So you'd be perfectly fine with being two hours late to your shift at Borders because K-9 wanted to find drugs and make his master happy?
Two hours? How could it take that long?
Wait....do you not have any experience with the police?
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
He's got white skin, so, no.
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ShivahnUnaware of her barrel shifter privilegeWestern coastal temptressRegistered User, Moderatormod
You can have shitty experiences with white skin, though usually less bullshitty. It's the combination of that and class that makes you not have to nearly as much.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
So you'd be perfectly fine with being two hours late to your shift at Borders because K-9 wanted to find drugs and make his master happy?
Two hours? How could it take that long?
Wait....do you not have any experience with the police?
Not as an adult, other than for accident reports. They are slow to arrive, but they ate already the in this situation, right?
Edit: this is all beside the point though. Surely, the standard for whether a police activity is reasonable cannot be if it is inconvenient for people.
SCOTUS also wildly expanded the scope of CU to rip down a whole bunch of rules about financing of elections they were ideologically opposed to which had very little to do with the case. That was the travesty of the ruling.
I guess it's a travesty if you hate corporations and wealth more than you like free speech. But SCOTUS can and will sometimes throw out a whole existing body of law when it all fundamentally falls afoul of a core Constitutional issue. They did not, as you imply, use this case as a launching point to randomly toss out campaign finance issues all over the map. They specifically tossed out the law(s) that collectively gave the government the right to censor and ban this political ad in this case. They threw out the idea that you could take existing laws on campaign donations, and simply port those over to apply the same way to any situation where a group decides on their own to speak out in favor of a candidate... as if you didn't just cross one hell of a Rubicon of free speech.
Not to mention it's all phantom fear regardless. What did that expensive-as-hell Obama movie do in the face of a solid grassroots / Internet / historically individually funded Obama campaign? It did fuck-all, that's what.
Here is a thing.
If it doesn't seem to matter, and there are questions about the constitutionality of banning it, maybe we should not ban it.
So you'd be perfectly fine with being two hours late to your shift at Borders because K-9 wanted to find drugs and make his master happy?
Two hours? How could it take that long?
Wait....do you not have any experience with the police?
Not as an adult, other than for accident reports. They are slow to arrive, but they ate already the in this situation, right?
Edit: this is all beside the point though. Surely, the standard for whether a police activity is reasonable cannot be if it is inconvenient for people.
Here goes the bog standard SKFM doesn't understand poor people and would love all people to be punished to absurd extents no matter what crime they commit. What was your proposed penalty for graffiti again? It was so absurd I think I have forgotten.
That said, the 4th Amendment is important. You may not understand this because you are a rich white guy, but people get pulled over for bullshit all the time, so the cop can stick his head near the car and "oops I think I smell weed" and suddenly you're in the back of a cop car on the way to booking. It's still an incredible amount of bullshit, but in the case of a cop, those can be thrown out much easier since you can cross examine him in a court of law. Good luck having that conversation with the dog.
The logical extent of what you are proposing is that every time I go anywhere the cops have the right to search me for anything no matter what. And maybe hey, they can just walk into my house, maybe they heard that something might have been illegal in there? This is *insane*.
The donor class has a very different set of priorities than the public. And the donor class is winning that fight, if you've paid any attention to our politics in the last several decades, but especially in the last four years. Citizens United exacerbates this dynamic and makes it even more likely that the donor class is listened to instead of the people.
At which point, we don't have a democracy at all, but an oligarchy. Especially when combined with our shit social mobility rates.
Are there more options in your tables, or is table one just showing that only the rich are interested in the deficit?
Table two, I don't even know where to begin.
I'd really like to see demo information for this study
I find it difficult to believe that well over half the populace is nigh-communist
Here goes the bog standard SKFM doesn't understand poor people and would love all people to be punished to absurd extents no matter what crime they commit. What was your proposed penalty for graffiti again? It was so absurd I think I have forgotten.
That said, the 4th Amendment is important. You may not understand this because you are a rich white guy, but people get pulled over for bullshit all the time, so the cop can stick his head near the car and "oops I think I smell weed" and suddenly you're in the back of a cop car on the way to booking. It's still an incredible amount of bullshit, but in the case of a cop, those can be thrown out much easier since you can cross examine him in a court of law. Good luck having that conversation with the dog.
The logical extent of what you are proposing is that every time I go anywhere the cops have the right to search me for anything no matter what. And maybe hey, they can just walk into my house, maybe they heard that something might have been illegal in there? This is *insane*.
Noone is saying that. You need probable cause, just like with any search, and the only question is what hoops the dog has to jump through before it can be part of the basis for that probable cause. This is hardly on demand searches at any time for any reason.
And why does it matter that you can't cross examine the dog? If nothing is in your car or home, then you won't be charged with anything. If you do have something illegal, then you deserve to be arrested, but it doesn't even matter, because you can still cross examine the cop on the stand about his finding of probable cause.
So you'd be perfectly fine with being two hours late to your shift at Borders because K-9 wanted to find drugs and make his master happy?
Two hours? How could it take that long?
Wait....do you not have any experience with the police?
Not as an adult, other than for accident reports. They are slow to arrive, but they ate already the in this situation, right?
Edit: this is all beside the point though. Surely, the standard for whether a police activity is reasonable cannot be if it is inconvenient for people.
That can certainly be a part of it.
Yeah by no means it's the only factor but when something inconveniences a lot of people just to get a couple cases of possession it seems reasonable to re-evaluate that shit.
I prefer not to deal with police all the time, not because I am doing any illegal shit (although that's part of it) but simply because it's a hassle. It takes time, it takes effort (you gotta deal correctly with them) and if there is little benefit to it I don't see why it needs to be happening. And I'm white and live in Europe, I get of lightly.
Point being: You should consider not only the benefits of guidelines like this but also the drawbacks, and the drawbacks can include inconvenience. You might not get into much trouble, but this shit also affects those who are innocent because they look suspicious (possibly because they're young, black and their hat's real low). And not even only those, and some people don't have that two hours to just sit about waiting for the cops.
(for real by the way, this case we're talking about is a motherfucking meth-head who fucking told the police he was making meth even though he didn't need to. had he kept his mouth shut he could've gotten off. Had he not gotten arrested here this dumb motherfucker would have probably gotten arrested two hours later for selling meth to a uniformed officer. If dogs help us catch idiots like this we probably don't need dogs.)
Here goes the bog standard SKFM doesn't understand poor people and would love all people to be punished to absurd extents no matter what crime they commit. What was your proposed penalty for graffiti again? It was so absurd I think I have forgotten.
That said, the 4th Amendment is important. You may not understand this because you are a rich white guy, but people get pulled over for bullshit all the time, so the cop can stick his head near the car and "oops I think I smell weed" and suddenly you're in the back of a cop car on the way to booking. It's still an incredible amount of bullshit, but in the case of a cop, those can be thrown out much easier since you can cross examine him in a court of law. Good luck having that conversation with the dog.
The logical extent of what you are proposing is that every time I go anywhere the cops have the right to search me for anything no matter what. And maybe hey, they can just walk into my house, maybe they heard that something might have been illegal in there? This is *insane*.
