Question for legal geeks, if there are any here.
Offline Just a general question, because every state differs.
It was the middle of the day. I am good driver with a perfect record for the past 7 years. And maybe it is ultimately a constitutional argument, vs a state social climate interpretation of legality.
ANYWHO, I had just dropped my mom off from a doctor's appointment and on my way home there was a police checkpoint where everyone was stopped and asked for their ID. Of course I complied, but it was a bit unnerving in that of probable cause, not just for me, but for everyone they were pulling over. I don't even know what the checkpoint was about. It could have been a violent felon they were looking for. It could have been a DUI checkpoint.
Still, I don't like the trending climate in our country that seems to lean to "If you are not doing anything wrong, why do you have a problem with this?"
It just struck me as Orwellian. I hadn't done a damned thing so why was I being stopped and asked for my ID?
Over all there seems to be a battle between safety and freedom in this country and far too many people more and more ESPECIALLY media is willing to sell fear to scare people into complying.
I just wonder about the legality of being asked for your ID when they have not explained to you why you were stopped and why the checkpoint was put there in the first place.
I didn't ask them because this is a southern state and the cops in this county can be very much ego bully driven.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
- Login to post comments
Ding! I know that. Give time to type something up. Back shortly.
=
As far as the police are concerned, everyone is guilty of something, they just haven't been caught, yet...
The problem with police is, even if you win, you can lose.
Debating them, is taking your chances.
I tend to ask, "Is there some kind of problem, Officer xxx ?", after I've looked for their badge, so I make it clear that I've identified them by name, and badge #.
That usually sets a tone. And alerts them, that I'm hip to the game.
They don't know if I'm a lawyer, or if I'm related to one, or whatever.
It let's them know, that I know my rights, and I'm not a 'sheeple', who trembles in their presence.
Our society works on the heirarchy model, and these guys think they're at the level of the supreme court.
If you don't demonstrate otherwise, they'll immediately try and 'project' that on to you.
I don't allow it. I speak to them at a peer level.
They're just doing a 9-5 job. They're just 'worker bees'. Not 'Queen Bees'.
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Try driving around Virginia Beach sometime. You'll love it; it's the "bored police drone" capitol of the states.
Unless of course you were in Virginia Beach, which would not surprise me.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
OK, you are correct that it matters where you are. However, the lines are not drawn where you might expect.
As background, there is a legal doctrine called stare decisis, which basically means “it has been decided”. This comes up every time a republican president makes a supreme court nomination under the idea that a conservative court could overturn Roe v Wade on a whim. Really they can't do that. First they would need a case and then they would have to rule on the merits of that case. Even so, the question is always asked as what is called “the acid test”. Because the matter has been decided, that is pretty much a done deal and all future courts must abide by it.
Now, how that actually works in practice is that every court must rule consistently with higher courts. However, parallel courts are only required to take the opinion of another court on an advisory basis. So when a matter reaches the level of a federal appeals court, if another appeals court has made a related ruling, the court hearing the specific case only has to consider the arguments of other appeals courts but they don't have to abide by them.
The reason why I am telling you this is because the matter has been decided over and over at the appellate level. Each case has gone a different way. So if you are in the ninth circuit, then police have not right to compel you to provide an ID. If they want to see it, they need to arrest you. If they have no good reason to arrest you, then they have to let you walk away unidentified.
The relevant case law is Terry v Ohio from 1968. Basically, it provides an officer a right to briefly detain someone who is suspected of a crime and ask a few questions in order to assess the situation. In that the police were asking everyone who drove down the road for ID, it could not have been a legal Terry stop. You are right that it could have been a check point for something. Police do that all the time and as far as I know, that has never been ruled on. Not just DUI though. We have seat belt check points and talking on the phone while driving check points as well.
If you want to do something about this, you would need to know what was going on. Perhaps it was a routing check point and they were only asking for ID to make it look like they were doing something more than they really were. You could try calling your local police to see if they will comment but they are probably not required to answer. You could also try calling the most liberal newspaper in town to see if they have anything. They might or at least you might alert them to the idea that they need to pay attention to any other related calls they get.
