Comment Re:Cancer vs common cold (Score 1) 52
I'm reading a book about a Zombie outbreak that triggered a flu pandemic across the USA. But it's a really bad flu strain, with like a 17% higher mortality rate than Swine Flu.
I know this is going to be unreasonable, but answer this one. Where in the constitution does it give the federal government the power to ban substances?
You did remember that the constitution doesn't specify rights, but instead grants powers to the government, right?
There's a difference between declaring something an inherent "right" and saying that the federal government does not have authority to regulate it. Yes, drug laws should be the states' business, because states have general police powers, and they don't need a grant of power to exercise it. That doesn't mean you have a right to drugs. It just means states should be free to decide which drugs, if any, are illegal within their borders.
That was incentivization, not restrictive action.
You are correct. But when we're talking about government, it takes surprisingly little to convert a carrot into a club.
"If you are carrying an illegal substance that a dog can detect without invading your privacy, that's your problem."
Is it really though?
Say dogs didn't exist. That we had to invent a tool that acts as a dog's nose. Say this tool had limited mobility, you couldn't bring it everywhere, only to where it was needed.
What then? Could you not argue that dogs and this invented tool are the same thing?
Yes, precisely. The Fourth Amendment doesn't give you a substantive right to conceal crimes. It secures you against unreasonable searches and seizures. If the police get a technology that can detect crime without unreasonable searches or seizures, well, then don't commit crimes. (Whether too many things are crimes in the first place is a completely different matter.)
I have to agree with the supreme court on principal and we really do have to stand up for our rights lest we loose them. But I would have though the cops had a responsibility to do the search if they suspected an additional crime was being committed. Possibly they were suspicious only due to Mr. Rodriguez's skin color or last name, which clearly shouldn't be permitted. But it they have any other reasonable suspicion that he had drugs why shouldn't they be allowed to investigate. Especially if it's a 7-8 minute process. An hour is unreasonable, but come on, a quick, non-disruptive check seems reasonable.
If the police have reasonable suspicion (i.e., based on some legitimate evidence), then this ruling doesn't apply. They can detain the guy for a few minutes to get the dog. This ruling only applies to where the police have no reasonable suspicion and want to detain him anyway. The Fourth Amendment says they don't get to do that.
Well at least the summery seems to leave open the ability to use drug sniffing dogs/tools enmass without suspicion, you just have to complete that task quickly.
That has been the case for a long time. A drug dog can walk down the security line at an airport and sniff bags for illicit drugs without violating anyone's privacy. This really is one of those cases where if you don't want the dog to trigger, don't have drugs in your bag.
That was a second detention, done without probable cause (since he had already dealt with the reason for the stop), and was therefore unlawful.
The lack of probable cause is not related to the fact that the officer already dealt with the reason for the stop. Hypothetically speaking, on the officer's return to the vehicle he could have noticed something that would lead to the moving violation turning into a longer detention. That was apparently not the case here.
No, but it is has everything to do with whether the officer can lawfully continue to detain the man. Once the legitimate purpose of the stop is complete, the police have no authority to continue to detain a person. The exception is if, as you say, the officer sees some evidence that provides probable cause of an ongoing or past crime. Then he can extend the detention and take appropriate action.
A sane Supreme Court would extend the right to privacy to drug use and possession.
Because the Constitution totally says that people have substantive right to possess and use drugs. It's right there in the Eleventy-First Amendment!
(Pro tip: If there are laws you don't agree with, the place to address them is the Legislature, not the Court.)
Properly used, drug dogs are good at detecting drugs. The problem isn't the dogs, it is the handlers. A trained drug dog can "alert" when given a cue by the handler, falsely indicating drugs, when the dog didn't sniff any. There is no way to interrogate a drug dog in court about what it was smelling or if it was just following daddy's orders to alert on cue.
I would, if I were a lawyer, put a drug dog as a witness, and if I could get it to cue up an alert, then I would call for dismissal of all things after the dog alerted.
A bullet can also enter a person who has not committed a crime when given a cue by its "handler." Any useful tool can be manipulated by an unethical cop. We either have to live with the fact that useful tools will sometimes be manipulated by corrupt cops, or we have to live without any cops at all. People may disagree on which is better, but those are basically our options.
Regarding your motion, I don't think it would go very far. The fact that the dog can be manipulated doesn't mean that it was in this particular case. It's going to be doubly hard to get the evidence suppressed if the dog alerted on drugs, and it turns out that your client did, in fact, have drugs on his person. "Yes, your honor, this dog is trained to detect drugs, and he did signal that he smelled drugs on my client, but I submit that in fact this dog that is specifically trained to smell drugs didn't actually smell the drugs my client actually had on his person, but was instead responding to a covert signal provided by the arresting officer." You might do better if the dog triggered for drugs, and what the officer actually found was an illegal weapon or something.
Reaching back to law school memories here, but I recall a case (decided in the 80s or 90s?) where the Court ruled that drug-sniffing dogs do not require any suspicion, because you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the scent of drugs coming from your stuff. So this ruling just addresses a follow-on question: If the police are permitted to use drug-sniffing dogs at will, can they also detain you without reasonable suspicion and make you wait around for the dog to show up. The answer was a very reasonable "no." If they don't have evidence that you've done something wrong, they can't detain you.
I think this rule is reasonable on both counts. The Fourth Amendment doesn't give you a substantive right to commit crimes and not be found out. It only protects you from unreasonable police procedures. If you are carrying an illegal substance that a dog can detect without invading your privacy, that's your problem. But the police should never be able to detain a citizen for any reason, for any amount of time, without probable cause that the person has committed or is committing a crime. To rule otherwise is to place us in a police state.
Next it will be "Remove all cars more than X years old because of pollution ( I know, you think a car manufacturer would not touch that topic, but they will) and safety issues.
Wow, you have a short memory.
I dunno, I read it as George doing a "jar jar binks" [1] on his neighbors. You don't like the idea of a studio on my ranch? Ok, how about LOW INCOME HOUSING? How do you like THEM apples?
[1] Referencing reports that Lucas specifically retaliated against fans' dislike of Jar Jar in the first film by giving him increased time in the subsequent films.
That's a cool theory and all, except reality. How do a couple of cameos count as "increased time"? I think the more plausible theory is that Lucas pandered to the audience by making Jar Jar responsible for the rise of the empire.
apple hasnt done anything better for a long time now. other than marketing that is, they are the kings of marketing.
They should have gotten Bose to design the sound. Then it would have been marketing squared!
Neutrinos have bad breadth.