Noone is saying that. You need probable cause, just like with any search, and the only question is what hoops the dog has to jump through before it can be part of the basis for that probable cause. This is hardly on demand searches at any time for any reason.
And why does it matter that you can't cross examine the dog? If nothing is in your car or home, then you won't be charged with anything. If you do have something illegal, then you deserve to be arrested, but it doesn't even matter, because you can still cross examine the cop on the stand about his finding of probable cause.
Great, the "if only you weren't doing anything illegal" excuse to why we should suspend the 4th amendment. I don't care if you have a corpse in the trunk of the car, if the cop opens it without probable cause, it is not admissible in court. It sets dangerous precedent if you let an animal that barks to please it's owner be the giver of said probably cause, instead of due process of law.
Especially when we still live in this terrible racist world we live in. And cops sure have a stellar track record these days.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Here goes the bog standard SKFM doesn't understand poor people and would love all people to be punished to absurd extents no matter what crime they commit. What was your proposed penalty for graffiti again? It was so absurd I think I have forgotten.
That said, the 4th Amendment is important. You may not understand this because you are a rich white guy, but people get pulled over for bullshit all the time, so the cop can stick his head near the car and "oops I think I smell weed" and suddenly you're in the back of a cop car on the way to booking. It's still an incredible amount of bullshit, but in the case of a cop, those can be thrown out much easier since you can cross examine him in a court of law. Good luck having that conversation with the dog.
The logical extent of what you are proposing is that every time I go anywhere the cops have the right to search me for anything no matter what. And maybe hey, they can just walk into my house, maybe they heard that something might have been illegal in there? This is *insane*.
Noone is saying that. You need probable cause, just like with any search, and the only question is what hoops the dog has to jump through before it can be part of the basis for that probable cause. This is hardly on demand searches at any time for any reason.
And why does it matter that you can't cross examine the dog? If nothing is in your car or home, then you won't be charged with anything. If you do have something illegal, then you deserve to be arrested, but it doesn't even matter, because you can still cross examine the cop on the stand about his finding of probable cause.
Great, the "if only you weren't doing anything illegal" excuse to why we should suspend the 4th amendment. I don't care if you have a corpse in the trunk of the car, if the cop opens it without probable cause, it is not admissible in court. It sets dangerous precedent if you let an animal that barks to please it's owner be the giver of said probably cause, instead of due process of law.
Especially when we still live in this terrible racist world we live in. And cops sure have a stellar track record these days.
No one is talking about allowing searches without probable cause. This is a complete strawman position. No one is even arguing that the dog alone should constitute probable cause. The only point made in this case (and which I am arguing in support of) is that the use of a dog can be a piece of probable cause, where it is otherwise reasonable to employ the dog. Probable cause is not absolute certainty, and it is certainly possible for probable cause to exist even where there are not, in fact any drugs (as was the case here), but it is also more than a hunch.
If we are worried by how dogs perform in the field, then we should work on that, but this was not a case about accuracy. It was a case about when dogs may be used, and the SCOTUS said that they are appropriate where a reasonable person would think they are, instead of limiting them to specific circumstances or imposing qualifications on the dogs.
It's kind of funny to me that you view this as a likely abuse of power, when I'm thinking "what good luck that a K-9 officer happened to pull this guy over. One less meth manufacturer out there ruining people's lives."
I'm literally flabbergasted that law school didn't scour this sort of attitude from your soul, Space.
It would be totally fantastic if instead of a meth dealer, this case involved a sweet little black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies to her church bake sale, and a police officer pulled her over, and the police officer said to himself, "self, this African American female sure has a lot of cookies in this poor, ethnic community...I wonder if they're pot cookies!" And then he got on his radio and called dispatch and requested a K9 unit, and Rex the German Shepherd hopped down out of the back of that SUV, and Rex wants to get his belly scratched for being such a good dog, so he barks and barks, and they search this lady's car and take her cookies to test them and determine, "well, no drugs here!" and then they send her on her way. This would be so cut and dry if she were the appellant! She's obviously right. They're obviously wrong. She'd have her day before the Supreme Court, and the justices would all applaud her for her righteousness, and she'd give each of them a cookie, and Alito'd ask for seconds, and they'd all live happily ever after.
The problem -- which you very well ought to know -- is that sweet little old black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies has nothing to appeal. She can't challenge her conviction on the grounds that evidence used against her should have been ruled inadmissible because she was never arrested for anything. She could try suing the city, but good luck to her if she wants to try that route -- what damages will she demonstrate? How will she claim standing to file a suit?
All of these fucking cases are going to involve someone who was convicted of something. That's, like, just how that goes. If you're going to decide the merits of the case based on whether or not you think the appellant sounds like he was probably a bad dude who had it coming, you're going to eventually find yourself arguing in favor of some truly horrible things.
SammyF on
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
It's kind of funny to me that you view this as a likely abuse of power, when I'm thinking "what good luck that a K-9 officer happened to pull this guy over. One less meth manufacturer out there ruining people's lives."
I'm literally flabbergasted that law school didn't scour this sort of attitude from your soul, Space.
It would be totally fantastic if instead of a meth dealer, this case involved a sweet little black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies to her church bake sale, and a police officer pulled her over, and the police officer said to himself, "self, this African American female sure has a lot of cookies in this poor, ethnic community...I wonder if they're pot cookies!" And then he got on his radio and called dispatch and requested a K9 unit, and Rex the German Shepherd hopped down out of the back of that SUV, and Rex wants to get his belly scratched for being such a good dog, so he barks and barks, and they search this lady's car and take her cookies to test them and determine, "well, no drugs here!" and then they send her on her way. This would be so cut and dry if she were the appellant! She's obviously right. They're obviously wrong. She'd have her day before the Supreme Court, and the justices would all applaud her for her righteousness, and she'd give each of them a cookie, and Alito'd ask for seconds, and they'd all live happily ever after.
The problem -- which you very well ought to know -- is that sweet little old black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies has nothing to appeal. She can't challenge her conviction on the grounds that evidence used against her should have been ruled inadmissible because she was never arrested for anything. She could try suing the city, but good luck to her if she wants to try that route -- what damages will she demonstrate? How will she claim standing to file a suit?
All of these fucking cases are going to involve someone who was convicted of something. That's, like, just how that goes. If you're going to decide the merits of the case based on whether or not you think the appellant sounds like he was probably a bad dude who had it coming, you're going to eventually find yourself arguing in favor of some truly horrible things.
I'm not saying "the case is good because the appellant is a bad guy." I happen to agree with the holding of this case (that reasonableness is the appropriate standard for determining whether a dog's signalling can help to constitute probable cause) but I also think that, in thinking about the balance between privacy and having an effective police force, we should make decisions that lead to people like this going to jail, not going free.
It's kind of funny to me that you view this as a likely abuse of power, when I'm thinking "what good luck that a K-9 officer happened to pull this guy over. One less meth manufacturer out there ruining people's lives."
I'm literally flabbergasted that law school didn't scour this sort of attitude from your soul, Space.
