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Supremes Say Passengers in Cars Can Be Frisked, Evidence Seized

Edgar Steele

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----- Original Message -----

From: Edgar

Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 5:10 PM

Subject: FW: Supremes say passengers in cars can be frisked, evidence seized!

This case (below) well could be a serious uptick in the Amerikwan police state. In the past, the Supremes have distinguished stop and search cases that occured within 100 miles of a border, saying, in effect, that the police may do almost anything. Eloy, AZ is within that limit. I have not yet read the case, so do not know of they hinge their actual holding in this case in whole or in part upon that fact.

Regardless, this is a harbinger of things to come. Always, the "safety of the officers" in any such balancing tests trumps all other considerations, thus anything within the reach of a driver after a legal stop has been fair game for searches for 30 years now, with nothing more. That recently was extended to trunks by a federal court, if I remember correctly. Consider: Does this apply to you if you are a passenger in an airport van? A Greyhound Bus?

Note that this squib requires only a "reasonable suspicion" upon which to base a legal search of the body of a passenger and extends the rationale of the "Terry stop" to innocent bystanders. Reasonable suspicion means far less than probable cause and means anything that the DA can say in court without breaking out in laughter at its manifest absurdity.

Hang on, folks. The police state is here and requires only a declaration of martial law before they legally can kick in your teeth any time and anywhere. You do know that the riots, now endemic throughout the rest of the world, have begun here in America, don't you? Do you really think that ruckus in Oakland, CA a week or so ago was just about the cops shooting an unarmed man in the back while he lay supine on the ground and in custody?

-ed

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US Supreme Court says passenger can be frisked

5 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.

The court on Monday unanimously overruled an Arizona appeals court that threw out evidence found during such an encounter.

The case involved a 2002 pat-down search of an Eloy, Ariz., man by an Oro Valley police officer, who found a gun and marijuana.

The justices accepted Arizona's argument that traffic stops are inherently dangerous for police and that pat-downs are permissible when an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the passenger may be armed and dangerous.

The pat-down is allowed if the police "harbor reasonable suspicion that a person subjected to the frisk is armed, and therefore dangerous to the safety of the police and public," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.

The case is Arizona v. Johnson, 07-1122.

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