I would need to see the numbers of illegal arrests and how much evidence was deemed unusalble because of these illegal stops.

Yeah well, probably if you weren't a productive member of society and naturally don't mind being stopped for hours on end to pander to illegal police searches, sure.

You are wasting your life, so it doesn't matter what you waste it on, right?

[Beazy]

Yeah well, probably if you weren't a productive member of society and naturally don't mind being stopped for hours on end to pander to illegal police searches, sure.

You are wasting your life, so it doesn't matter what you waste it on, right?

How many times have you been stopped illegally?

[Daerio]

How many times have you been stopped illegally?

Pre-text stops are common enough that they have their own vocabulary dedicated to describe them.

Is that in itself not a sign that there's a problem?

[Direpenguin]

The sad part, is that there are people who fall for the illusion that having a Police State will keep us "safe".

The sadder sad part is that people have to argue the hyperbole Police State nonsense, instead of realizing that this will close an extremely huge loophole in the discovery laws that lets many criminals escape without so much as a warning. If you suddenly think that police will be stopping everyone they see in the hopes there is some existing warrant they can capitalize on, then I weep for you and your tin foil hat.

[Beazy]

Pre-text stops are common enough that they have their own vocabulary dedicated to describe them.

Is that in itself not a sign that there's a problem?

Depends, do you want to me put on my Constitutianlist hat, or the I actually live in reality hat?

Forgive me for not caring about someone going to jail for a warrant. You can be put on a payment plan of $1.50 a week with the city to prevent a citation turning into a warrant. Not even the "BUT DEY SO POOR" excuse will work for this one.

[Direpenguin]

Pre-text stops are common enough that they have their own vocabulary dedicated to describe them.

Is that in itself not a sign that there's a problem?

Many sports have rules in their rule books that are seen so infrequently that the officials aren't sure how to call them. Just because something has a name or a description, that doesn't necessarily mean it happens with some absurd regularity.

[Daerio]

Depends, do you want to me put on my Constitutianlist hat, or the I actually live in reality hat?

The rest of your post is nonsense, so I'll just ignore it.

From an idealistic "Constitutianlist" standpoint, the entire reason we have the 4th amendment is so that cops, in their microcosm of limited power, don't have the ability to harass whoever they feel like at random. Statistically, inevitably, this leads to personal bias affecting who gets arrested rather than what the law is. From this, we see the patterns of racism and "profiling", which are a symptom of cops being able to decide who's a criminal rather than society.

From a realistic standpoint, the reason we have the 4th amendment is to protect citizens from cops, because cops are always the ones with the upper hand in any interaction. Cops don't need additional constitutional amendments written to increase their power. They've already got it right in their pocket.

This idea that if we migrate back to having a 4th amendment that somehow cops won't be able to arrest criminals any more... isn't based in reality at all. It isn't even based on some sort of loose p-hacked scientific study. It's just outright bullshit.

Cops were arresting plenty of people before 2001, when we still pretended to have a 4th amendment.

Additionally, the more you have cops arresting people on personal bias rather than law, it dilutes and weakens the entire penal and justice system. You can't just throw more people in jail for increasingly pathetic reasons forever and expect positive results. You run out of space to put the "real" criminals; you wear out the mechanisms for justice to be carried out when the court has to see 1,000 cases in a day instead of 100.

[Kapadons]

Seems like a total non-issue. Prosecutors should be allowed to use evidence "legally" obtained even if the original interaction with an officer of the law was started "illegally"

Also, what exactly is the barrier for what is and isn't a reasonable stop? I've been stopped before for riding to close to a curb. It seems that an officer could come up with nearly an infinite list of reasons to justify stopping someone. Quick google research shows it is tough to prove that a traffic stop was illegal.unless the cop states his original reason and it is deemed illegal. But it seem many could say something as lame as "believed window tint was too dark" and its can be deemed legal.

It seems many here are using a slippery slope fallacy. As in this gives cops license to just stop anyone for any reason and start searching them. I just don't see it. The ruling itself doesn't actually state this, and with the major budget cuts and understaffing some police forces are going through, I just don't see them increasing traffic stops and searches on the off chance they may catch a warrant.

[Damajin]

One justice said it will give minorities a hard time cause a lot of minorities in cars have warrants, child support, failure to appear, etc.

Shit man, maybe they shouldn't end up with warrants, owe back child support or fail to appear for court dates then. Seems pretty fucking simple to me.

[Theinquisition]

Shit man, maybe they shouldn't end up with warrants, owe back child support or fail to appear for court dates then. Seems pretty fucking simple to me.

shhhh, you stop it right now with that common sense bullshit good sir. this is MMOC-OT and we will not have it!!! We all know that child support is a ploy by the white man to keep the colored man down!!

[Damajin]

shhhh, you stop it right now with that common sense bullshit good sir. this is MMOC-OT and we will not have it!!! We all know that child support is a ploy by the white man to keep the colored man down!!

Yeah, pretty sure we invented that because if we left it up to anyone else.....

[Deleted]

The part about how if you don't have such a warrant, you've got nothing to worry about.

What this ruling does, in a climate where cops aren't fired with cause for these illegal stops, is give police officers a reason to stop whoever they like, abusing their power, on the off chance that it "pays off" by finding a warrant, because there's no real offsetting negative.

With illegal searches, the "fruit of the poison tree" ruling means that you've forever tainted whatever evidence you uncover, and if it's the only conclusive evidence that can be found, you've guaranteed the criminal's freedom through that illegal search.

Without such a ruling here, there's nothing preventing officers from conducting illegal stops to "fish" for people with warrants or who can otherwise give them cause. So innocent people will end up getting harassed needlessly by officers. THAT is what innocent people have to lose.

The problem with this is that the cops usually protect their own. Cops who break the law and do illegal searches dont get fired unless they shoot a couple of people and it becomes impossible to protect them. That coupled with the fact that getting more arrests and convictions equals more promotions for them means that its generally a bad thing.

If the cops cant use the evidence from an illegal search its a good thing all around. First, it can get the cop breaking the law in trouble (although it probably doesnt), it will draw blame and attention to it because the criminal can now walk free, discouraging such behavior in the future and finally reward cops who do it the right way, by actually following the law.

[Matchles]

How many times have you been stopped illegally?

I'd say at least twice. Once because as a passenger I waved at a cop as we drove by and once because they said, "your rear right tire touched the bike lane line." Another time I was pulled over for a burnt out license plate light (it wasn't).

[PosPosPos]

How many times have you been stopped illegally?

0, but that's because I don't live in a police state.

osnap.

[THE Bigzoman]

shhhh, you stop it right now with that common sense bullshit good sir. this is MMOC-OT and we will not have it!!! We all know that child support is a ploy by the white man to keep the colored man down!!

It kind of is....

[Meldetia]

How many times have you been stopped illegally?

Oddly enough the only time I have ever been illegally pulled over was the same place this started from - South Salt Lake, Utah. Nothing happened, I gave them my license/registration and was let go although with about a 10 minute delay.

I don't recall who pulled me over now but after reading about this I wonder if it was this person here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/us...ests.html?_r=0
http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?...court.html.csp

The reason why I wonder this is because I was pulled over on a Saturday night of a holiday weekend (think Labor day weekend) and I know the cops are much more aggressive trying to find drunk drivers then.