It would be totally fantastic if instead of a meth dealer, this case involved a sweet little black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies to her church bake sale, and a police officer pulled her over, and the police officer said to himself, "self, this African American female sure has a lot of cookies in this poor, ethnic community...I wonder if they're pot cookies!" And then he got on his radio and called dispatch and requested a K9 unit, and Rex the German Shepherd hopped down out of the back of that SUV, and Rex wants to get his belly scratched for being such a good dog, so he barks and barks, and they search this lady's car and take her cookies to test them and determine, "well, no drugs here!" and then they send her on her way. This would be so cut and dry if she were the appellant! She's obviously right. They're obviously wrong. She'd have her day before the Supreme Court, and the justices would all applaud her for her righteousness, and she'd give each of them a cookie, and Alito'd ask for seconds, and they'd all live happily ever after.
The problem -- which you very well ought to know -- is that sweet little old black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies has nothing to appeal. She can't challenge her conviction on the grounds that evidence used against her should have been ruled inadmissible because she was never arrested for anything. She could try suing the city, but good luck to her if she wants to try that route -- what damages will she demonstrate? How will she claim standing to file a suit?
All of these fucking cases are going to involve someone who was convicted of something. That's, like, just how that goes. If you're going to decide the merits of the case based on whether or not you think the appellant sounds like he was probably a bad dude who had it coming, you're going to eventually find yourself arguing in favor of some truly horrible things.
I'm not saying "the case is good because the appellant is a bad guy." I happen to agree with the holding of this case (that reasonableness is the appropriate standard for determining whether a dog's signalling can help to constitute probable cause) but I also think that, in thinking about the balance between privacy and having an effective police force, we should make decisions that lead to people like this going to jail, not going free.
Nope. You have to defend the guilty so the innocent go free.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
It's kind of funny to me that you view this as a likely abuse of power, when I'm thinking "what good luck that a K-9 officer happened to pull this guy over. One less meth manufacturer out there ruining people's lives."
I'm literally flabbergasted that law school didn't scour this sort of attitude from your soul, Space.
It would be totally fantastic if instead of a meth dealer, this case involved a sweet little black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies to her church bake sale, and a police officer pulled her over, and the police officer said to himself, "self, this African American female sure has a lot of cookies in this poor, ethnic community...I wonder if they're pot cookies!" And then he got on his radio and called dispatch and requested a K9 unit, and Rex the German Shepherd hopped down out of the back of that SUV, and Rex wants to get his belly scratched for being such a good dog, so he barks and barks, and they search this lady's car and take her cookies to test them and determine, "well, no drugs here!" and then they send her on her way. This would be so cut and dry if she were the appellant! She's obviously right. They're obviously wrong. She'd have her day before the Supreme Court, and the justices would all applaud her for her righteousness, and she'd give each of them a cookie, and Alito'd ask for seconds, and they'd all live happily ever after.
The problem -- which you very well ought to know -- is that sweet little old black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies has nothing to appeal. She can't challenge her conviction on the grounds that evidence used against her should have been ruled inadmissible because she was never arrested for anything. She could try suing the city, but good luck to her if she wants to try that route -- what damages will she demonstrate? How will she claim standing to file a suit?
All of these fucking cases are going to involve someone who was convicted of something. That's, like, just how that goes. If you're going to decide the merits of the case based on whether or not you think the appellant sounds like he was probably a bad dude who had it coming, you're going to eventually find yourself arguing in favor of some truly horrible things.
I'm not saying "the case is good because the appellant is a bad guy." I happen to agree with the holding of this case (that reasonableness is the appropriate standard for determining whether a dog's signalling can help to constitute probable cause) but I also think that, in thinking about the balance between privacy and having an effective police force, we should make decisions that lead to people like this going to jail, not going free.
Nope. You have to defend the guilty so the innocent go free.
Permitting the use of dog sniffs as part of a determination of probable cause will NEVER result in an innocent person going to jail or even being charged. The worst case outcome for an innocent man is inconvenience. I don't know why so many people in this thread want to make this decision more than the simple rejection of the imposition of a rigid criteria for evaluating when dogs are appropriate as part of the basis for probable cause.
Man, Space, you are so lucky people don't approach white collar crime the way you approach the idea of traffic stops. Officer Enlightenedbum would be hitting you with a Terry stop and downloading the contents of your smart phone to search for incriminating documents every time you walked past a subway.
It's just a minor inconvenience if you're not breaking the law!
Who owns a corporation and all of its assets? Why, the owners of the corporation of course - sometimes, shareholders.
Who controls the money in a corporation? Management, duly appointed by the owners, of a process that at the very least involves the majority of the owners. We note that we can have owners who have no say whatsoever in the selection of management due to the size of their ownership.
It is therefore perfectly possible - even likely - that a corporation investing money in political campaigning does so against the political wishes of at least some of the owners of said company. Any company - or union - could easily issue recommendations for candidates to support or defame, and the owners or members could then donate money they both own and control according to those recommendations. This would be fine, and as far as I've understood it, the Citizens United case would not in any way have impacted a corporations ability to do so. Instead, you get a system in which the people who exercise control over political expenditures are not the same people who own the money which they spend.
We either get a chilling effect on investment - because you can't invest your money without risking offering direct support of political goals you do not have - or we transfer control of political expenditures from the people who actually own the money, to people who do not.
Freedom of speech doesn't need to enter into it - an owner of corporate assets or a member of a union can spend their own personal assets in any way they see fit, and limiting the expenditures of corporations in this area does not limit the ability of the owners to spend money on politics. No actual speech has been suppressed, we have merely ensured that the people who "speak" must both own and control the assets used to make the speech, or have had control/ownership of those assets transfered to them for specific political purposes, by people who held both control and ownership.
Its not about believing that my fellow citizens are incapable of criticial thought, its about believing my fellow citizens should be able to engage in financial activity - like, say, saving for retirement - without either offering financial support for political causes they do not support or have portions of funds that should be allocated to them as profits diverted to be spent on politics.
(Unless, of course, if you hold to the idea that one cannot distinguish between an international conglomerate that operates in the financial industry and the press, but how stupid would you have to be to make that argument?)
-This message was deviously brought to you by:
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
You seriously believe innocent people aren't charged and convicted?
No, I know that innocent people get charged and convicted, but what possible charge could be brought against someone based on a dog's signal if nothing illegal is found?
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Man, Space, you are so lucky people don't approach white collar crime the way you approach the idea of traffic stops. Officer Enlightenedbum would be hitting you with a Terry stop and downloading the contents of your smart phone to search for incriminating documents every time you walked past a subway.
It's just a minor inconvenience if you're not breaking the law!
White collar crime is handled differently than violent crime because it is different in both effect and whether there is an imminent harm. Terry stops are meant to catch people with weapons to prevent them from engaging in violent crime, after all. In the case we are discussing, the alternatives to searching a car when there is pc that there are drugs in the car are to arrest the person and impound the car (much worse for the driver than a roadside search) or to let the person go and get a warrant (by the time you so, anything incriminating will be gone). I think that a pc based roadside search is the perfect balance between inconvenience and effective law enforcement, and the only issue is really what can add to that pc.