Really, this is a question that goes to both the fourth and fifth amendments and because differing appellate courts have gone different ways on the matter, it is ripe for the supreme court to nail this coffin shut. The last time that it came up was in 2004 and SCOTUS found that technically, the petitioner had not asked the right questions. So they answered what had been asked but left the matter open.
If it is any consolation, I got carded yesterday when I went to get on a train. It is a TSA rule but the matter is handled by amtrack employees who are so damned bored with the idea that you can probably show them a gym membership and they will wave you through.
One site I know of that has a dog in this fight is:
http://papersplease.org/wp/
=
For DUI checkpoints the case was in front of SCOTUS in Michigan v. Sitz [496, U.S. 444], and in a 6-3 decision it ruled that police could set up checkpoints. The reasoning was basically along the lines that the detainments were not "unreasonable" because drunk driving poses such a significant danger to the public and the stops took an average of 25 seconds unless the officer had reasonable suspicion that the driver was in fact intoxicated. So yes, it is legal. There have been some fights in the lower courts as to exactly what procedures cops can use, where they can be placed, for how long etc.
I agree with you that it is bullshit. Unless the cops have a damn good reason to suspect you are breaking a law they should not be allowed to detain you. More people need to get pissed off about it. The scary thing is that most people say "oh well, it is only a few seconds". The same thing can be said about the ridiculousness that is airport security. But, unfortunately SCOTUS is hardly perfect protection of our freedoms, and few of the politicians care to even consider whether or not a law is constitutional.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
No one wants drunk drivers on the road. And I am not disputing court precedence. This isn't even about one law subject. It is about how far we are willing to allow law enforcement to intrude in our private lives.
I am concerned even outside this issue long term, the presumption of guilt vs freedom.
Which is why probable cause was upheld and why you are read your Maranda (sp) rights.
It seems a bit Orwellian to cast a wide net.
We need police officers, no doubt. But it casting a wide net, no matter the good intent can lead to the over all climate of "If you are not doing anything wrong what is your problem".
I just dont see how my rights are being protected by assuming the guilt of everyone passing the check point.
I should, which I did not, in reality, have the right to say, "Why do you need to see my ID?" I did not, because reality is not a utopia.
It just struck me as "Let me see your papers"
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I'm with you 100%.
Random 'invasions of privacy' are the seeds of a 'Police State'.
Not good.
You can blame MADD for putting pressure on their congressmen, for this kind of thing.
The squeeky wheel gets the grease.
Bingo.
What's next?
Urine tests?
Rolling through neigbourhoods, and entering homes without a search warrant?
I keep asking myself " Are they just playin' stupid, or are they just plain stupid?..."
"To explain the unknown by the known is a logical procedure; to explain the known by the unknown is a form of theological lunacy" : David Brooks
" Only on the subject of God can smart people still imagine that they reap the fruits of human intelligence even as they plow them under." : Sam Harris
Mandatory blood tests. There have been some states where police get blank warrants that they can fill in if someone refuses a breathalyser test to take that person to a station and forcibly take a blood sample for testing. There are a few cases working their way in the court system now.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Well cops can usually get away with pulling you over for just about any reason by coming up with some random excuse (ex. "Your taillight was lose"
. I'm not a legal geek, but my bet is that it would be very hard to prove in court that an officer pulled you over "without probable cause".
Optimism is reality, pessimism is the fantasy that you know enough to be cynical
Everything cops do needs to be recorded, audio and video. Cameras on their dash, cameras and mics on their uniforms, GPS tracking everything, etc.
Some places already do this and I think it's a great idea.
And please, stop with the bullshit wiretapping offences if a citizen records a cop.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
Yah, probable cause can be a hard thing to work legally. Many years ago, I knew a guy who had a new to him car that was not yet registered. He went for a drive with a family member's plates on his car and got caught by an officer who was just running plates out of boredom.
Since the guy had only been living in the US for a few years, I explained that concept to him but he could not pursue it because his mother did not get her citizenship until after his 18th birthday. He had the paperwork filed to go through the process on his own but at that point, it would have been unwise to do anything other than roll over if he did not want to attract the wrong type of attention.
=