Keep in mind that this doesn't apply just to misdemeanors. If you're driving with a burned out taillight and get pulled over, the cops can now arrest you, take you to jail, impound and search your car, strip search you, book you, and make you wait for a bail hearing before releasing you.
Are you prepared to tell me that you think it is appropriate for the police to have the right to arrest you and impound your car because your taillight is burned out?
This will become a real pretext goldmine. If a cop sees a car he or she wants to search, just wait for it to go 1 mph over the speed limit, or signal turn 75 feet instead of 100 feet ahead of an intersection or lane change, or anything at all, pull it over, arrest the driver, and then you can do a complete warrantless search. Good bye fourth amendment. I doubt there is a single driver in the country that can drive ten miles without some minor technical infraction of the driving laws. And some of them, like driving erratically, are pure judgment calls. Maybe the arrest gets tossed out. But the search is still done. |