An officer could find pc without the dog anyway, so if anything, using the dog is an extra safeguard in many cases, and we can certainly have a conversation about whether that safeguard is being employed properly (something the case does not preclude at all). I just have a hard time seeing why people are acting like this case is some huge erosion of the fourth amendment.
Do you object to the entire practice of pc based roadside searches?
White collar crime is handled differently than violent crime because it is different in both effect and whether there is an imminent harm.
You are right there, it would take every mugger in New York, along with every burglar and drug dealer years to match the criminal costs of Bernie Maddoff. Not to mention Enron and Worldcom and all the Shit Wall Street banks get up to on a day to day basis.
I would suggest that white collar criminals have made more people lose their home and medical coverage and done more damage in the last month, then muggers did all year.
Totally different.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
White collar crime is handled differently than violent crime because it is different in both effect and whether there is an imminent harm.
You are right there, it would take every mugger in New York, along with every burglar and drug dealer years to match the criminal costs of Bernie Maddoff. Not to mention Enron and Worldcom and all the Shit Wall Street banks get up to on a day to day basis.
I would suggest that white collar criminals have made more people lose their home and medical coverage and done more damage in the last month, then muggers did all year.
Totally different.
I'm not saying the degree of harm is less, it's just different, and the investigative techniques are different too. They aren't violent crimes, and also are not the type of crimes you can detect or head off through a warrant less search of a car. These are more complex crimes that require in depth investigation, and there should always be opportunity to obtain a warrant.
Incredibly, it turned out that giving the police full discretion to stop and search people meant that they used that discretion to pursue their own prejudices and bigotry, with the final result being violent riots.
Now I am confident that the stain of racism and ethnic prejudice would never touch any of the police forces in the US, but still, it does seem dangerous to put such temptation in their way.
Man, Space, you are so lucky people don't approach white collar crime the way you approach the idea of traffic stops. Officer Enlightenedbum would be hitting you with a Terry stop and downloading the contents of your smart phone to search for incriminating documents every time you walked past a subway.
It's just a minor inconvenience if you're not breaking the law!
White collar crime is handled differently than violent crime because it is different in both effect and whether there is an imminent harm. Terry stops are meant to catch people with weapons to prevent them from engaging in violent crime, after all. In the case we are discussing, the alternatives to searching a car when there is pc that there are drugs in the car are to arrest the person and impound the car (much worse for the driver than a roadside search) or to let the person go and get a warrant (by the time you so, anything incriminating will be gone). I think that a pc based roadside search is the perfect balance between inconvenience and effective law enforcement, and the only issue is really what can add to that pc.
An officer could find pc without the dog anyway, so if anything, using the dog is an extra safeguard in many cases, and we can certainly have a conversation about whether that safeguard is being employed properly (something the case does not preclude at all). I just have a hard time seeing why people are acting like this case is some huge erosion of the fourth amendment.
Do you object to the entire practice of pc based roadside searches?
In this particular case, can you point to the violent crime?
Violence is not an inherent or necessary part of drug crimes like possession, distribution, or manufacture any more - or less - than it is an inherent or necessary part of white collar crime. There are plenty of drug crimes committed without violence, just like how many (but not all) white collar crimes are committed without related violence.
Here's a scenario that is analogous to the upheld doctrine of a 'terry stop' where drugs are found...but instead using a New York lawyer and evidence of financial crimes. An experienced cop seeing an upper class attorney on Wall Street, who articulates that they believe the attorney poses a physical danger due to an unsourced tip. During their pat-down, they feel what appears to be a smart phone, and based on their twenty years experience working white collar and financial crimes believe that smart phone contains information on criminal financial activity. The phone is removed and inspected, and in the text message history there is evidence of fraudulent activity.
This is exactly what happens, except replace 'upper class attorney' with 'poor black kid' and 'smart phone' with 'baggie of drugs'. You would be LIVID at the intrusion if the above case happened to you, but you have no problem when it's one of the 'others'.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
You seriously believe innocent people aren't charged and convicted?
There's a recurring SKFM refrain that whatever you can get away with under the law is not immoral and vice versa.
Not sure how this is applicable, but the only place where I think morality and the law directly intersect is the base immorality in weakening the rule of law and our social fabric through law breaking. Other than that, I think the law is immoral, and so something may be immoral but legal, moral but illegal (on net, if it balances out the above mentioned immoral act of weakening society) etc.
Man, Space, you are so lucky people don't approach white collar crime the way you approach the idea of traffic stops. Officer Enlightenedbum would be hitting you with a Terry stop and downloading the contents of your smart phone to search for incriminating documents every time you walked past a subway.
It's just a minor inconvenience if you're not breaking the law!
White collar crime is handled differently than violent crime because it is different in both effect and whether there is an imminent harm. Terry stops are meant to catch people with weapons to prevent them from engaging in violent crime, after all. In the case we are discussing, the alternatives to searching a car when there is pc that there are drugs in the car are to arrest the person and impound the car (much worse for the driver than a roadside search) or to let the person go and get a warrant (by the time you so, anything incriminating will be gone). I think that a pc based roadside search is the perfect balance between inconvenience and effective law enforcement, and the only issue is really what can add to that pc.
An officer could find pc without the dog anyway, so if anything, using the dog is an extra safeguard in many cases, and we can certainly have a conversation about whether that safeguard is being employed properly (something the case does not preclude at all). I just have a hard time seeing why people are acting like this case is some huge erosion of the fourth amendment.
Do you object to the entire practice of pc based roadside searches?
In this particular case, can you point to the violent crime?
Violence is not an inherent or necessary part of drug crimes like possession, distribution, or manufacture any more - or less - than it is an inherent or necessary part of white collar crime. There are plenty of drug crimes committed without violence, just like how many (but not all) white collar crimes are committed without related violence.
Here's a scenario that is analogous to the upheld doctrine of a 'terry stop' where drugs are found...but instead using a New York lawyer and evidence of financial crimes. An experienced cop seeing an upper class attorney on Wall Street, who articulates that they believe the attorney poses a physical danger due to an unsourced tip. During their pat-down, they feel what appears to be a smart phone, and based on their twenty years experience working white collar and financial crimes believe that smart phone contains information on criminal financial activity. The phone is removed and inspected, and in the text message history there is evidence of fraudulent activity.
This is exactly what happens, except replace 'upper class attorney' with 'poor black kid' and 'smart phone' with 'baggie of drugs'. You would be LIVID at the intrusion if the above case happened to you, but you have no problem when it's one of the 'others'.
We are not talking about a Terry Stop here. We are talking about warrant less searches based on probable cause, which is a much higher standard. Your example does not work anyway, because a cell phone would never be contraband by plain feel. You would need to unlock it and search its contents, which would take hours or even days to complete. Contrast a patdown that discovers a bag of powder the officer knows by feel to be drugs, and which can be confirmed by visual inspection in an instant, more or less.
Edit: The violent crime is driving under the influence. The officer thought that the driver seemed like he might be on drugs.
You seriously believe innocent people aren't charged and convicted?
No, I know that innocent people get charged and convicted, but what possible charge could be brought against someone based on a dog's signal if nothing illegal is found?
Well that becomes up to the officer, really.
There's not a severe distrust of the police by minorities for nothing.
