werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
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That first is a valid point. I need to change my statement from "they can freely stop them all" to "they can freely stop any of them." If they stopped all of them, it would clearly be systemic abuse, but anyone can be stopped for a cause later found to be invalid.Thank you for actually discussing the legal issues here, although I do not believe that your conclusion is correct.
There is a good bit of discussion about the purpose and flagrancy of the stop, which is relevant.
For example:
The proposed conduct you are responding to would be flagrant, illegal, and expose police to civil liability. Understanding this and reasonable suspicion in this case is very important to understanding our rights. Even if a stop is deemed illegal by the court, we ought to have more discussion about what makes it illegal and how that changes (or should or should not) what happens subsequently.
Again, I do not believe this to be the case. Such an arrest cannot stick unless there is an attenuating factor for the illegal stop. In this case, it's the arrest warrant. Another example might be a man illegally stopped then pulling a gun on the cop. The cop has PC then to arrest the person and those charges will stick, including possession charges for illegal drugs found on searching the man after the arrest despite the initial stop being illegal.
I agree that there is quite a difference in possession of drugs and other products of searches in this case, and it may mean that the standard for exclusion should be tighter.
For the second, the arrest warrant attenuates the connection between the illegal stop and the evidence found - it's like a fresh start. Due to a combination of an overreaching, even evil local government bent on mining its citizens for cash and a citizenry lacking in both respect for government's laws and resources to combat it, 3/4 of the citizens of Ferguson had outstanding warrants. Therefore the cops automatically had that same attenuating factor for 3/4 of the citizens of Ferguson. Those odds would scarcely make a cop cautious about having a valid reason to pull someone over, since statistically 3/4 of the time, they could use anything incriminating they found.
EDIT: I should add that the 3/4 figure is a gross exaggeration based on the number of outstanding warrants versus population. In reality, many people had multiple outstanding warrants and some were for non-residents, so the percentage of individuals with outstanding warrants was not anywhere near 75%. However, for purposes of principle it can stand.
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