Court Allows Arrest for Minor Violations nytimes.com
This is the NYT story. A close decision, and the majority opinion by Souter was almost apologetic. Now, if Tony "the Legitimizer" Scalia had written the opinion, I'm sure it would have been phrased differently.
"The arrest and booking were inconvenient and embarrassing to Atwater, but not so
extraordinary as to violate the Fourth Amendment," Justice David H. Souter
concluded for the majority. He was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist
and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.
But while finding that the officer's actions were not unconstitutional, the majority did
not say that they were right, or that police officers ought to emulate Officer Turek.
Quite the contrary, in fact.
Mrs. Atwater was "a known and established resident of Lago Vista with no place to
hide and no incentive to flee," Justice Souter wrote, "and common sense says she
would almost certainly have buckled up as a condition of driving off with a citation.
In her case, the physical incidents of arrest were merely gratuitous humiliations
imposed by a police officer who was (at best) exercising extremely poor judgment."
Justice Souter expressed doubt that episodes like Mrs. Atwater's are widespread.
They are probably rare, he said, because of "the good sense (and, failing that, the
political accountability) of most local lawmakers and law-enforcement officials."
Well, episodes like that probably aren't that widespread for white people, anyway. |