You seriously believe innocent people aren't charged and convicted?
There's a recurring SKFM refrain that whatever you can get away with under the law is not immoral and vice versa.
Not sure how this is applicable, but the only place where I think morality and the law directly intersect is the base immorality in weakening the rule of law and our social fabric through law breaking. Other than that, I think the law is immoral, and so something may be immoral but legal, moral but illegal (on net, if it balances out the above mentioned immoral act of weakening society) etc.
Man, Space, you are so lucky people don't approach white collar crime the way you approach the idea of traffic stops. Officer Enlightenedbum would be hitting you with a Terry stop and downloading the contents of your smart phone to search for incriminating documents every time you walked past a subway.
It's just a minor inconvenience if you're not breaking the law!
White collar crime is handled differently than violent crime because it is different in both effect and whether there is an imminent harm. Terry stops are meant to catch people with weapons to prevent them from engaging in violent crime, after all. In the case we are discussing, the alternatives to searching a car when there is pc that there are drugs in the car are to arrest the person and impound the car (much worse for the driver than a roadside search) or to let the person go and get a warrant (by the time you so, anything incriminating will be gone). I think that a pc based roadside search is the perfect balance between inconvenience and effective law enforcement, and the only issue is really what can add to that pc.
An officer could find pc without the dog anyway, so if anything, using the dog is an extra safeguard in many cases, and we can certainly have a conversation about whether that safeguard is being employed properly (something the case does not preclude at all). I just have a hard time seeing why people are acting like this case is some huge erosion of the fourth amendment.
Do you object to the entire practice of pc based roadside searches?
In this particular case, can you point to the violent crime?
Violence is not an inherent or necessary part of drug crimes like possession, distribution, or manufacture any more - or less - than it is an inherent or necessary part of white collar crime. There are plenty of drug crimes committed without violence, just like how many (but not all) white collar crimes are committed without related violence.
Here's a scenario that is analogous to the upheld doctrine of a 'terry stop' where drugs are found...but instead using a New York lawyer and evidence of financial crimes. An experienced cop seeing an upper class attorney on Wall Street, who articulates that they believe the attorney poses a physical danger due to an unsourced tip. During their pat-down, they feel what appears to be a smart phone, and based on their twenty years experience working white collar and financial crimes believe that smart phone contains information on criminal financial activity. The phone is removed and inspected, and in the text message history there is evidence of fraudulent activity.
This is exactly what happens, except replace 'upper class attorney' with 'poor black kid' and 'smart phone' with 'baggie of drugs'. You would be LIVID at the intrusion if the above case happened to you, but you have no problem when it's one of the 'others'.
We are not talking about a Terry Stop here. We are talking about warrant less searches based on probable cause, which is a much higher standard. Your example does not work anyway, because a cell phone would never be contraband by plain feel. You would need to unlock it and search its contents, which would take hours or even days to complete. Contrast a patdown that discovers a bag of powder the officer knows by feel to be drugs, and which can be confirmed by visual inspection in an instant, more or less.
But the issue is that this ruling does a lot to erode the basis for what is considered 'probable cause', based on the inaccuracy of the methods being used.
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spacekungfumanPoor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERSregular
You seriously believe innocent people aren't charged and convicted?
There's a recurring SKFM refrain that whatever you can get away with under the law is not immoral and vice versa.
Not sure how this is applicable, but the only place where I think morality and the law directly intersect is the base immorality in weakening the rule of law and our social fabric through law breaking. Other than that, I think the law is immoral, and so something may be immoral but legal, moral but illegal (on net, if it balances out the above mentioned immoral act of weakening society) etc.
Man, Space, you are so lucky people don't approach white collar crime the way you approach the idea of traffic stops. Officer Enlightenedbum would be hitting you with a Terry stop and downloading the contents of your smart phone to search for incriminating documents every time you walked past a subway.
It's just a minor inconvenience if you're not breaking the law!
White collar crime is handled differently than violent crime because it is different in both effect and whether there is an imminent harm. Terry stops are meant to catch people with weapons to prevent them from engaging in violent crime, after all. In the case we are discussing, the alternatives to searching a car when there is pc that there are drugs in the car are to arrest the person and impound the car (much worse for the driver than a roadside search) or to let the person go and get a warrant (by the time you so, anything incriminating will be gone). I think that a pc based roadside search is the perfect balance between inconvenience and effective law enforcement, and the only issue is really what can add to that pc.
An officer could find pc without the dog anyway, so if anything, using the dog is an extra safeguard in many cases, and we can certainly have a conversation about whether that safeguard is being employed properly (something the case does not preclude at all). I just have a hard time seeing why people are acting like this case is some huge erosion of the fourth amendment.
Do you object to the entire practice of pc based roadside searches?
In this particular case, can you point to the violent crime?
Violence is not an inherent or necessary part of drug crimes like possession, distribution, or manufacture any more - or less - than it is an inherent or necessary part of white collar crime. There are plenty of drug crimes committed without violence, just like how many (but not all) white collar crimes are committed without related violence.
Here's a scenario that is analogous to the upheld doctrine of a 'terry stop' where drugs are found...but instead using a New York lawyer and evidence of financial crimes. An experienced cop seeing an upper class attorney on Wall Street, who articulates that they believe the attorney poses a physical danger due to an unsourced tip. During their pat-down, they feel what appears to be a smart phone, and based on their twenty years experience working white collar and financial crimes believe that smart phone contains information on criminal financial activity. The phone is removed and inspected, and in the text message history there is evidence of fraudulent activity.
This is exactly what happens, except replace 'upper class attorney' with 'poor black kid' and 'smart phone' with 'baggie of drugs'. You would be LIVID at the intrusion if the above case happened to you, but you have no problem when it's one of the 'others'.
We are not talking about a Terry Stop here. We are talking about warrant less searches based on probable cause, which is a much higher standard. Your example does not work anyway, because a cell phone would never be contraband by plain feel. You would need to unlock it and search its contents, which would take hours or even days to complete. Contrast a patdown that discovers a bag of powder the officer knows by feel to be drugs, and which can be confirmed by visual inspection in an instant, more or less.
But the issue is that this ruling does a lot to erode the basis for what is considered 'probable cause', based on the inaccuracy of the methods being used.
This was not a case about if dogs can be used. Noone was asserting they can't. It was about what requirements a dog must meet to be used. SCOTUS said that instead of a rigid list (which the Florida court prepared after the fact, and the dog did not meet) the standard will just be reasonableness.
Tell that to the other drivers on the road who get killed if the person hits them. I absolutely think that DUI is the type of thing that should be treated like a violent crime, with a strong focus on prevention of situations before they escalate.
As a resident of a state that witnessed the danger of unchecked money in politics first hand, let me just say that you have no idea what you are talking about.
I can always count on you for a response devoid of any substance. I'm not sure what you're saying. What was the danger, and how does it mean I don't know what I'm talking about?
Without more to go on, I assume what you're really saying is that a lot of people agreed with something that you didn't agree with, and you find blaming money as a convenient way to avoid acknowledging the basics of the democratic engine.
