John, I agree with all of your general points. We all should respect property rights and civil rights. But the Supreme Court decision involved a Mom who forgot to tell her kids to buckle up, for goodness sakes! (worst case, she was always lax about this).
Now, I understand that important legal principles may transcend the facts of a particular case. But this ruling--which will apply to all sorts of federal, state and local administrations, now and in the future--simply hands too much power to the government.
I guess we are talking police discretion here, and it depends on what type of crime we are faced with. In murder cases, we assume that the police have absolutely no discretion on whether or not to arrest a suspected murderer. There's more discretion on certain misdemeanors. But where civil infractions--such as seat belt buckling, littering, jaywalking and the like--there approaches absolute discretion.
This is where there is terrible potential for abuse, as police may arrest & search people for the wrong reasons, or maybe just to make that week's arrest quota. Who do they choose & why? The discretion seems absolute, unless ALL jaywalkers etc. are arrested equally.
I think the Court made a grievous error in this case.
Best regards, Chalu. |
