Since the men and women who serve as judges attended law school, the question must be asked what these law schools are teaching. Or perhaps a better question would be, “with what are these law schools indoctrinating their students?” Far too often we learn of judicial decisions that make no sense, and we’re not talking only of the bizarre decisions federal judges have made regarding President Trump’s travel ban.
The courts have power because the people respect them and the executive branches enforce their decisions. Take these away, and the courts just turn into editorial departments. Sometimes it seems like that is the direction they wish to take.
More on page two.
If you are in Kansas, you would be wise to be sure everyone sits up straight in your car and that you don’t have any small plastic bags in sight. That is unless you don’t mind having your car searched without a warrant. Because if you do have passengers reclining and a plastic bag or two in view, the police have the right to assume a crime has been committed and can search your vehicle without a warrant according to the Kansas Supreme Court.
A car with a reclined passenger seat and a torn plastic bag in the center console can be searched by police at any time without a warrant under a divided Kansas Supreme Court ruling issued on Friday. The high court majority concluded that these two factors, taken together, were enough to establish a belief that Cameron Howard was involved in a crime on September 15, 2011, when he was spotted pulling into a gas station in Prairie Village.
Sort of scary, isn’t it? And it’s an invitation for police to use other non-reasons to force a search of your car.
“Officer Loughman made the reasonable inference that the passenger’s reclined seat was an attempt to conceal something from his view,” the majority wrote. “This inference increased the likelihood that there was contraband in Howard’s vehicle and was an appropriate consideration in establishing probable cause to search the car.”
To show how ridiculous this is, don’t all cars have some combination of glove compartments, center console compartments, or trunks? If a reclined seat can be considered evidence of hiding contraband, should the ownership of a car with a trunk or a truck with tool chest imply the same thing?
Although the majority issued this weird ruling, some comfort can be drawn from the fact that there were judges on that court who dissented.
Because the passenger, not the driver, reclined her seat, Justice Rosen argued that she just as easily could have reclined the seat to make herself more comfortable — she was visibly pregnant at the time. The dissent noted that there is no case law supporting a search based solely on a torn baggie and a police officer’s experience.
“Nor did anyone produce a case in which something as innocuous and innocent as a torn plastic baggie could transform a similarly innocent activity — reclining a seat — into something suspicious enough to establish probable cause,” Justice Rosen wrote. “And, perhaps most importantly, either decision would all but destroy any protection still provided by the Fourth Amendment’s assurance that we are free from an unreasonable search of our vehicles. For these reasons, I would conclude that there was not probable cause to search Howard’s car.”
In Kansas it just appears to have become evidence that a crime has been committed if you eat lunch in your car and then recline to take a nap. Has the state run out of criminals to pursue that its police must busy themselves on such ridiculous and unconstitutional pursuits?
Dumbing down the Lawyers too I see
No precedent-setting cases to rule on this as a legitimate law!
Though don’t sweep anything under the Rug in Pennsylvania cause it is illegal!
I certainly agree that the jail cells must remain full to get a bigger budget for next year… but I must say, that there is enough druggies out there to keep em full. Unfortunately, regular working class folks sometime fall prey to the overzealous cop… they too become products of their shitty and often dangerous job… it’s a mess. And cops end up feeling like it’s them against us… no matter what neighborhood you live in. Being constantly on guard can make even the most conscientious cop wary of their surroundings, and regular folks sometimes get harassed…
Tyranny afoot in the land of the free, and the home of the brave today.
Kevin, so when Highway Troopers stop a money car headed back to Mexico with $250,000 and no dope. When does the seizure occur?
Wtf?
Clickbaiting.
If you see an article that’s one paragraph at a time and you have to click “See more” to read another paragraph….It’s Clickbaiting.
You’re paying shitty journalism to expose you to adds over and over again so they make more and more ad revenue.
Robert Wayne and that is clearly why crime has disappeared.
I