I looked into it. Long story short, after all the allegedly corrupt/bought justices were gone and a whole new appeals court team looked at the case, they ruled with an even higher majority in favor of the allegedly corrupt businessman. So again, doesn't seem like any of it mattered.
Furthermore, even the CU decision was pretty clear that it did not apply to any situation in which there was evidence of quid pro quo. Meaning: the CU decision doesn't overrule existing law and precedent that allows the government to step in when it appears that an elected official has made a deal in which he has offered a specific privilege of his office in exchange for campaign spending. So if this judge really was making a deal to get elected in exchange for a certain ruling, CU doesn't protect him.
Looking at it more idealistically and less pragmatically, one could argue that the allegedly corrupt judge in the Caperton v. Massey case was simply right about the case (so it would seem based upon all further appeals and even decisions by higher courts). And that the allegedly corrupt businessman was simply exercising his freedom of speech to convince voters that this judge was in fact a much needed voice of reason on a court that was otherwise stacked unfairly against him. Other evidence suggests this to be plausible as well; that it was in fact other judges on the court, not the one being "bought," who were acting with unfair bias. Sure, it was in Massey's (the bussinessman's) own interest, but it seems that he was right, and if we disparage any political speech that the speaker might have a personal interest in, what do we have left?
This is my point about free speech. If you don't like that someone might speak out in favor of their own interests, and if you don't like that fact that your fellow citizens can be convinced to vote for someone because of it, then you don't like the ideal of free speech. There really aren't two ways about this. Ultimately what you're saying is that you "know better" than your fellow citizen, and that restrictions ought to be in place to prevent them from hearing things that you don't agree with, while you are free to continue discussing things you like to discusss that they might disagree with. That's the opposite of a right to freedom of speech.
Obviously there is a tricky First Amendment issue here. Nobody is arguing that there isn't. However, there is legitimate good-faith disagreement over whether money - specifically money spent by corporations - constitutes protected speech.
Not really, no. That issue is more or less decided. You want to talk about a whole body of case law, there is tons supporting the fact that trying to restrict funds spent on a communication is the same thing as censorship. There really isn't much disagreement on that, and in general I imagine you agree, too. The government trying to restrict expenditure on specific types of communication made by certain speakers are in effect trying to restrict those specific types of communication, at least restrict them from being made by those certain groups or people. It's pretty overwhelmingly decided that the issue is not whether money is speech, and the CU decision basically says "we all know that isn't even a question any more." The question is whether or not the government and the people have an interest in preventing unions and corporations from having powerful voices on political issues or political candidates, voices powerful enough to exert control over the elected office. Obviously that's what you're concerned about, not about how a corporation decides to spend money.
The issue is whether it is more important for me to be able to hear the message and make my own decision, or it is more important that the government prevent potential harm caused by elected officials executing their duties based on who spoke the loudest for them rather than what most of their constituents want and need.
It would seem that an easier and less constitutionally tricky solution would be shorter term limits, and more regulation on the private sector involvement of politicians after their term ends. Someone can spend all the money in the world on ads for your campaign, but that means nothing once you're elected, unless you're expecting them to continue spending on future campaigns or expecting them to offer you a high-paying job when you're done. Political ads are the last thing we ought to be focusing on, you know, because we like to think that freedom of speech is protected.
[By stating "the government banned a message" rather than "the government banned corporate financing of the broadcast transmission of a message," you're putting the cart before the horse and presuming that the crux of the disagreement has been settled.
You are 100% incorrect about this. I already know you're familiar with concepts like "standing" and how courts actually work. If we were debating a campaign finance reform act, you might be correct. But this case was, without question, about the federal government banning a political ad. You should not continue to spread confusion and ignorance of our judicial system by claiming otherwise. The FEC banned the movie from being distributed. A judge ruled that the Hillary movie was electioneering for a candidate, and subject to criminal and civil liability if it was distributed. That was what prompted the appeal.
Money shouldn't count as fucking speech, that is one of the things I hate most about Citizen's United. Anyone that believes money is speech and doesn't get how fucking damaging too much money in the political process is, is a goose.
In the context of how the phrase is actually used in the courts, money is speech, that wasn't even really up for debate in this decision. I fmoney wasn't speech, then the government would be free to pass laws like "it's illegal to spend any money promoting a message in favor of a liberal cause or a Democratic candidate for office." I mean, money isn't speech, right? So there's no problem banning spending money! It's not like is actually affecting free speech at all.
Obviously, that is nonsense, and you ought to think a little harder about it. In cases where we are actually talking about speech, then yes, money spent on it, in the context of regulation, is effectively the same thing as the speech itself. That is extremely well supported by a lot of decisions, and FSM help us all if it weren't.
Tell that to the other drivers on the road who get killed if the person hits them. I absolutely think that DUI is the type of thing that should be treated like a violent crime, with a strong focus on prevention of situations before they escalate.
The crime then is manslaughter. Being drunk while driving is not in itself a violent act, though it makes subsequent violence more likely.
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Two hours? How could it take that long?
Wait....do you not have any experience with the police?
Not as an adult, other than for accident reports. They are slow to arrive, but they ate already the in this situation, right?
Edit: this is all beside the point though. Surely, the standard for whether a police activity is reasonable cannot be if it is inconvenient for people.
Here is a thing.
If it doesn't seem to matter, and there are questions about the constitutionality of banning it, maybe we should not ban it.
That said, the 4th Amendment is important. You may not understand this because you are a rich white guy, but people get pulled over for bullshit all the time, so the cop can stick his head near the car and "oops I think I smell weed" and suddenly you're in the back of a cop car on the way to booking. It's still an incredible amount of bullshit, but in the case of a cop, those can be thrown out much easier since you can cross examine him in a court of law. Good luck having that conversation with the dog.
The logical extent of what you are proposing is that every time I go anywhere the cops have the right to search me for anything no matter what. And maybe hey, they can just walk into my house, maybe they heard that something might have been illegal in there? This is *insane*.
I'd really like to see demo information for this study
I find it difficult to believe that well over half the populace is nigh-communist
Since my job at Borders is evidence of mental instability I really don't want to speculate
Ah yes, the "I'm too good to answer this" defense
Noone is saying that. You need probable cause, just like with any search, and the only question is what hoops the dog has to jump through before it can be part of the basis for that probable cause. This is hardly on demand searches at any time for any reason.
And why does it matter that you can't cross examine the dog? If nothing is in your car or home, then you won't be charged with anything. If you do have something illegal, then you deserve to be arrested, but it doesn't even matter, because you can still cross examine the cop on the stand about his finding of probable cause.
Yeah by no means it's the only factor but when something inconveniences a lot of people just to get a couple cases of possession it seems reasonable to re-evaluate that shit.
I prefer not to deal with police all the time, not because I am doing any illegal shit (although that's part of it) but simply because it's a hassle. It takes time, it takes effort (you gotta deal correctly with them) and if there is little benefit to it I don't see why it needs to be happening. And I'm white and live in Europe, I get of lightly.
Point being: You should consider not only the benefits of guidelines like this but also the drawbacks, and the drawbacks can include inconvenience. You might not get into much trouble, but this shit also affects those who are innocent because they look suspicious (possibly because they're young, black and their hat's real low). And not even only those, and some people don't have that two hours to just sit about waiting for the cops.
(for real by the way, this case we're talking about is a motherfucking meth-head who fucking told the police he was making meth even though he didn't need to. had he kept his mouth shut he could've gotten off. Had he not gotten arrested here this dumb motherfucker would have probably gotten arrested two hours later for selling meth to a uniformed officer. If dogs help us catch idiots like this we probably don't need dogs.)
Great, the "if only you weren't doing anything illegal" excuse to why we should suspend the 4th amendment. I don't care if you have a corpse in the trunk of the car, if the cop opens it without probable cause, it is not admissible in court. It sets dangerous precedent if you let an animal that barks to please it's owner be the giver of said probably cause, instead of due process of law.
Especially when we still live in this terrible racist world we live in. And cops sure have a stellar track record these days.
No one is talking about allowing searches without probable cause. This is a complete strawman position. No one is even arguing that the dog alone should constitute probable cause. The only point made in this case (and which I am arguing in support of) is that the use of a dog can be a piece of probable cause, where it is otherwise reasonable to employ the dog. Probable cause is not absolute certainty, and it is certainly possible for probable cause to exist even where there are not, in fact any drugs (as was the case here), but it is also more than a hunch.
If we are worried by how dogs perform in the field, then we should work on that, but this was not a case about accuracy. It was a case about when dogs may be used, and the SCOTUS said that they are appropriate where a reasonable person would think they are, instead of limiting them to specific circumstances or imposing qualifications on the dogs.
I'm literally flabbergasted that law school didn't scour this sort of attitude from your soul, Space.
It would be totally fantastic if instead of a meth dealer, this case involved a sweet little black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies to her church bake sale, and a police officer pulled her over, and the police officer said to himself, "self, this African American female sure has a lot of cookies in this poor, ethnic community...I wonder if they're pot cookies!" And then he got on his radio and called dispatch and requested a K9 unit, and Rex the German Shepherd hopped down out of the back of that SUV, and Rex wants to get his belly scratched for being such a good dog, so he barks and barks, and they search this lady's car and take her cookies to test them and determine, "well, no drugs here!" and then they send her on her way. This would be so cut and dry if she were the appellant! She's obviously right. They're obviously wrong. She'd have her day before the Supreme Court, and the justices would all applaud her for her righteousness, and she'd give each of them a cookie, and Alito'd ask for seconds, and they'd all live happily ever after.
The problem -- which you very well ought to know -- is that sweet little old black lady who was carrying a tray of cookies has nothing to appeal. She can't challenge her conviction on the grounds that evidence used against her should have been ruled inadmissible because she was never arrested for anything. She could try suing the city, but good luck to her if she wants to try that route -- what damages will she demonstrate? How will she claim standing to file a suit?
All of these fucking cases are going to involve someone who was convicted of something. That's, like, just how that goes. If you're going to decide the merits of the case based on whether or not you think the appellant sounds like he was probably a bad dude who had it coming, you're going to eventually find yourself arguing in favor of some truly horrible things.
I'm not saying "the case is good because the appellant is a bad guy." I happen to agree with the holding of this case (that reasonableness is the appropriate standard for determining whether a dog's signalling can help to constitute probable cause) but I also think that, in thinking about the balance between privacy and having an effective police force, we should make decisions that lead to people like this going to jail, not going free.
Nope. You have to defend the guilty so the innocent go free.
Permitting the use of dog sniffs as part of a determination of probable cause will NEVER result in an innocent person going to jail or even being charged. The worst case outcome for an innocent man is inconvenience. I don't know why so many people in this thread want to make this decision more than the simple rejection of the imposition of a rigid criteria for evaluating when dogs are appropriate as part of the basis for probable cause.
Rich. White. Male.
It's just a minor inconvenience if you're not breaking the law!
Who controls the money in a corporation? Management, duly appointed by the owners, of a process that at the very least involves the majority of the owners. We note that we can have owners who have no say whatsoever in the selection of management due to the size of their ownership.
It is therefore perfectly possible - even likely - that a corporation investing money in political campaigning does so against the political wishes of at least some of the owners of said company. Any company - or union - could easily issue recommendations for candidates to support or defame, and the owners or members could then donate money they both own and control according to those recommendations. This would be fine, and as far as I've understood it, the Citizens United case would not in any way have impacted a corporations ability to do so. Instead, you get a system in which the people who exercise control over political expenditures are not the same people who own the money which they spend.
We either get a chilling effect on investment - because you can't invest your money without risking offering direct support of political goals you do not have - or we transfer control of political expenditures from the people who actually own the money, to people who do not.
Freedom of speech doesn't need to enter into it - an owner of corporate assets or a member of a union can spend their own personal assets in any way they see fit, and limiting the expenditures of corporations in this area does not limit the ability of the owners to spend money on politics. No actual speech has been suppressed, we have merely ensured that the people who "speak" must both own and control the assets used to make the speech, or have had control/ownership of those assets transfered to them for specific political purposes, by people who held both control and ownership.
Its not about believing that my fellow citizens are incapable of criticial thought, its about believing my fellow citizens should be able to engage in financial activity - like, say, saving for retirement - without either offering financial support for political causes they do not support or have portions of funds that should be allocated to them as profits diverted to be spent on politics.
(Unless, of course, if you hold to the idea that one cannot distinguish between an international conglomerate that operates in the financial industry and the press, but how stupid would you have to be to make that argument?)
No, I know that innocent people get charged and convicted, but what possible charge could be brought against someone based on a dog's signal if nothing illegal is found?
White collar crime is handled differently than violent crime because it is different in both effect and whether there is an imminent harm. Terry stops are meant to catch people with weapons to prevent them from engaging in violent crime, after all. In the case we are discussing, the alternatives to searching a car when there is pc that there are drugs in the car are to arrest the person and impound the car (much worse for the driver than a roadside search) or to let the person go and get a warrant (by the time you so, anything incriminating will be gone). I think that a pc based roadside search is the perfect balance between inconvenience and effective law enforcement, and the only issue is really what can add to that pc.
An officer could find pc without the dog anyway, so if anything, using the dog is an extra safeguard in many cases, and we can certainly have a conversation about whether that safeguard is being employed properly (something the case does not preclude at all). I just have a hard time seeing why people are acting like this case is some huge erosion of the fourth amendment.
Do you object to the entire practice of pc based roadside searches?
You are right there, it would take every mugger in New York, along with every burglar and drug dealer years to match the criminal costs of Bernie Maddoff. Not to mention Enron and Worldcom and all the Shit Wall Street banks get up to on a day to day basis.
I would suggest that white collar criminals have made more people lose their home and medical coverage and done more damage in the last month, then muggers did all year.
Totally different.
I'm not saying the degree of harm is less, it's just different, and the investigative techniques are different too. They aren't violent crimes, and also are not the type of crimes you can detect or head off through a warrant less search of a car. These are more complex crimes that require in depth investigation, and there should always be opportunity to obtain a warrant.
There's a recurring SKFM refrain that whatever you can get away with under the law is not immoral and vice versa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sus_law
Incredibly, it turned out that giving the police full discretion to stop and search people meant that they used that discretion to pursue their own prejudices and bigotry, with the final result being violent riots.
Now I am confident that the stain of racism and ethnic prejudice would never touch any of the police forces in the US, but still, it does seem dangerous to put such temptation in their way.
In this particular case, can you point to the violent crime?
Violence is not an inherent or necessary part of drug crimes like possession, distribution, or manufacture any more - or less - than it is an inherent or necessary part of white collar crime. There are plenty of drug crimes committed without violence, just like how many (but not all) white collar crimes are committed without related violence.
Here's a scenario that is analogous to the upheld doctrine of a 'terry stop' where drugs are found...but instead using a New York lawyer and evidence of financial crimes. An experienced cop seeing an upper class attorney on Wall Street, who articulates that they believe the attorney poses a physical danger due to an unsourced tip. During their pat-down, they feel what appears to be a smart phone, and based on their twenty years experience working white collar and financial crimes believe that smart phone contains information on criminal financial activity. The phone is removed and inspected, and in the text message history there is evidence of fraudulent activity.
This is exactly what happens, except replace 'upper class attorney' with 'poor black kid' and 'smart phone' with 'baggie of drugs'. You would be LIVID at the intrusion if the above case happened to you, but you have no problem when it's one of the 'others'.
Not sure how this is applicable, but the only place where I think morality and the law directly intersect is the base immorality in weakening the rule of law and our social fabric through law breaking. Other than that, I think the law is immoral, and so something may be immoral but legal, moral but illegal (on net, if it balances out the above mentioned immoral act of weakening society) etc.
We are not talking about a Terry Stop here. We are talking about warrant less searches based on probable cause, which is a much higher standard. Your example does not work anyway, because a cell phone would never be contraband by plain feel. You would need to unlock it and search its contents, which would take hours or even days to complete. Contrast a patdown that discovers a bag of powder the officer knows by feel to be drugs, and which can be confirmed by visual inspection in an instant, more or less.
Edit: The violent crime is driving under the influence. The officer thought that the driver seemed like he might be on drugs.
Well that becomes up to the officer, really.
There's not a severe distrust of the police by minorities for nothing.
But the issue is that this ruling does a lot to erode the basis for what is considered 'probable cause', based on the inaccuracy of the methods being used.
This was not a case about if dogs can be used. Noone was asserting they can't. It was about what requirements a dog must meet to be used. SCOTUS said that instead of a rigid list (which the Florida court prepared after the fact, and the dog did not meet) the standard will just be reasonableness.
Tell that to the other drivers on the road who get killed if the person hits them. I absolutely think that DUI is the type of thing that should be treated like a violent crime, with a strong focus on prevention of situations before they escalate.
I can always count on you for a response devoid of any substance. I'm not sure what you're saying. What was the danger, and how does it mean I don't know what I'm talking about?
Without more to go on, I assume what you're really saying is that a lot of people agreed with something that you didn't agree with, and you find blaming money as a convenient way to avoid acknowledging the basics of the democratic engine.
I looked into it. Long story short, after all the allegedly corrupt/bought justices were gone and a whole new appeals court team looked at the case, they ruled with an even higher majority in favor of the allegedly corrupt businessman. So again, doesn't seem like any of it mattered.
Furthermore, even the CU decision was pretty clear that it did not apply to any situation in which there was evidence of quid pro quo. Meaning: the CU decision doesn't overrule existing law and precedent that allows the government to step in when it appears that an elected official has made a deal in which he has offered a specific privilege of his office in exchange for campaign spending. So if this judge really was making a deal to get elected in exchange for a certain ruling, CU doesn't protect him.
Looking at it more idealistically and less pragmatically, one could argue that the allegedly corrupt judge in the Caperton v. Massey case was simply right about the case (so it would seem based upon all further appeals and even decisions by higher courts). And that the allegedly corrupt businessman was simply exercising his freedom of speech to convince voters that this judge was in fact a much needed voice of reason on a court that was otherwise stacked unfairly against him. Other evidence suggests this to be plausible as well; that it was in fact other judges on the court, not the one being "bought," who were acting with unfair bias. Sure, it was in Massey's (the bussinessman's) own interest, but it seems that he was right, and if we disparage any political speech that the speaker might have a personal interest in, what do we have left?
This is my point about free speech. If you don't like that someone might speak out in favor of their own interests, and if you don't like that fact that your fellow citizens can be convinced to vote for someone because of it, then you don't like the ideal of free speech. There really aren't two ways about this. Ultimately what you're saying is that you "know better" than your fellow citizen, and that restrictions ought to be in place to prevent them from hearing things that you don't agree with, while you are free to continue discussing things you like to discusss that they might disagree with. That's the opposite of a right to freedom of speech.
Not really, no. That issue is more or less decided. You want to talk about a whole body of case law, there is tons supporting the fact that trying to restrict funds spent on a communication is the same thing as censorship. There really isn't much disagreement on that, and in general I imagine you agree, too. The government trying to restrict expenditure on specific types of communication made by certain speakers are in effect trying to restrict those specific types of communication, at least restrict them from being made by those certain groups or people. It's pretty overwhelmingly decided that the issue is not whether money is speech, and the CU decision basically says "we all know that isn't even a question any more." The question is whether or not the government and the people have an interest in preventing unions and corporations from having powerful voices on political issues or political candidates, voices powerful enough to exert control over the elected office. Obviously that's what you're concerned about, not about how a corporation decides to spend money.
The issue is whether it is more important for me to be able to hear the message and make my own decision, or it is more important that the government prevent potential harm caused by elected officials executing their duties based on who spoke the loudest for them rather than what most of their constituents want and need.
It would seem that an easier and less constitutionally tricky solution would be shorter term limits, and more regulation on the private sector involvement of politicians after their term ends. Someone can spend all the money in the world on ads for your campaign, but that means nothing once you're elected, unless you're expecting them to continue spending on future campaigns or expecting them to offer you a high-paying job when you're done. Political ads are the last thing we ought to be focusing on, you know, because we like to think that freedom of speech is protected.
You are 100% incorrect about this. I already know you're familiar with concepts like "standing" and how courts actually work. If we were debating a campaign finance reform act, you might be correct. But this case was, without question, about the federal government banning a political ad. You should not continue to spread confusion and ignorance of our judicial system by claiming otherwise. The FEC banned the movie from being distributed. A judge ruled that the Hillary movie was electioneering for a candidate, and subject to criminal and civil liability if it was distributed. That was what prompted the appeal.
In the context of how the phrase is actually used in the courts, money is speech, that wasn't even really up for debate in this decision. I fmoney wasn't speech, then the government would be free to pass laws like "it's illegal to spend any money promoting a message in favor of a liberal cause or a Democratic candidate for office." I mean, money isn't speech, right? So there's no problem banning spending money! It's not like is actually affecting free speech at all.
Obviously, that is nonsense, and you ought to think a little harder about it. In cases where we are actually talking about speech, then yes, money spent on it, in the context of regulation, is effectively the same thing as the speech itself. That is extremely well supported by a lot of decisions, and FSM help us all if it weren't.
I guess you could say the same about driving with a bomb in your car.